lisa

Sophie, I’m glad you gave us an update. I was thinking about you. I hope you enjoyed your time with your sister. I’m trying to do fun things, too. Went to the ocean last weekend with my youngest daughter and her friend. If I gotta go, I want to leave some good memories behind!

Although I’m not planning to go for a few years yet!

Irene,
when I was in the hospital, I used my iPod quite a bit. It was nice to listen to when I couldn’t sleep, or open my eyes (seeing triple). If you have a CD player or iPod, bring it.

My surgery was unsuccessful, too.

I’d try to get as healthyas possible by eating lots of fruits and veggies, and getting some excercise. When I was in the hospital, the hardest thing was being unable to walk for a few days. Oh, and the morphine that they gave me for pain caused hallucinations. I thought that the wall was alive and crawling. Eww. And I didn’t see double, I saw triple. So when I closed my eyes, I hallucinated, and when I opened my eyes, I saw triple. That wasn’t a very good feeling.

On the other hand, I was out of the hospital in a week, and back at work in three weeks. So the recovery time was pretty quick for me, because I was relatively healthy to begin with.

Good luck on the surgery! I hope they get every last bit of the tumor.

I’ll be praying for you.

This cancer seems to attack us in so many different ways – as individually as each one of us. If only we had a magic bullet and could say “aha! I have the solution!”

Jeff’s survival after so long is quite remarkable. Then we are sad at Barb’s passing a year after diagnosis. What makes the difference in survival?

Irene, I have the same tumor in the same place as you. I’ve decided to go with chemo and am so far doing well and gaining weight back (much to my chagrin). I’m thinking of going on Slim-Fast this week.

My last CT scan showed minimal shrinkage, and dilatations in the bile ducts. We’ll stay on this regimen until it doesn’t work any more or the tumor is gone

Has anybody had good results with Gemzar and Xeloda?

This is the combination that I’ve been on for the past 9 months. It has shrunk the tumor and kept the cancer from spreading.

My insurance company had me change from getting the prescription from the drug store to mail order. That saves them hundreds of dollars a month. You might ask them about the mail order option.

Keep your chin up, Sophie! I’ve been fighting this for a year now – it’s possible to live and fight this disease. I’m still working and doing (almost) everything that I used to do.

Irene,

I made the decision to have surgery after radiation and chemotherapy. The CT scan showed that the tumor had shrunk enough to try after 6 months of therapy.

The attempted resection failed because of IVC involvement. Sounds like my tumor is in the same approximate place that yours is.

I’m about your age -45- and recovered quickly after surgery. I was back at work after only 3 1/2 weeks.

Would it be possible for you to wait a little bit and see if more chemo can shrink the tumor before attempting resection?

I’m continuing chemo with Gemzar/Xeloda. My last scan showed a slight shrinkage and no lymph node involvement as yet.

So maybe wait and see while continuing treatment could be an option for you?

You’re right, Jeff, your overall health is so important in fighting this disease. I took my health for granted all those years. Now I’m struggling to eat right and excercise the way I should because it never seemed all that important before.

Jeff, you’re the man!