New to this group – stage III/IVa ICC

I had a successful resection on June 9. The surgeon removed the whole tumor (roughly 12x10x9 centimeters) with a minimum half-centimeter clean margin all around. I came home from the hospital on June 16 and am happy to report that my recovery is going well so far. Nodes that the entire team thought would be diseased came back clean. Other nodes he looked at were soft and normal. Woo hoo! It sounds like the surgeon and oncologist agree that chemo is warranted after I recover from the resection. They also told me that gem/cis had little impact on the tumor. It’s too soon for them to be able to decide what drugs to use next. I am curious about what some of you have used…

I will share what i learn at my post-op follow-up tomorrow with the surgeon.

Tuesday is the big day. My resection is set for 7:30 a.m. We are to arrive at the hospital (Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis) at 5:30 a.m. I can hardly believe the day is almost here. I will post an update as soon as I am able. I would appreciate any positive thoughts, good wishes, and prayers you could muster. Thank you!

Yippee! I just got a call from my surgeon’s office. My left liver (the future remnant) has increased from 26% to 34%. The report says that they are seeing significant interval growth and a robust growth rate of significantly greater than 2% per week. This is the best news I could have received today. The nurse also told me that the liver growth could explain why I’ve been so tired over the past two weeks … I need to eat another cheeseburger tonight to keep feeding those growing cells with the protein they need.

I am anxiously awaiting the results of the scan that should be happening on or around May 11. I’ll let you all know what I find out at that time.

It’s been just over two weeks since my right portal vein embolization. I had a CT scan yesterday and met with the liver surgeon. While he couldn’t tell me yet about the growth of the left liver (the volumetric calculations are being done by others), he did tell me that there was no progression of disease – either in the main tumor or in any of the lymph nodes he’s watching. Stability is a good thing now that we’re not actively treating the cancer!

I will have another CT scan on May 11 and meet with the surgeon again. He reassured me that if the embolization doesn’t get us the growth we need, there are other interventions he can use. He didn’t get into it, instead stating that we’d cross that bridge when we get to it. (Hopefully we won’t need those other interventions.)

We are still on track for surgery on June 9. Hope nothing happens to postpone or cancel that! I hope to have the results of the volumetric calculations later today or sometime tomorrow. The surgeon will be looking at both amount and rate of growth in the left liver between this week’s scan and the next one in two weeks. Fingers and toes are crossed for adequate growth!