Hello fellow Warriors, i hope this finds you all in good health whether it be NED, remission or stable, either or is a victory, and if your still struggling with your team to fight these bastards, keep up the strength that got you this far, i didnt realize the strength i had to endure this whole last 4 or 5 months back when my Sigmoid tumor pain had hours & hours of breaks between them & ESPECIALLY this last 30 days when my tumor pain became a 24 hour torture device, i held on to faith that something good is gunna happen very soon & it did, surgery…
Well folks, where do i began, to start, i made it through what i would call Hell On Earth. Having a tumor, a 4 inch Demonic Mass in your Sigmoid section of our intestine is no joke, especially when my team & i decided to let it be to see if just one more infusion will have shrunk it by a few Centimeters (at the VERY least) but no, story of my life, my OX40 & ICOS combo that im doing in my trial is doing a good job on all my other tumors but not on the big A-hole, same situation with the other 6cm blob on my left side under my ribs remember? Gave us the middle finger, then back in my Pembro, Ipi & Nivo days at Kaiser, my 3inch Demon Ball in my right lower lung lobe defied & gave its middle finger as well while other tumors shrank, disappeared or stayed humble and submissive. Once again i took one for the team cuz, maybe to have the meds take care of it is a hell of a lot nicer then having intestinal surgery which wasnt half bad like i thought, i woke up without a poop bag on my side AND! no staples or stitches! Very small incision to! And he did an “Open” type, not the Laparoscopic type, my surgeon Dr. Mark B. Faires (look him up he’s great! he has a write up in the New England Journal of Medicine! He deals mainly with Melanoma) anyways, he said its at a size that he needs to pull out my Sigmoid & cut the section out & solder me back up, he could see why my pain was SOOO Severe, the Demon was wrapping its “tentacles” around the nerves in my lower spine, pushing & shoving its way anywhere it wanted to grow in me, huh, explains the Horrific, constant deep, excruciating, up all night, up all day, crying out in pain i was in! I’ll never forget those last 3, 4 weeks after deciding to wait one more infusion (3weeks) the day of the scan the report comes in (they have scanners & readers on premises) that its getting larger, (grew from 7.0cm to 9.1cm in 2 months) surgery is eminent & Dr. Hamid orders it ASAP on June12th at Cedars Sinai, the Mel Demon was extracted & instantly “Relief” was there, well, once i woke anyway, even in my doped up stupor i found relief and cried because of the nightmare it caused me & my wife. Up at night messaging my lower back, heating pad, Naproxins, and the not eating, FEAR of eating, wheres it gunna go? I went from 189 to 140 in a month or so, thats to fast, much to fast, I never used opiates out of fear of even more constipation, at 3 weeks before my surgery, that would be the last bowel movement i would have or could have til “after” my surgery, the mass was blocking 98% a lil’ gas could get thru once in a while thank goodness! can you believe that? A lot of the pain to was the feces “pushing” against the 9.1cm mass, trying to move along & out the door, picture a 1inch minimally “flexible” pipe with a 4 inch dia. ball stuck inside of it, yep, that was me in a nutshell guys….
Im so glad its overwith, dont take one for the team like that if yer not willing to put up with the possible pain that could occur afterwards, once it became an every day “constant” pain towards the end, then it got worse, health declined dramaticly..not fun…
But Anyways, ive wrote a novel already, i know i have some fans so, you guys will love a good read haha..iv been healing nicely, ill get back on soon ok? Oh!!!! A quick shout out to sister Chuco! I just met her at our mutual place The Angeles Clinic last Thursday, She heard my name being called out then said “Mike? Melanoma Mike? I was blown away! I wish we could have talked longer, off she went to do her thing & i went to start back on my treatment downstairs, small world…love ya all, and ill be back, you can take that to the bank…
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