A surprising start to 2009

One month out of Chemotherapy and I'm ready for surgery. Except I'm not sure I'm getting any...

It has been nice to be off the drugs. I have been a little bit more able and awake - certainly energetic enough to get some good snowboard time on my recent 4 day trip to Austria. There was a plague of spots from the Cetuximab over xmas, which was very unpleasant esp. where they caused my scalp to itch madly. But again, being able to deal with that without any other side-effects flaring up was a blessing.

So I went to see my liver surgeon on Friday, expecting a date for surgery, but after seeing the latest MRI scans he wants to take another Liver CT scan (due tonight) before going ahead with any operation. I have mixed reports on what the surgery might be; "only small, simple, surgery" seems contrary to "it will take two procedures to remove the lobe" ! But equally if we decide we are not going for surgery, this means I am back onto the chemo ASAP and relying on it doing the job. And I get the impression that surgery has the highest "win" rate. Ok, so if the chemo only approach fails, perhaps I will simply have surgery later on this year instead - but I am keen to get rid of this disease ASAP.

Practically though, cancer is a long-term thing. Even after getting rid of the tumors, there are still going to be months of uncertainty and scans ahead before I am "free" of it. So a "get rid of ASAP" approach is not neccassarily the best here. In any case, I should get the results of the CT scan tomorrow, so later this week I'll know what is going on for sure. Stay tuned...