My Liver Cancer Blog
my first blog, a way for me to process my experience of being diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma
about
I am a professor at a Canadian university. I’m married, have close relationships with my family, love my 2 dogs, love travel, and enjoy hiking (but day hikes only – not really into the hut-to-hut thing). I really hope I can get through this and do some major hikes again in the future. Thank god I also love reading novels (literary prize winners, but also espionage, detective, and sometimes Sci-fi). And thank god I live in an era of excellent tv. And thank god I love writing. There are many things I can still do that I love, even having cancer and being more home-bound than I would like to be.
If you’re new, I recommend starting with How I Found Out.
recent posts
Author: Helagrl
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I’ll keep this short – the most recent scan (Feb. 22, 2026) shows more tumor shrinkage. In August 2025, the tumor was 10.4 cm x 8 cm, in early November it was 9.7 cm x 7 cm, and now it is 7.8 cm x 5.2 cm. After the second scan on Nov. 3, and looking…
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I don’t even know how to write this post. But if I think about it too much, I’ll never write it, let alone post it. My husband got me an earlier CT scan. It had been scheduled for March 12, and I had emailed my oncologist, emailed his assistant, spoke with the triage nurse, and…
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I feel like I am doing at least two ways. The first way is that I feel quite well. My last round of chemotherapy was December 22, and it feels good to be off it. I’m sleeping better and I have more energy. Now that I am off chemotherapy I realize I wasn’t aware of…
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We played the cancer card last night. My husband and I went to see comedian Ramy Youssef, who was trying out new material for an HBO special he will be recording soon. Some of it still needed some polishing, but most of it was very funny — his bit about Muslim reactions to Mamdani becoming…
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is how my oncologist described the current moment during our phone appointment this afternoon. This was the first time we’ve met with him by phone, and it felt like a gift, mostly because we never have direct communication with him unless we’re in a room with him, which has only been happening every 3 weeks,…
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So, I did go home for Christmas, and spent a wonderful couple of days with my parents and siblings. I love Christmas in my parents’ home — lush poinsettias, a lovely Douglas Fir with decorations made or collected over the years, A Ceremony of Carols and other classIc Christmas music, my brother playing banjo, my…
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(What a great title for the holiday season!) My husband and I have recently become kind of obsessed with a British show called This Farming Life. It’s a documentary style hour-long show that each season follows 5 or 6 farming families in Scotland. Most of them farm sheep and cattle for meat. Each season it…
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I had to go in early this morning for bloodwork before chemo. There’s always something. This time my creatinine levels are too high (though this just in — they are fine now. Phew). Before we left I told my husband I thought that today we should just pretend I don’t have cancer, skip the appointment,…
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Sorry for the long silence. I’ve been deliciously on a chemo pause for 2 weeks (3 if you count the fact that the third week of each cycle I’m off chemo, but see the oncologist). The first week’s pause was due to very low hemoglobin and platelet counts — the lowest they’ve been since this…
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As we exited the hospital yesterday after the meeting with my oncologist, my husband said, “This is the first time in a while that we’re leaving the hospital and I’m not feeling happy.” I agreed. It’s all been good or neutral news for the last few months. But yesterday was a bit deflating. On the…
My Liver Cancer Blog 