Hi. I just stumbled across your message board today. My heart breaks for all of you, and especially joann3. Her story sounds like mine. I'm 49 also. My hubby and I have been together 30 yrs., married for 25. He was diagnosed w/Stage 3 EC on 7/11/06, and I still can hardly believe it. He had 12 hr. surgery to remove esopagus end of July w/ 1 lymph node positive for EC. Had an overall good recuperation from surgery.He then started chemo(cisplatin and irontekan(?)) simultaneously w/ radiation in Sept., which ended 11/3. They claimed it was just for preventative measures.The Mon.before Thanksgiving he had a scan done. A wk.after Thanksgiving tests showed that cancer was metastisizing. Started 2nd round of chemo, Xeloda and taxotere. On X-mas day, he turned completely yellow. He had an obstructed bile duct, caused by the cancer growing. He is feeling much better after having to get a stent put in to open the duct. According to our GP, he said that it seemed unlikely that the tumors were shrinking on this round of chemo. Tests also confirmed this. Onc.doc.says cancer is "galloping" and nurse in ofc.says that even though a couple more chemo rounds are probably needed to rule out this chemo mix, chances are if it was going to work, tumors would have probably started shrinking. My husband can barely walk because of tumors in the groin/hip area growing, and he also has fractures in a couple of vertebrae in his neck and tumors in spine further down. They want him to get localized radiation to shrink them. He's actually doing quite well except for not being able to hardly walk, which causes him a lot of pain. He's always been really healthy. But had acid reflux. Docs very unsupportive, don't really seem to care since they think he's going to die anyway, and offer NO hope. I'm so fed up that my daughter and I have decided to go check out Cancer Ctr.of Am. in Philly. Don't know where to go or what to do. All I know is nothing seems to be working and we have to try something, fast. Has anyone else been through 2 rounds of chemo that failed and found something else that worked? Sorry this is so long and drawn out. Coping w/cancer is a very lonely process, and I'm so glad to have your forum to communicate w/others in same situation. I will pray for all of you out there. Sure can't pray enough.
Thanks for listening. Lydia