To Irenea, Waabals, Jeff, and others
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By the way Sophie — I agree the differences in opinion and lack of discussion among the providers is staggering.
Do you know you will be taking for chemo and what to expect for side effects? Do you have a timeline?
Hi Sophie (and all):
Had decided to proceed with surgery. Then got my second opinion and that surgeon was extremely pessimistic about surgery and whether I can live through it. Tumor literally right on top of vena cava and other vital veins and arteries — seems a hilarious Catch-22 in that to remove the tumor there’s not much choice but to remove veins essential to sustain life. ALso looks like lymph nodes more involved.
Not sure what to do. There is talk about doing some chemo to see if the tumor not only shrinks but magically shrinks in the right direction (that is, away from the veins/arteries.) Not much hope there. Part of me wants to do nothing at all until I begin to have symptoms — I’m not convinced there’s much to be done in any case, so why become sick earlier and permanently than I would anyway?
Some days with this are just so hard….
Courage,
IreneHello buddies,
Today is the first day I’ve logged on since last Thursday. When I get home, I want to go over posts and be more thorough. One thing I have learned from my doctors is that they really balk when second opinion is used. They don’t really encourage me, but they sure want to keep me at their hospital.I mentioned City of Hope and the microspheres Sirtex Y-90. The radiation oncologist told me that the microspheres usually followed chemo, and they worked in only about 50% of cc people. I had a hard time understanding him because he wasn’t quite so fluent in English. Has anybody had the microspheres and if so, was it before or after chemo. Also since seeing all these doctors, my oncologist, radiation oncologist, liver surgeon, I am just getting so many contradictions. It’s like they don’t even confer with each other. I don’t know who knows what. I am reading all your posts and making suggestions about what chemo treatments to use based on YOUR EXPERIENCES and your hospital protocols. My sister told me she thought my oncologist thought I was smarter than he was. ha!!
Irenea – have you made any decision regarding resection?
Waabals – how is your husband doing since his resection?
Jeff – take it to the limit one more time!
I’m getting myself motivated for chemo starting this Thursday. Be sure to get out there and buy stock in stool softeners.
Love and prayers,
Sophie
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