We have a new update, not so rosy, unfortunately.
On the positive side, the surgery was a success, Dr Hunn told us she took out every visible vestige of the disease that she could. They took biopsies from around 20 locations including residual fluids. But from the surgeon's perspective, things went about as good as could be expected, so that was great news.
The other shoe dropped last week. We met with our oncologist here and he told us that normally when they do this and they take these biopsies it is common for a few of them to show residual microscopic disease, but for others to be clear. In my wife's case, every biopsy they did showed active cancer cells. So that isn't great to begin with, but to make matters more concerning, these cells show a mutation more commonly associated with difficult breast cancer disease called HER2. In ovarian cancer this happens occasionally but is not very common, and it is usually associated with high-grade tumors that are very treatment resistant, and signifies reduced survival rates. The good thing is that her cancer generally responded pretty well to the treatment, at least as far as the blood tests and her CA-125 markers can show us, but to find literally every spot they tested to have remaining cancer cells with this aggressive mutation is very concerning. The doctor didn't even want to give us a prognosis, given this new information, but finally he said we are looking at around a 30% 3-year survival rate. Of course, it is better to know now we have this new version of this thing to deal with, rather than have it come back as a new tumor down the road. And there are some treatments, but generally this kind of cancer is very treatment resistant. There may be ongoing treatments she can do, like potentially indefinitely, that could significantly prolong her life with this disease. There are people who live a long time, decades even, with active ovarian cancer being held in check by ongoing low-level chemo treatments, so it isn't a death sentence. But it isn't good either. Not what we wanted to hear. We are ready for this thing to be done. Now it looks like there will be more chemo coming and maybe radiation, but that is less likely as HER2 make tumors much more radiation-resistant so it isn't often used, but everything is on the table at this point.
Also on the positive side, she is feeling a lot better, recovering very well from the surgery. The past chemo side effects are finally fading out and her hair is starting to come back. I was just happy to see her upbeat and positive and energetic yesterday, for the first time in months. We'll take the good we can get, that's for sure. And we are trying to keep things in perspective, as all of this could be way way worse. I mean, it isn't just entirely back to the drawing board, so that is good. At least the bulk of the disease has been removed, and she is recovering well. But it is daunting to think we have more of this coming, and an unknown amount at this point as well. We never went into this pretending it was going to be easy, and even considering my own treatment decades ago now, this is the toughest thing I have ever been through. I still wish I could take it on for her.
