I am a Cyborg

It has been a busy couple of days. On Tuesday we flew out to LA to see Dr. Beart at the USC cancer center. He is a highly regarded colorectal surgeon and we had an opportunity to ask him a bunch of questions. I am pretty set on using the surgeon I originally met with, but we felt it would be beneficial to get his input to make sure we are doing everything that we should be doing. After the meeting we had a lot of confidence in our current path and had some good feedback on our decision making process.

On Thursday we met with my oncologist at UMC. We talked through the whole treatment process and what I should expect as we go through it. During the 4-6 weeks of radiation treatment, I will be receiving a constant feed of chemotherapy (5FU) through a portable pump. The radiation treatment will be 5 days a week and the chemotherapy will essentially be 24x7. The next step to get the treatment plan in place is to get things started with the radiation oncologist. Unfortunately this is a complex process and it does not look like we are going to start the treatment for at least a couple of weeks. Looking back at when I first got diagnosed in the middle of December I had no clue that it would take a couple of months before I was actually going to start the treatment.

Today we had the port put in for chemotherapy. This was an out-patient surgery but they had to put me under in order to do it. I am very happy that we got through this step and it has improved my confidence that we will get through this whole process. I don't know why but of all of the things I hear that I am going to go through, the thought of sticking something into my chest was one of the most intimidating for me, so I am glad we are past it. The surgeon who is going to do the colon resection is the one who put the port in. We discussed some more details of the treatment plan going forward and I am very lucky to have him as my surgeon. He is very experienced and intelligent and I know he will be successful in the upcoming surgery.