kasotak

Hello, I am 56 years old, married to a wonderful man for 30 years this past August, and with 4 young adult children (who will always still be my babies). Cancer was not on my radar as I don’t have a family history of it. Heart disease is what I’ve always worried about, so when my triglycerides came back at 640 after my physical in March 2017, rather than go on cholesterol lowering drugs as my doctor suggested, I immediately quit drinking, started running 3 times a week with my hubby, and lost 15 pounds that first month. My triglycerides dropped to 193, but my ALT went from 47 to 56. My doctor of 29 years ordered an ultrasound of my liver and the tumor was found. It took a CT scan, MRI and biopsy to determine it was an intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma in July 19th. Before that, it was inconclusive, and they were not sure if it wasn’t from somewhere else in my body, as I’m sure many of you have experienced. After being probed from stem to stern and all in between, and the PET scan only showing cancer in my liver, surgery was scheduled for August 11th. Dr. Jessica Cioffe, of UF Shands Hospital, successfully removed a 2.5 cm tumor and lymph node. It was staged as T1N0M0 with negative margins, but poorly differentiated. Their tumor board recommended 6 months of capecitabine (Xeloda), based on the UK BILCAP study. I was very happy to have it out of me, but thought that would be it – more like an appendectomy than ongoing cancer.  I purposely had not done research on the internet as IHCC was so rare, and everything was just scaring me. But now that I have, and found this group, it has helped me. I just had to wrap my head around it and will start chemo soon. Thank you.