The first procedure went reasonably well. It was a long day at the hospital but no major complications. The first few days after were a bit rocky –including two trips to the ER – but in the end, everything settled down and I have been feeling better every day since. Tuesday, I went for a PET scan and some blood work to make sure I’m in good shape for the procedure tomorrow and to set a baseline for my post-procedure monitoring. When radiation is used in my case, the tumors won’t shrink but rather they will die, or partially die, in place. Therefore, a PET scan is done before and after the procedure to look at the amount of cancer “activity” in the tumors and hence, determine if the procedure worked.
My blood work checked out okay, so I will go back to the hospital tomorrow to have the radioactive microspheres injected into my liver. I am told that this process will be shorter than the last one, which involved mapping the arteries and sealing off the branches that go to places outside the liver. I should come home tomorrow night and then I’ll need to lay low for a week or two. The doctor says that the most common side effect from the radiation is fatigue. He is going to try to do both lobes of my liver in one session which, if he does, will eliminate the need to have a third round. That’s good news to me since I didn’t really enjoy the first one all that much. The downside is that the reason he wants to do both sides at once is that I have a lot of cancer in there and he’s concerned about getting to it quickly enough that I don’t jaundice (and thus would no longer qualify). In any event, I am hopeful that things will go as smoothly as possible and we’ll see some results by the end of the month. I just need to suck it up for one more rough patch.
In the meantime, it has been an enjoyable holiday here. Vicki is home and it sure is fun to have her around. David just celebrated his 17th birthday and passed his driver’s test – so he is now happy to bop on out to the car and go see his bros! Here’s a picture of him just after he passed the test!
Wishing you the best of the New Year! BB
