fight4mike
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Hi Brent,
I am so very sorry about your wife’s diagnosis. My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 cc last May, 2017. We too live in southern California and my husband is being treated at City of Hope in Duarte. You may want to contact them, since they are a cancer center and have experience with this type of cancer. My husband’s oncologist deals regularly with this form, and is involved in clinical trials as well. My husband has been receiving chemotherapy regularly since last June, and it has kept him stable so far. He is not a surgical candidate, so treatment is aimed at keeping his tumors from growing and spreading more. We have great confidence that the doctors at City of Hope are on top of their game, and some of the best in the country. You also may want to consider checking into USC as I have heard great things about their expertise as well.
Since your wife was able to have surgery, she is in a more hopeful situation than many others. I wish you and her the best!
Take care,
Diane
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to post an update. After my last post at the end of May, my husband Mike started having severe pain upon breathing in. I called the Nurse Triage at City of Hope because Mike wanted stronger painkillers, so they said they could prescribe hydrocodone but I would have to come physically to pick it up (I guess since it is a narcotic). So I did that, and after he got started it didn’t seem to help much. He then began running a fever over the weekend, so I made another call and was told to take him to our local ER. It turns out he had pulmonary embolisms (emboli?) and pneumonia, and was admitted to the hospital once again. He was there about 4 days, went home and is now on blood thinners (Lovenox, twice daily injections).
Mike finally began his chemo on June 6, and has now completed 4 treatments. He seemed to be doing fairly well with rather mild side effects, mostly fatigue. However, after Tuesday’s treatment he ended up feeling pretty bad yesterday, including some very severe abdominal pain, and was running a fever of 102.2 in the early evening.. So I called the nurse triage again to see what we should do, and they told us we needed to bring him in. They did an X-ray, drew blood, all the routine things, but didn’t discover where or if he has an infection, so now he is admitted to the hospital again. I think they suspect it may have to do with his stent or possibly the drainage tube in his gallbladder.
One frustrating observation/question : when doctors diagnose cancer, why don’t they warn you about the increased risk for things like pulmonary embolisms, so that you can be more attentive to some of the associated symptoms? Anyway, just a little vent! Thanks for reading all of my ramblings, and I am grateful for a site like this which is dedicated to such a rare cancer.Regards,
DianeHi again. So I took my husband to City of Hope on Tuesday, and we met with the medical oncologist. He spent quite a bit of time with us, answering all of our questions, and explaining the treatment. He was very certain surgery is not an option, because of the spread of the cancer. His nurse was also very involved with us, and we really liked this place. Everyone was very helpful. We did tell the Dr. that we wanted to meet with one of the surgical oncologists in the dept. to see if there was any possibility if Mike would be a surgical candidate. Of course, he was fine with that but felt certain that the surgeon would agree with his assessment. We requested Dr. Fong, whom a dear friend of ours knew of and personally intervened to get us seen by him. Also Dr. Fong is one of their medical team, as they have a wonderful team of doctors that they keep in consultation with for each patient.
So our Dr. immediately checked as Dr. Fong is very busy, but because our friend was with us and had contacted Dr. Fong earlier, the Dr. set us up for an appt. the very next day, Wednesday. We went back Wednesday, and we both liked Dr. Fong very much. I am confident that if there is any way to do surgery, he will find it! He did say that as of now, surgery is not an option, but Mike will start chemo on June 6 and after 2 months they will do a scan to check for tumor shrinkage. We will then go back to Dr. Fong to re-evaluate for possible surgery. He is a forward thinking Dr. and seems very proactive, maintaining on optimism that he will help my husband to have a chance for longer life with quality. We felt more optimistic when leaving that day.
Thank you everyone for your replies and encouragement. I actually didn’t think the post went through so I hadn’t checked back here. Anyway, my husband has an appointment scheduled with City of Hope next Tuesday. I also have had others I know speak highly of USC, so I will see how next Tuesday’s appointment goes and proceed from there.
Everything I have been reading on this horrible cancer looks so dismal, particularly if diagnosed at stage 4. I assume my husband will probably not be a candidate for surgery (curative) since he is stage 4. Obviously I am waiting to see what the doctors say first, and am hoping I am wrong.
