Surgery Notes

Matthew visited with the Oncologist last Friday.  We got a bit more information from his surgery, partly due to getting a copy of all the surgical notes. Here is some of the information.  Some of it might be a recap.
1)The liver tumor was removed with clean margins.  40% of the cancer cells were dead.
2) They removed several lymph nodes, all of which, were clean
3) They found a nodule on his diaphragm that came back as cancerous.  The type of cancer was adenocarcinoma and was a metastasis of the colon cancer.  They removed this nodule.  I found that the difference between a tumor and a nodule is the size (this was pretty small). 
4) His gall bladder was clean, but they removed it (maybe it was in the way?).

He is starting to gain a bit more energy, but still tires very easily.  He actually went out on Saturday evening and spent some time with friends for the first time since the surgery.  Jeffrey and Stephen spent 4 days there last week (and then stopped to visit us), which Matthew seemed to enjoy. This also seemed to lift his spirits a bit.  

The doctor said that he should be ready to start chemo in just another week or so, however, he told Matthew he could wait a couple more weeks if he didn't feel ready yet.Right now, he is probably going to start chemo the week before Thanksgiving.  His chemo will follow the same pattern as last time.  He will do a large dose in the office on one day, and then go home with a pump for two more days.  This will repeat every other week for 4 months. 

Next week is our Dad's birthday!  He has a Halloween birthday (fitting right?) .  In honor of his upcoming birthday, and all the fun that is Halloween, I thought I would share this bit of fun.