I had liver cancer, but now I don’t.
I’m feeling great, essentially healed. We keep waiting for the bad news, but it still isn’t coming. The pathology report put my cancer at stage pT1b, which can be shortened to 1b. The only thing better (other than no cancer) would be stage 1a, which would be a smaller tumor. But we knew the tumor size going in – the news is that it was definitely a single tumor, there was no vascular involvement or any apparent spread, and the tumor was removed with clear margins – i.e., completely removed, including any possible sketchy stuff around the edges.
It’s a bit difficult (but I’m not complaining) to change gears so quickly. I mean, if you blinked, you missed it. “How are you?” “Great! I had liver cancer but now I don’t.” [Weird smile.] No further explanation offered. I mean, what else is there to say, really?
I left the hospital just over a week ago with 15 Oxys. I have 10 left. I didn’t have any acute pain; more like irritation and annoyance, especially by late afternoon. Bob encouraged me to stay on the pain meds, but I wasn’t in pain. He was right. The drugs target not only pain, but also soothe irritation and annoyance quite effectively. I started enjoying an afternoon Oxy just to kick the evening off with a little euphoria. Then I decided I should save them for a rainy day, or other situations warranting a bit of narcotic intervention -- from throwing out my back to bad election results.
Next up, we’ll have a video consult with a hepatology team at Mayo, then we’ll actually be back in Rochester in mid-December for new scans, post-op, and an oncology consult. I fully expect to be kicked back to my regular oncologist for whatever ongoing monitoring is necessary. I can’t get too attached to this result; with my breast cancer, there was also a hope that the double mastectomy would be the end of the story, but more test results recommended precautionary chemo. It seems that liver cancer acts differently from breast cancer, making the need for chemo unlikely…I remain cautiously optimistic.
I read that peak liver regeneration DNA synthesis is happening at day 7 post-surgery. It was a bit terrifying to realize my liver was rebuilding on a nutritional foundation of post-Halloween discount fun size KitKats and Butterfingers.