Cancer Update

Hello everyone. I'm sorry I haven't written on here for a while, but I was kind of sick of blogging after Houston and wanted to give it a rest for a time.

As many of you know, I haven't been feeling very well lately. I have lost some weight, and my stomach has become very bloated. Humiliating as it is to say, I look like one of those old men with little, tiny pencil legs and a great big stomach. Not attractive. In addition to the bad body-aesthetics, I have had a tremendous amount of abdominal cramping and pain that has been really awful, followed usually by vomiting. All of this has weakened my appetite, which has compounded the weight loss problem. Most days I eat things like soup or just soup broth, although Sidney Walter sent me some chocolates recently that I can't seem to resist.

Well, Monday I had a CT Scan. It was time for one and they wanted to do it in order to try to figure out what the cramps and bloating were all about. The scan shows that the cancer has not really "grown" but that it is definitely active, producing a lot of fluid in my abdomen (hence the bloating), and "thickening" my small and large intestines (hence the cramping, vomiting, and weight loss).

So, yesterday, after meeting with my onco, I went directly back on Oxalaplatin. Many of you will remember that this was the first chemo drug I was on. The doctor believes that my cancer has become "resistant" to 5-FU (also Xeloda), which requires that I step up to something stronger and a bit more aggressive.

So I feel fine today. Yesterday was exhausting but today feels great. I had a decent breakfast and even feel a little hungry as I write this. Many of you will want to know what you can do. Well, just visualize me with a smaller stomach and a bigger butt. :-)

Love, Chet