On 1/30/2008
GeorgesGirl wrote:
There are many survivor stories on this board that are very encouraging! I have pasted one here that I just found today. Some others sites that I have found survivor stories are www.acor.org and www.eccafe.org. Hope this helps!
Today marked a milestone, the end of the beginning, and a giant leap of faith that we can
put one more reminder of esophageal cancer behind us. We spent the day at the brand new
inpatient interventional radiology facility at U. of Colorado so that Dick could have his
port removed.
The port was the first tangible sign that he was given the opportunity to fight his Stage
IVb EC diagnosis with metastases to lymph nodes, lungs and liver after being told by
another oncologist he had no chance of survival. And today, after more than 38 months in
his chest, 19 months of not being used. and approximately 7-8 PET/CT scans that have shown
no clinical signs of recurrence, all of us, Dick and I, his physicians, his nurses, and
the rest of his support team, have concurred - the port could come out. No more safety
net, no more monthly flushing and no more lurking thoughts in the back of the mind that it
might be needed again! For now we have freedom from the tangible reminder of months of
chemotherapy and ancillary treatments and freedom to focus on the fact that the port had
become obselete for him..
As I waited outside for Dick to have the port removed, delayed more than 3 1/2 hours
because of the massive number of patients in the interventional radiology treatment area,
I replayed the memories and feelings that I had more than 3 years ago, when it was
inserted the day before Dick began his first round of chemotherapy. We both were in a dark
and desperate place then, having spent almost 3 weeks to find a physician that would at
least consider treating Dick and giving him a chance. It was a strange emotional turmoil
that I went through that day, with gratitude that, at last, the first step in treatment
was to begin, balanced against the overwhelming weight of the knowledge that this step
was likely to be futile.
The senior interventional radiology fellow removed Dick's port today, and he remembers
when Dick first was discussed among the oncology teams at Anschutz, Univ. of Colorado,
during his first year of training. He said today that Dick's name keeps coming up when
they are discussing other cases and that Dick's responses are reviewed when others with
similar problems and degrees of malignancy are being treated. And he told us the sad fact
that many patients now cannot have the SIRspheres that eliminated Dick's liver tumors, for
insurance companies are simply not paying for them. Dick was in the initial clinical
trial and the cost of the spheres was covered by the clinical trial protocol, and his
insurance paid for all of the ancillary charges. What a catch-22 when insurance companies
say there are not sufficient numbers of patients to prove the efficacy and will not
approve a new treatment, and more patients cannot be given the treatments because of the
expense!
Tonight we are home again, watching the snow fall gently on the evergreens and rocks
around our mountain home, realizing that one more bridge has been crossed and that one
more day has been a gift.
The last tangible reminder of those dark early days beginning chemotherapy is now a
memory.
The Dickermans, Lois and Dick (dx Nov. 2004 Stage IVb esophageal adenocarcinoma with mets
to lymph nodes, lungs and liver. No discernible tumors by PET/CT since July, 2006.)