colleen

My husband is having some mild confusion and has gotten disoriented a couple of times also. I don

Thanks Joyce – It truly is amazing that he is able to do so much. Before his last treatment he was cutting our grass and doing normal everyday household task, I feel that he somtimes is over doing things, but he keeps on going. It makes it very hard to comprehend how someone who looks and acts so normal can be so very sick at the same time. I know we are lucky that right now our lives are basically

Michele

Sonya – where in VA do you live? I live in Chesapeake and my husband was diagnosed with cc March 26th, and is also unable to have surgery. All of his doctors here have sent us to Maryland, specifically to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Its about a 4 hour drive, but we have had some positive results with Chemoembolization (see experiences section). We had some trouble with our insurance giving the okay for treatment, as his tumor is twice the size as their guidelines allow, but once the doctors called, everything was cleared for treatment. I wouldn’t say your uncle or my husband is a guinea pig, but from what I have read, and learned there is a lot of trial and error with this cancer with chemo and other treatments. – Colleen

Hi Michele – the embolization went well. The side effects from the second treatment have been a complete 180 degrees from the first. He was very nauseous for the first 3 days following the treatment, but is fine now. He has had very little pain, which with the first was so intense, but this time he stayed on top of his pain meds from the time he got out of the procedure. Which I think I key to this treatment, it seems that if you let the pain or nausea advance too much, it is hard to get it under control. A week after the treatment, Fred is pretty much back to his normal self. He has cut down on the pain meds only taking 2 in the morning and 2 at bedtime. He still tires easily and has been taking a nap most afternoons, but we are back to our normal busy routine. Fred is a teacher so he is enjoying the summer off with our two girls (9 and 5 yrs.). I can

Hi Michele-
I am not sure what you mean by “drug alluding spheres,” but my 37 year old husband was diagnosed with CC the end of March, and had his first chemoembolization on May 1. The proceedure was a breeze as was the following day, then the pain hit him like a ton of bricks on day 3, and he was basically out of it for the next 4 – 5 days. His recovery was slow at first, he was very tired, didn’t eat much and his color wasn’t good, he was able to wean off the pain meds after about 3 – 4 weeks and is now back to his normal self although he still tires easily. He had a comprison MRI done on May 25th, and it showed that approximately 25% of the tumor cells were dead, but there was no shrinkage in the tumor size. His tumor is large also, 8.3 cm x 8.9 cm, so resectioning is out of the question. He is scheduled for his second embolization on June 26th, with a followup MRI on July 17th, then they will decide if they will do a third embolization. We were told that they will do as many as 3 back to back, then they will monitor the tumor for any growth for a few months before proceeding with anymore treatments. I have read a ton of information about this proceedure and like anything there mixed opinons about its effectiveness, hopefully for both of our husbands it will be effective.