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Thoughts and prayers requested

This was hard to read. Im very sorry and I hope God will somehow help your wife and you get over this.
A friend of mine's father, an old person, was diagnosed with cancer and given a few months to live. My friend started to prepare for the funeral, burial place. People came to see him for the last time and say goodbye. That was 5 years ago... He still lives to this day, and many of those people that visited him are no longer with us.
So dont give up hope!
Wish you all the best!
 
Florinc Florin said:
This was hard to read. Im very sorry and I hope God will somehow help your wife and you get over this.
A friend of mine's father, an old person, was diagnosed with cancer and given a few months to live. My friend started to prepare for the funeral, burial place. People came to see him for the last time and say goodbye. That was 5 years ago... He still lives to this day, and many of those people that visited him are no longer with us.
So dont give up hope!
Wish you all the best!
Click to expand...
Thank you.
 
She is recovering well from the surgery, and we finally met with the oncologist. First step, implant a portacath for easier access for chemo. If you do not know what that is, then #1 consider yourself lucky and #2, this is a portacath:

www.cancer.gov

NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms

NCI's Dictionary of Cancer Terms provides easy-to-understand definitions for words and phrases related to cancer and medicine.
www.cancer.gov www.cancer.gov

It is embedded in the chest on the upper right completely under the skin, and it has a catheter inserted into a major vein, so as to ease the chemo's impact on the veins when receiving chemo. I had a few rounds of chemo sans port and it "burned" a few of my veins so they became scarred and hard and closed off, so the smaller veins do not handle the harsh chemo drugs very well. Anyway, that is the next step.

Next, we also received her official diagnosis: serus carcinoma, stage 3. That is the most common type of ovarian cancer. There are 3, generally, and the serus one is the most aggressive, or "high grade" cancer, yet it is also the one that tends to respond the best to chemo. So with that she will be receiving 2 chemo drugs and 1 support treatment:
  • Carboplatin (a platinum-based alkylating chemo - damages DNA of cells so they cannot divide, cousin of one I received called cisplatin)
  • Taxol (disrupts cell division)
  • Bevacizumab (an antibody that blocks a specific protein used to repair damaged cells, helps keep the cancer from regenerating itself and helps reduce recurrence)
The treatments are every 3 weeks and they said they should take about 4-5 hours to deliver each time. My wife is scared to death of the chemo because she saw mine, but mine was extra severe, as the 4 chemo drugs I had were among the worst for side effects, while hers will actually be pretty moderate, so says the doctor. But I had a doctor tell me mine shouldn't cause nausea or vomiting until we found out that was the primary side effect, and I can tell you that anti-nausea medication only gets you so far. But we are hopeful hers will be much more manageable.

The prognosis is still pretty good, the doctor said he had no qualms saying we can get her to remission, the bigger risk is in recurrence. He also said the chances of recurrence, generally, once in remission, are about 10-15%, which is pretty decent odds. To help keep the cancer at bay, they will do a regimen of bevacizumab every 3 weeks for 2 years after her primary treatments and surgeries are complete.
 
LogGrad98 said:
She is recovering well from the surgery, and we finally met with the oncologist. First step, implant a portacath for easier access for chemo. If you do not know what that is, then #1 consider yourself lucky and #2, this is a portacath:

www.cancer.gov

NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms

NCI's Dictionary of Cancer Terms provides easy-to-understand definitions for words and phrases related to cancer and medicine.
www.cancer.gov www.cancer.gov

It is embedded in the chest on the upper right completely under the skin, and it has a catheter inserted into a major vein, so as to ease the chemo's impact on the veins when receiving chemo. I had a few rounds of chemo sans port and it "burned" a few of my veins so they became scarred and hard and closed off, so the smaller veins do not handle the harsh chemo drugs very well. Anyway, that is the next step.

Next, we also received her official diagnosis: serus carcinoma, stage 3. That is the most common type of ovarian cancer. There are 3, generally, and the serus one is the most aggressive, or "high grade" cancer, yet it is also the one that tends to respond the best to chemo. So with that she will be receiving 2 chemo drugs and 1 support treatment:
  • Carboplatin (a platinum-based alkylating chemo - damages DNA of cells so they cannot divide, cousin of one I received called cisplatin)
  • Taxol (disrupts cell division)
  • Bevacizumab (an antibody that blocks a specific protein used to repair damaged cells, helps keep the cancer from regenerating itself and helps reduce recurrence)
The treatments are every 3 weeks and they said they should take about 4-5 hours to deliver each time. My wife is scared to death of the chemo because she saw mine, but mine was extra severe, as the 4 chemo drugs I had were among the worst for side effects, while hers will actually be pretty moderate, so says the doctor. But I had a doctor tell me mine shouldn't cause nausea or vomiting until we found out that was the primary side effect, and I can tell you that anti-nausea medication only gets you so far. But we are hopeful hers will be much more manageable.

