Let’s get right to the point. It’s POSITIVE news!

I haven’t seen the report, only talked with my Oncologist about it. The scan showed “Stable Disease”. Nothing new and nothing grew. Obviously, everyone wants to see a reduction in their tumor size, so that really would have been the only better scenario. I have attached an article that talks about stable disease – click on the link and have a read as it explains stable disease .

My tumors are still visible in my liver, but they don’t know exactly what is happening within them. My Oncologist said that tumors can still show, but are completely void of any living cancer cells. Its just scar tissue remaining. So, we still push on with my current chemo unless we see disease progression. There were a couple of other things on the scan, but there wasn’t too much concern about them. I have some fluid build up around my bowels and there is another spot where they see scarring – in both scenarios they don’t know what it is, but they elude that it could be disease related. The other small concern was that my CEA (tumor marker) has gone up slightly. I discussed this before about not being an accurate tool and for some people, like me, it isn’t much of an indicator at all. When they discovered my lesions in October my CEA # was 2.3. However, on my March scan, which showed tumor shrinkage, my CEA went up to 4.1. Now on this last scan my CEA was 5.2. A little weird, but there are so many things that can affect your CEA its tough to know what is causing it to rise. One thing I found is that your CEA can go up as tumors die. Yep, sounds good to me! Also, the average person has a CEA between 2 and 5. When I read cancer forums, people report having CEA levels around 6000! So, I am not too concerned about this or the two mystery findings.

Right now, I am in the same position I was back in March and maybe even better if more cancer cell death happened within the tumors. More time – that’s what I was given today – and I WILL TAKE IT!!

Here is a picture of two of my biggest fans. They cheer me on daily and live first hand all the ups and downs we go through. I cannot express how incredible Renee is to be able to look after me (its difficult) and Audrey, manage the house and daily routine, work her event planning job and to still go through all the emotions I do as we ride the worst rollercoaster ever created. She doesn’t get a lot of down time and relaxing is something she rarely “fits in”. I love you both and for the first time in over a year, my wife and I are spending 5 days together in the Okanagan to celebrate my 40th!