December 29
Andrea and I got up at 5am to meet with Dr. Levine at Winston-Salem Medical Center today. The first order of business was a fresh CT scan – man, my insides have been gawked at a lot lately. Then a visit from another doctor (an intern?). Then finally a visit from the man himself, Dr. Levine. He’s wonderfully upbeat and instantly sets you at ease, even given the heaviness of the subject matter. Or maybe it was the good news! He is convinced I have appendiceal cancer, which has a better survival rate than colon cancer. It is more rare – he says the average oncologist will see maybe one a year – but he sees three or four a day, so I feel like I’m finally in the right hands. He looked at the CT scan and says it looks like there is cancer on my pelvis, spleen and diaphragm. But he thinks it is slow-growing and there is no need to rush into surgery. He has scheduled me to return after my chemo (which he cut in half to 6 sessions – YES! – it apparently isn’t very effective at eradicating this type of cancer). He wrote “4 1/2 months” on the schedule, we asked him to cut it down, so he made it “4 months”, then when we checked out we pushed harder and moved it to April.
Now that I’m getting more convinced it actually IS appendiceal cancer, there are a couple good sites with information that really resonates – (1) – (2) – it’s as if I’d already read them – so it feels good to be more on track. Basically: fight the growth of “belly-jelly” with at least 45 minutes of exercise a day – train like you’re going to run a marathon. Then, when you’re in great shape, get that mother of all surgeries!! Here we go!!