nickysfight's Cancer Blog
April 10, 2007
| Surgery Next Week! | Views: 173 |
We met with Dr. Barrington today to discuss the results of Mom’s most recent CT scan and to discuss surgery. Mom completed the last round of the Folfox chemotherapy two weeks ago and underwent another CT scan last Monday. The scan showed that her liver is healing really well! We won’t know for sure if the spots on the liver are completely gone until the surgeon goes in to resection the colon. If there are no spots then they obviously won’t do anything. If there are a few small spots on the liver then the surgeon will resection those spots during the colon resection. We will meet with Dr. Given, the surgeon, Wednesday April 11th to discuss how the surgery will go, how long it will take, and set the date. Dr. Barrington wants it to happen by the middle of next week because Mom’s CEA levels are increasing slowly. The CEA values started rising after the completion of the radiation in January. During radiation her CEA levels were down to 15 but they have risen to 35. They are still very low compared to the original value of 250+ when Mom first arrived at the oncologist in November. This rise in CEA levels indicates that the primary tumor, the rectal tumor, may be growing so it is critical that we get the primary tumor out as soon as possible. The doctors have said from the beginning that the primary tumor is always the priority. The cancer that metastasized to the liver is secondary. The metastasized cancer is easier to maintain and is less agressive.
I’ll update the blog after we meet with Dr. Given on Wednesday and we find out more details about the surgery and get a date set!
Surgery Next Week!, 
1 comment)
02.09.08 - 
Thanks for your support -
Julie – Thank you for keeping us up to date on what is going on with your mom. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but you are a real blessing to her. I love the “we will meet”. I know from the supposrt my two daughters were and are how very important that it. I’ll be praying.
Hugs!
Karen