Friday, April 10, 2009

Liver problems

We saw a doctor who does the SIRTS procedure. According to my oncologist, he's the best in the state. After comparing scans, he felt I should go ahead and have the procedure. He explained that it's actually 3 surgeries. One to map, one to shoot radioactive beads into one liver artery and the third to shoot the beads into a second liver artery. In the meantime, they want to keep me on chemo which becomes slightly complicated since I can't have chemo too close to the surgeries. After we had talked and decided I would go ahead and do this, the doctor's office called me that evening. My oncologist and the SIRTS doctor had put their heads together and decided I should wait and give the new chemo treatment more time to see if it would have a positive effect on the liver perhaps making it unnecessary to have the other surgeries. I'm all for not having surgery if I don't need it but it makes me a bit nervous to wait very long in case the chemo doesn't work on the liver. Right now, I've decided to take the doctors recommendation and wait. Hoping and praying this is the right decision for the moment.

My tumor markers were up again but the doc says he's not that concerned since the scans are the more accurate tests to go by. Thankfully, I'm not in any pain and my only real complaint is fatigue and some nausea the week of chemo. I think I can handle that.

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