My Liver Cancer Blog

He was a surgical oncologist, a father of young sons, a beloved colleague and mentor at the hospital. He died unexpectedly. I only met him once, when he showed me the CT scan of the tumor in my liver and informed me that it was currently too large and too involved with important veins to be removed surgically. I said something like, “So are you telling me I’m going to be dead in 6 months?,” to which he replied, “No. Most patients make it through chemotherapy.” (My course of chemotherapy is 6 months. To me this wasn’t the most reassuring response.) He told me he would propose my name for the liver transplant list, though this too depended on the tumor getting smaller. He was happy that my sister, who has O-negative blood, was willing to donate part of her liver should the time come. I was supposed to see him again today, I think mostly to let me know he was still keeping track of me and planning on being my surgeon if the chemotherapy shrank my tumor enough. It’s been a little over 2 months since I met him. It is strange to me that I am still alive and he isn’t. I feel like I am reminded again and again, and then forget again and again, that anything can happen.