upcoming visit to MD

Appears I will be heading to Houston on Feb 12 for testing on Feb 13 -if I pass the test as I did here in KC, I will have surgery on Feb 15 to reverse the ileostomy...expecting appx. 5 days in the hospital and then another 2-3 in Houston before coming home...more to follow as the 15th approaches

test results from 1/31/08

I had a test yesterday to see if my colon had healed and I received great news...This test showed no leakage so I will be headed to Houston for another test and hopefully surgery in mid Feb...more to follow when I have the details

upcoming year

Not a whole lot going on with me right now.  I am simply waiting to get tested again.  The test will be to see if my colon has healed completly.  My surgeon is hopeful that he will be able to reverse the illeostomy.  January is when I will next be tested.  If all is well I will be headed back to Houston for surgery.

2008 is a new year with many good things to come.

Cheers,

darin

Houston, we have a problem

I am back at my hotel in HOU and am very disappointed. The test today revealed that my colon has still yet to properly heal so I will not have the surgery to reverse my illeostomy. During surgery today the interventional radiology doctor replaced the drain tube with a different style in hopes that this will allow the colon to heal. Tomorrow I have a meeting with my surgical oncologist to discuss our options. I am guessing that he will suggest keeping this drain in for another 6-8 weeks and then retest.

I expect to return to KC late tomorrow evening and will be back in the office on Thursday.

This is very disappointing to me but I will continue to keep my head up and do my best to not let this, or anything else, get me down.

Unity is Strength, Knowledge is Power, Attitude is Everything,
LiveSTRONG

-jupe

curve ball

A co-worker just emailed me stating she has been diagnosed with breast cancer....I will hopefully be an inspiration for her during the fight she faces. Life is not fair and cancer SUCKS! Unity is Strength, Knowledge is Power, Attitude is Everything......LiveStrong -jupe

back to Houston -

It appears that I will heading back to Houston for the reversal of my illeostomy. I will have testing on Nov. 13th & surgery on Nov. 15th.  They expect to keep me in the hosptial 3-5 days. I will post a short message while I am there.

LIVESTRONG
-darin

I'm back with an update

Summary update:

After returning from Houston (MD Anderson) I underwent an additional 7 chemo treatments with the last on Aug. 9th, 2007.  I recently visited Houston and planned to have surgery to reverse the ostomy and a potential liver resection. My colon did not heal yet so I did not have major surgery. I did have a drain tube 'installed' Tuesday Sept. 18th to remove fluid from around my colon so it can heal. The liver surgery is also on hold as we now plan to simply go into a monitoring mode. I will return to Houston in mid-late October to see of my colon has healed properly and  hopefully have the ostomy reversed. 

I was "re-staged" while in Houston and I am cancer free.  My blood counts were great and CT imaging was clean.

I apologize for not keeping this updated and hope to do a better job in the future.

Thank you to everyone for your concerns and continued support.