Well I’ve been “itching” to do another update, so here we go.

Break is over.

As mentioned in the last update, I had a lovely time in Canada for two weeks (end of May/beginning of June). Kim and I took in all of the sights. We visited the thriving metropolis of Medicine Hat (my home town), beautiful Calgary and the breathtaking Banff (I picture it being announced like in the Busch commercials: BANFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF).

We returned to St. Louis, I was able to go into work a few days (just a couple of hours here and there)… during that time I developed quite an itch for science… or something. My urine had become pretty dark in color consistently, I realized this was not just your average dehydration. I was becoming quite a miserable “B”, itching everywhere, no rash. After about 8 days of that BS, I was willingly admitted to the hospital in order to expedite obtaining an MRI. We had discovered that my liver enzymes were rising like the summer temps in St. Louis. My bilirubin was also on the rise. Apparently, I had an obstruction near my “duction” (in my liver-bile duct). Bile wasn’t able to drain properly, so it was just collecting, causing severe itching everywhere and maybe adding a slight yellow hue to my already glowing, mother of pearl skin.

I was scheduled the following day to have a couple of stents put in, through an endoscopic procedure, easy peasy. After that it’s been smoooooth sailing. The gates were opened, the bile was flowing, I was no longer yellow glowing. The itching improved and eventually disappeared completely. Oh sweet relief.

Once I felt better it was time to address the “something” that was putting pressure on that duct in the liver. I had a PET scan, it revealed that I’ve got some active disease there. Two spots in fact, one quite tiny, slow growing (we had passed this off as scar tissue from my liver resection surgery until now). I’ve also learned that I have a lymph node or two with some disease involvement (para aortic lymph nodes).

Since finding all of this out, things kind of went into an urgent overdrive. I have sought out a couple of different opinions (outside of St. Louis). It sounds like a new regimen of chemo is the best option to try to shrink these areas. I’ll start this new chemo at the end of the month (July). Surgery is not an option at this time. I didn’t really feel like being cut open…  not in the liver anyway. 😉

I’ve opted for the next standard line of chemo FOLFIRI (this is good stuff: Irinotecan). I’ve finally gone from three strands of hair to five, to likely have it all fall out, in very near future. Oh well, I guess I’ll do my best GI Jane impression soon. These treatments will also have another drug added, Vectibix (I hear its a real peach on the skin-I always enjoyed my teenage complexion-or not having to deal with it anymore, rather).

The silver lining: I had been off chemo since mid May, in order to have my knee scoped (that I hurt curling-YES CURLING-in March).

It ended up being perfect timing for this stent procedure, as I had been off chemo for exactly 6 weeks. That knee surgery was postponed until the week of July 16th. So, I’ll be a whole new woman soon. I can go wig and cane shopping after my prescription for Proactiv comes in. Living the dream!!! Watch out!!

This months update has been brought to you by Imodium, proud sponsor of colorectal cancer patients everywhere (not really, but it should be).

Cheers!!

Jilirubin

IMoJM-