Stage I?

Yesterday I went to Mercy in Baltimore for another endoscopic ultrasound. I learned my lesson from the first one being awake, this time I was knocked out and slept through the entire procedure. The only adverse reaction was having to take a massive dump after the procedure. Other than that it was nothing.

I spoke to the doctor who did the ultrasound and he said things looked very good. He said that the tumor near my rectum seemed quite small, was no longer outside of the colon wall and that there didn't seem to be any lymph nodes involved. I asked the doctor what stage he thought this would put me at and he said "Stage I"!

Of course, he qualified it by saying "I might be wrong." But assuming he's not, Stage I is awesome!

My original staging was Stage 4.

Basically, I've gone from an 8% chance of living five years to greater than a 95% chance.

Even though it still sounds weird to put the next five years of your life in those terms, it still feels great to know I'm getting better.

Stage II!

I had a colonoscopy a week ago today. Before the colonoscopy I was technically a Stage IV patient of colon cancer. This was because they had considered the two tumors in my colon a mastestation of one another. However, I found out today from the biopsies taken during my colonoscopy that the tumor near my ileum is benign!

My oncologist also mentioned that there didn't seem to be any lymph node involvement, which if that is the case (my PET scan on Friday will hopefully confirm this) then I my restaging could put me at Stage II!

This was excellent news.

My oncologist told me "you're ready for surgery" so I'm off chemo until after my surgery. Hopefully I'll have another 2-3 weeks before surgery to enjoy the time off chemo. Regardless, I'm happy to have any time off chemo.

Since I'm off chemo and my counts are fine, I'm thinking of getting tattooed today.

No, I've already decided that I am. :)