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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We saw my oncologist yesterday. We see him every three weeks. My chemo-immunotherapy cycles are 3 weeks long – weeks 1 and 2 I receive treatment, week 3 is a break from treatment, but we see the oncologist after I get bloodwork done. So far these appointments have been primarily dedicated to my reporting any…
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At our most recent meeting with my oncologist we learned that some results have come back regarding the genomic analysis of the biopsy material from my tumor. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a tumor’s growth is often driven by a specific mutation, and for some of the more common mutations, there are specific…
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I’ve been meaning to write this post since July. In my very second post “How I found out,” I mentioned in the first sentence returning from Baku, Azerbaijan, and starting to experience gastritis symptoms shortly thereafter. It would be easy to read that sentence in a kind of breezy way — as if I come…
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My red blood cell count went into the shitter this week, and all I want to do is nap. Up until now I was luxuriating in a mostly chemo-side-effect-free treatment experience. But now I am tired, tired, tired. I can only hope that if the chemo is killing my red blood cells, it is also…
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I know that sounds bizarre. I think most people think of chemo as this horrible experience that causes nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and exhaustion. I know I thought of it that way. And for many people it is a wretched experience. But I’m one of the lucky ones (so far, knock on wood) who has…
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”Honey, can I tell you something?” “Yes, of course.” “Honey, chemo has changed my butt.” A woman walked past us on the hospital parking garage stairs going in the other direction. She overheard me and said, “It changes a lot more than that. It changes everything.” I thought to myself, “Only here at the cancer…
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That is, the first scan since starting chemo/immunotherapy. It showed no decrease in size for the main tumor in my liver – still 10.4 cm. But a smaller tumor decreased by almost 1/3, from 3.2 cm to 2.4 cm. And no spread to anywhere else in chest, pelvis, or abdomen. That last bit is excellent…
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Feeling a little low today, though maybe only because I didn’t get enough sleep. Everything seems worse with not enough sleep. My husband didn’t sleep either. We’re both nervous. And not enough sleep because tomorrow night I’m getting my first CT scan since starting chemo/immunotherapy. I’m in the middle of the third cycle, so 5…
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from a year ago, or 2 or 3 years ago, and wonder, “Was the tumor growing in me then?” What about then? What about then? It gives me an odd, even eerie, sensation to look at photos of some of my happiest moments of the last few years, and to think that this nasty little…
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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…
My Liver Cancer Blog 