Follow-up With the Surgeon

This afternoon Leslie and her mom went to meet with Dr. Pris Strom for her follow-up visit. I really expected this to be a routine kind of visit where she'd hear, "Everything looks good/normal." But that wasn't quite what she heard. The cancer was not as high in the colon as they thought it might be from the initial colonoscopy. They are now classifying it as colorectal cancer. Where the cancer got through the colon wall was further down. This means that radiation and chemo are probably certain for her. There are also some other issues that make this a bit more complicated. I'll default to Leslie to post all the facts (she's the detail person).

Leslie mentioned that Pris met with a team of doctors to determine how to classify this cancer, and therefore help determine the best treatment. I think it was stage 2B, or B2. I can't remember from our brief phone call. But we have a lot of confidence in Pris and she has a lot of confidence in the oncologist we will go see on Tuesday, Dr. Kallab. So that is encouraging.

The news isn't really what we wanted to hear. If the cancer had been futher up and had not gotten through the colon wall we could be looking at being on the last leg. But this changes things in that the lower part of the colon (near the rectum) does not have the protection (mucus) and such. So there is a higher rate of the cancer returning. There are also questions of whether the cancer is in the blood or not. The initial blood tests came back negative, but the downside is that there is nothing to measure from that to determine if treatments are working or not. So there are just more questions at this point, and therefore a bit more worries.

I did get a call from my brother today that dad's endoscopy went well. They stretched his esophagus and want to see him back in a month. I'm guessing from that, that they didn't find anything that wasn't supposed to be there.  But dad was still doped up when Rob called him so I don't know anything definitively yet.