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8/9/2001 Well, I guess it is time to update this page. We have been avoiding doing so until we discovered if the news was good or not. Thank goodness, it was good news! To clarify: after my bout with pneumonia last month, I had a follow-up appointment with my primary care physician, Dr. Mark Clark. As part of the follow-up, Mark had me get another chest x-ray to make sure the lungs were clearing up after the pneumonia. A week and a half ago Mark called to give me the radiologist's reading of the x-ray; it wasn't very promising. The radiologist noticed granulomas in my lungs, something that had not been seen before. The report read that metastatic disease could not be ruled out, or, in other words, the cancer may have come back with a vengence. Mark called my oncologist with the news and his comment was a flat,. "I don't believe it." After the excellent response of my primary tumor to chemo and radiation, he didn't think it possible that microscopic cancer cells would have popped into view in just a few months. However, it isn't anything to fool around with and I was scheduled for a CT scan on 8/8 and a follow-up visit with the oncologist today. The news was good! He didn't see anything suspicious in the CT and declared me to remain cancer free. Not only that, he doesn't want to see me for another 4 months! On the home front, things continue to improve. The horrible coughing and dry heaving has not been a problem for the past week. Eating continues to get easier, but I still haven't put back the 5 pounds I lost with the pneumonia. Each evening ends upwith a large bowl of Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream... one of these days it will start to stick and I'll add a few pounds. I am back to work and putting in close to 6 hours each day. Must admit, however, to going home after the hours at work and getting a 2 to 3 hour sofa cruise. Hope to be back to a full 8 hour day in another couple of weeks. 8/30/2001 Nothing new has been added here for a couple weeks
because there really hasn't been much new to report. And, believe
me, that's good news! I will close out the month of August with
the results of today's endoscopy. Dr. Moore wanted someone to
take a closer look at the small diverticulum formed where the
esophagus and stomach were joined together. So, exactly 47 weeks
after the cancer was first found, I was back on the same table
with the same doctor (Dr. Greenstein - the Kaiser GI doc) for
the same procedure. Before disappearing into sleepy time, I told
Dr. Greenstein that I did NOT want any more bad news of the magnitude
he gave me last year. It must have worked because the endoscopy
came back looking very good. Even got a picture of the joint
between stomach and esophagus and it is all pink, healthy looking
flesh! The doctor said that everythiing looks perfectly normal
(once you discount the fact that nothing down there is normal
after the surgery) and he sees no problems at all. The diverticulum
is formed because of the way the stomach has shaped itself after
the operation.
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