The prognosis is still pretty good, the doctor said he had no qualms saying we can get her to remission, the bigger risk is in recurrence. He also said the chances of recurrence, generally, once in remission, are about 10-15%, which is pretty decent odds. To help keep the cancer at bay, they will do a regimen of bevacizumab every 3 weeks for 2 years after her primary treatments and surgeries are complete.
Click to expand...
The difference between stage 3 and stage 4 is pretty huge, right? "Stage 3" were the most hopeful words—to my ears—in this whole thread.

Thinking about you lots, man.
 
LogGrad98 said:
She is recovering well from the surgery, and we finally met with the oncologist. First step, implant a portacath for easier access for chemo. If you do not know what that is, then #1 consider yourself lucky and #2, this is a portacath:

www.cancer.gov

NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms

NCI's Dictionary of Cancer Terms provides easy-to-understand definitions for words and phrases related to cancer and medicine.
www.cancer.gov www.cancer.gov

It is embedded in the chest on the upper right completely under the skin, and it has a catheter inserted into a major vein, so as to ease the chemo's impact on the veins when receiving chemo. I had a few rounds of chemo sans port and it "burned" a few of my veins so they became scarred and hard and closed off, so the smaller veins do not handle the harsh chemo drugs very well. Anyway, that is the next step.

Next, we also received her official diagnosis: serus carcinoma, stage 3. That is the most common type of ovarian cancer. There are 3, generally, and the serus one is the most aggressive, or "high grade" cancer, yet it is also the one that tends to respond the best to chemo. So with that she will be receiving 2 chemo drugs and 1 support treatment:
  • Carboplatin (a platinum-based alkylating chemo - damages DNA of cells so they cannot divide, cousin of one I received called cisplatin)
  • Taxol (disrupts cell division)
  • Bevacizumab (an antibody that blocks a specific protein used to repair damaged cells, helps keep the cancer from regenerating itself and helps reduce recurrence)
The treatments are every 3 weeks and they said they should take about 4-5 hours to deliver each time. My wife is scared to death of the chemo because she saw mine, but mine was extra severe, as the 4 chemo drugs I had were among the worst for side effects, while hers will actually be pretty moderate, so says the doctor. But I had a doctor tell me mine shouldn't cause nausea or vomiting until we found out that was the primary side effect, and I can tell you that anti-nausea medication only gets you so far. But we are hopeful hers will be much more manageable.

The prognosis is still pretty good, the doctor said he had no qualms saying we can get her to remission, the bigger risk is in recurrence. He also said the chances of recurrence, generally, once in remission, are about 10-15%, which is pretty decent odds. To help keep the cancer at bay, they will do a regimen of bevacizumab every 3 weeks for 2 years after her primary treatments and surgeries are complete.
Click to expand...
That last paragraph is nice to read.
 
NAOS_pt2 said:
The difference between stage 3 and stage 4 is pretty huge, right? "Stage 3" were the most hopeful words—to my ears—in this whole thread.

Thinking about you lots, man.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I really appreciate it. Yes stage 3 is way better than stage 4. Stage 3 means the tumor is sloughing off cells into the abdomen, stage 4 means it has traveled through the bloodstream to the distant organs like the liver or lungs. That's nearly a death sentence, with a 3 year survival rate at something like 12-15%. Stage 3 with the current regimen we are doing has a 3 year survival at something like 70-80%. So we are trying to stay hopeful. But it's tough. I feel like Samwise Gamgee, telling Frodo "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you". That's all I can do.

I might have mentioned this but since my cancer days I've always shaved my head, 28 years now of being bald. I really prefer it. So I can't shave my head in solidarity with her losing hers. So I'm growing my hair out in solidarity. She absolutely loved that idea. But she has no idea! Oh boy it's it going to look bad! Right now I look like a fat dirty q-tip. Ugh.
 
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