please help

Barb and Rob, I have seen your posts a lot here. I was encouraged by reading your posts. Could you share a little stories of how you fought this monter for a long time? Were you taking chemo all the time or just did it when the cancer came back? Are you in remission now or still taking chemo? I hope you are in remission now. 

My husband has been fighting his rectal cancer for almost 3 years. Dx. in Dec 2006. Had chemo/radiation, surgery and chemo with Folfox+Avastin. Unfortunately He had recurrence Sept. last year. Had chemo with Folfilri+Avastin till April 2009. Last month we fount out the cancer came back again. He is taking chemo with Folfilri+avastin again right now. I hope that chemo will work for him this time. But I'm scard and worried him vary much. I'm seeking more stories about having beaten this monster several times and living long time so we can see the possibility to beat the cancer ourselves. Please give us hope.

I'm wondering if it's a good way to have my husband continue taking chemo without break for years to control the recurrence? For how long can a person take the chemo? For how long the chemo will work for a person?

Thanks,

Lucy

  HI LUCY.

     I have sent you a private message .... hope it helps..

Lucy,

 On another messageboard that I frequent, someone is on their 53rd chemo treatment.  As I posted on another thread I am on my 33rd. What keeps me going is the research that is currently going on.  I don't know if you saw Sixty Minutes last night, but there was a very positive story about treating metastatic cancer with radiowaves. 

Jack

Thank you, Jack for your reply. I didn't watch the "Sixty Minutes". I will do some research about radiowaves treatment. My husband is taking folfiri+avastin too. He never had Kras test. Last time recurrence was in his pelvic. The tumor was about 3cm big. But after 8 round folfiri+avatin, the tumor was gone. This time there are a lot of cancerous nodules through his body. The biggest one is about 2cm. He has had two rounds of chemo so far. Can he still do the kras test? Thanks.

Lucy

Hello, I have just started my 98 round of chemo today and awaiting rfa for a 1" spot on my liver.I was dx jan1 2005. They gave me 6 months, but I wont give up(45 yrs old).My doc goes right after any new tumor with rfa, 4 treaments to the liver and one to the lung.I have been through every chemo and now take xeloda, avastin has been remove the the time being so I  can have rfa.I was mis dx for two years so I feel im going on 7 yrs. If you have any questions just ask

Verlin

Verlin,

You have my utmost respect for being able to get through that many chemo treatments.  You make me feel like a rookie.  Have you ever checked out the colonclub messageboard.  You would give a lot of hope to the CRC patients that post there.

Jack

Lucy,

I believe that the Kras test has to be done from a sample of his tumor.  If it has been stored (which it should have been) since they removed it, they should be able to test it.  I'm actually getting mine done right now and my tumor was taken out in Jan 2007.  I did a Stage 3 clinical trial to see if Erbitux worked in 2007.  Now the folks running the clinical trial want to see what all the participants Kras status was, so they sent me a form a couple of weeks ago to see if I wanted to get the results.  So I should hear in a couple of weeks,  I'm hoping that this gives me another shot to use Erbitux.  Since I was on it, a study came out about doing an antibiotic regimen before starting Erbitux which should reduce the rash side effect.

Jack