The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I'm going to start with the Bad and move forward from there (mostly because I don't want to end on a downer.)

Bad
1. Yes, it is in fact, liver cancer.
2. The size of the tumor is rather large.
3. Surgery is not an option at this point.

Good
1. It has not spread to any of the other organs.
2. There is no apparent accompanying liver disease that usually shows up with this.
3. Her treatment starts Tuesday Dec. 14.

The ugly could be any one of a number of things, but after talking with the doctor, the first phase of this treatment it what needs to be focused on at this point.

The drill is that she will start taking a pill form of chemotherapy, one a day, every day until told otherwise.  Adding to this (and this is a benefit of going to the Mayo Clinic here in AZ) is that she could very well qualify for an FDA-approved clinical study for a new drug, Mayo being one place of 8 in the U.S. currently approved for said clinical trial.  While this does mean more visits to measure vitals, blood tests and monitoring, the combination of these two drugs can be very aggressive against this tumor.

The new drug, which I have nicknamed Adam-12 (ICM-A12) will be injected through an IV once every three weeks.  After 2 injection cycles, or 6 weeks, she will be re-scanned to monitor progress of the treatment.  Favorable progress means treatment will continue.

Out there in the ethereal future is the possibility of the need for a liver transplant - NOT DEFINITE YET, but still a possibility.

So, the bottom line is that this will be an uphill battle, but I kind of thought that going in.  There is still room for hope, and favorable outcomes for liver cancer have increased two-to-threefold in the last 20 years.

2011 is gonna be a difficult year.

I promise to stay as snarky and obnoxious as I can.