Here we go again!

It has been a little while since I wrote anything and much has happened in that relatively short amount of time.  I thought I should get an entry in the books as we have a plan in place moving forward towards a sea of uncertainty.
The first major decision to come out of this latest recurrence is that I will no longer continue my futile attempts at working full time (actually working at all).  That opens a huge door to the uncertain times ahead, but I felt like this time I needed to take that step.  This will give me the opportunity to spend more time at home with Bowen and A.J. as I continue to fight for more time in this world.  It should make for an interesting transition and I am not exactly sure how I am going to pull it off, but it feels like the right move for us right now.  There are a number of pieces that I need to fall in place in the coming months, so hopefully everything works out for the best.
Treatment-wise, I have started a chemotherapy cycle, this week will be infusion #3.  The first infusion was the big one and it was a couple of Thursdays ago.  It involved Erbitux, Docetaxel and Carboplatin...all drugs that I have had before.  This one hit me hard this time.  I spent the better part of a week in bed feeling like absolute crap.  I don't remember a time in my past chemo history where I reacted a badly as I did this time.  Luckily, after about a week, I began feeling slightly better and could stay out of bed for a good portion of the day.  Now I just get Erbitux every week and that doesn't knock me down like the big 3 did.  The Erbitux is an immunotherapy drug that stimulates my immune system to fight the tumor.  It's actually a monoclonal antibody derived from something found in mice, I believe.  The down side to this treatment is a rather nasty rash that covers my head, face, chest and back that is not pleasant.  It's somewhat itchy, somewhat painful and my skin seems to dry out rather severely along with the rash.  I am told that the severity of the rash usually indicates a positive result on the tumor, so hopefully this stuff is making my tumor shrink.  Overall, the goal is to limit growth of this tumor prior to surgery #5.
Surgery #5 is to happen on May 22nd.  This is another non-standard procedure that is somewhat of a hail-Mary attempt at getting this cancer out of my body.  There is nothing easy about it and there are lots of surgeons that will be involved.  It will not be a pleasant surgery and I try not to think about the details too much as it tends to up my level of apprehension about it substantially.  I will have another CT scan about a week before the surgery date and then talk one last time with everybody prior to the surgery.  I shall report on the 22nd and once again put my life in their capable hands.  I don't know the length of the hospital stay and we have no guarantees as to the outcome of this surgery, but all I am asking for is a chance...and a chance I have been given.  Strap in, I feel like it's going to be a bumpy ride but better times are ahead.

On the verge of something big

Here I sit, two full weeks after the fateful scan, still not knowing what the exact course of action will be, but eternally more hopeful than I was the day they told me it was back.  The PET scan AGAIN indicates that this is the only spot of note in my entire body.  This first image is from my PET scan and shows where the tumor is.  

The glowing yellowish area is the tumor and all the reddish hues are normal tissue and the white is bone.  My goodness, this little guy has proved elusive to get rid of!  Seems so simple, just cut it out and move on with your life.  Yet here we are, 4 major surgeries and and the 5th instance of cancerous growth.  The hope has yet to fade that I can actually rid myself of this disease and the wheels are slowly but surely turning in that direction.  

The past two weeks have seen me in Houston a lot seeing A LOT of doctors.  Last week I saw one doctor who is running some clinical trial, one of which my medical oncologist recommended me for.  The feeling coming out of that meeting was that the clinical trials are a last resort and we possibly have more options in my case.  Ok, that is a step in the right direction, but kind of a 180 from what I got the week before.  The next appointment was with a cardio-thoracic surgeon who would be involved if there were to be a surgical option.  He talked about the surgery and stated that it was not impossible, but what is the end goal that we are trying to achieve?  SOME LIFE, is what I am thinking.  I would take two years at this point versus the year that has been prognosticated at this point.  Give me a chance.  That is all I ask and that is what I tell these doctors.  I understand the risks, I understand the odds.  Give me a chance for survival and I will take it in a heartbeat.  I do not care how many surgeries, nor the extent of disfigurement that I must endure.  Give me a chance at life.  After seeing the surgeon, I met with my old radiation oncologist who I requested to see that morning and he happily obliged.  I wanted to get his opinion on everything and hear from him if radiation would possibly be an option.  He furthered our hope and asked me to come back this week to meek with his team of radiation oncologists at the main campus during their planning conference where they look at individual cases and make recommendations.  That was Tuesday and the result was that they would indeed radiate me again if there were no other viable options.  Great, another step in a positive direction...we have further options.  During this time, it became evident that I would need to stick around in Houston into Wednesday to have a biopsy performed on the chest mass in question.  That was done this morning and was not overly pleasant, but I made it through yet another fine needle biopsy.  If you want particulars, search the blog for biopsy and I think I have chronicled the procedure in the past.  It was while I was there that I got the most jarring news to date.  My radiation oncologist had called Jessica and didn't divulge much, but did say they were moving forward with a surgical option sooner rather than later.  My past treatments had involved a lengthy chemo waiting period prior to surgery to see how the tumor responds to that path.  It appears that they are indeed listening to my pleas to fight this things as aggressively as we can and want to perform this surgery as soon as possible.  I don't have the official word, but the schedulers have been calling trying to set things up for 2-3 weeks out.  Looks like we are on the fast track for surgery number 5.  

Things just got real people, and in the morning I will find out just how real they are.  That's all I have right now, but much more to follow when I finally get official word on the path forward.