I met with my oncologist this morning and he asked me if the surgeon had discussed anything with me in detail. Some of the news that was shared was he was quite concerned with the fact that there were 14/19 lymph nodes that showed cancer and little mention of shrinkage of cancer. The reason being that this suggests that the chemotherapy was not necessarily effective. The oncologist was not confident that all the cancer has been removed so he is going to bring it up at rounds and get the opinion of the full cancer team. Since the chemo did not seem to be super effective, we will probably end up going with a chemo/radiation treatment plan. I was asked how the surgery went and recovery afterward. He seemed pleased with my progression and the fact that I have maintained my weight. We mentioned that the PICC was removed and my rashes due to the bandaging. He seemed to be in a much more jovial mood compared to the past when we had complications with things. We joked about some of the scarring I had, and I said if I ever had to go into the ER I would tell people that all of my scars are from knife fights.
My appointment with my surgeon went well and he asked me if I wanted him to follow my case to review scans and follow up in 3 months. I said yes because it does not hurt to have more eyes looking on it. People sometimes say no because they do not want additional appointments to deal with. I have liked my doctors so far so I do not think that it is much of an issue with both of them. The good news was that they have not seen it spread anywhere so if it has spread then it will most likely be in stage 1 as I will be monitored. Stage 3 was not too bad, so a Stage 1 cancer should be a breeze at this point now that I have experience.
The plan now is the oncologist is going to discuss my case at the multidisciplinary rounds tomorrow or next week and they will come up with the next stages of my treatment. We do not know what the plan looks like for now or what the duration will be, but we should know soon enough. My oncologist mentioned that I would probably not be able to work through radiation/chemo treatment, but so far he is 0/2 for his predictions. He mentioned that I would not be able to work through chemo and that was not too bad, and that recovery from the surgery would be tough and lengthy. From what I have read, it seems that the radiation treatment is not as bad as the chemo treatment. The one thing about this is that I will be undergoing treatment with quite a few people I know. The radiation oncologist is a former colleague and our kids played hockey together for a couple of years. I have done some work in the radiation department in the past. I think it will be exciting. I am looking forward to phase 3 of this journey.
Quoc Hao