“It’s Not What We See…..”
Mo, I think it’s safe to say we all hope your friend L comes out of the hospital with the doctors’ shaking their heads, unable to find any cancer.
You know the old saying among oncologists…”It’s not what we see, it’s what we don’t see that worries us.”
When we were still new to the ways of cancer, and even though Leroy was told he was a stage-4 colon cancer victim, hearing the news that his lymph nodes were clean following surgery meant everything to us. In those days, when that was the finding, doctors didn’t prescribe chemo as a follow up to surgery. Clean nodes, meant, healing and back to life you went, with regular check-ups and scans. Today, he would have had a series of chemotherapy treatments to catch any of the ‘wild’ cancer cells floating around in search of a new place to root. As it was, Leroy was just shy of 5 years “clean” when his cancer mets were discovered.
Even with his regular exams, I’ll always wonder how those tumors went undetected.
So where does cancer go when it hides?
Does it stay under the radar on check-up days and then when no one is looking..BOOM…it appears in the brain…or the liver…or the lung? Does it float through the blood stream or the blood/brain barrier waiting for the immune system to have a bad day? I can just picture it, dodging the chemo or ducking the radiation with a smirk on its face.
I always picture cancer as a “thinking” disease. It’s far too clever, the way I see it, to be as dumb as a cold or as dull as a bruise. No, it “thinks” its way through a body.
How else could it go into hiding, only to be found, when IT feels ready?
July 8, 2011 @ 11:28 am
I hear you Laurie….Al and Irene!! When my husband, Bill, had his Whipple procedure in March, 2008, the doctor was adamant that he “got it all”. The oncologist was quite sure he needed no follow-up chemo. Yet, after five months of scans and follow-ups, the metastasis to his liver was found. The sad part was that the surgery was so evasive that at least 3 or 4 of those months involved at home nursing care including stomach tube feedings and he was still very frail with no strength or energy, so he didn’t even get to enjoy those few months before he was facing the monster again. Then he had to face 6 months of aggressive chemo that reduced him down to 125 lbs and left him with peripheral neuropathy and a lot of pain. We stopped the chemo because we didn’t think his body could take any more. Thankfully he has been in remission for the past 14 months! It’s been a miracle to us, but we still live looking over our shoulders.
My daughter received intensive radiation & chemo therapy and lost a lot of weight and was left with a damaged esophagus from the radiation when she moved to Tampa, FL and entered the Moffitt cancer center. Their first priority was to get her stronger to face additional treatment, but scans continued during that time. When she was ready for add’l treatment, they said that they couldn’t really be sure if the cancer was still there in her lungs (stage IV) or if it was damage from the radiation that they were seeing, so they took a wait and see attitude. She had about 10 months where she felt relatively well, got a reprieve from the treatment and was able to enjoy life somewhat. Then, in Oct. 2007, we found that the cancer had gone to her brain. More radiation treatment which she handled well and seemed to be doing good. On Christmas Eve she was in a lot of pain and couldn’t breathe; she was admitted to the E/R and then to the hospital. They drained her lungs & said she was filled with cancer. She was released to Hospice care and died on Feb. 10th, two days after her father received his diagnosis and went for surgery.
Sometimes I despair that we will ever really get a handle on this disease but I am grateful that the struggle continues to do so and that my husband (her father) continues to do well.
July 8, 2011 @ 10:33 am
Rick just had colon cancer surgery and the doctor said he got it all. No lymph nodes showed detectible cancer but there are spots on the liver. Chemo and radiation are intense.
Perhaps Leroy saved Rick, I sure hope so.
July 8, 2011 @ 8:45 am
It seems to be a stealth disease until it is ready to be seen. In my 10 years with melanoma, I have had 6 recurrences all within 1 1/2 inches of the original lesion on the left side of my face. Two sentinel node biopsies, 11 nodes removed from my face and down to my collarbone, revealed that everything is clear BUT the recurrences continue. Chemo, radiation, a vaccine and now shots every 2 weeks along with scans every 4 months and 8 surgeries with clear margins don’t seem to matter. It just pops up when it feels appropriate to do so. My doctors are as perplexed as am I….why does it persist when by all measures and tests, it should not be there? Stealth. But we all know what it is, where it is and what it looks like when it appears on our scan. A bright spot that shows itself against the dark background seems to say “If you were looking for me, here I am”. Perhaps tests will be developed that will detect a cancer cell in a million drops of blood or perhaps something will be developed, a dye, that can be infused so that as it circulates within our bodies it will attach itself to individual cancer cells so that when we are scanned, the cells are those bright dots or spots that show up. Then the docs can be proactive versus reactive by beginning treatment before these cells attach themselves to an organ and become a tumor. Hey guys in the garages around the world, get busy!!!!!
July 7, 2011 @ 5:01 pm
Thank you (all) for the good wishes for L., which mean so much.