He wants a shoe horn, the kind with teeth.

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Jess and I met with the surgeon from OHSU online. Considering my last scans, they're very enthusiastic about finally getting to the resection of my tumorous portion of my liver.


Things we learned:

When they did the Y-90 treatment they didn't just kill portions of my liver, it killed a whole "big-ass" section of my liver. The right side. "Whuuuuuuuutttt?" Yup. A lot of the liver got killed. But, because livers regenerate, more new liver grew. That's pretty darned cool. Thanks, body.

They're going to cut out all of necrotic tissue and a little more "marginal" material. The timeframe for this is in six weeks. The doctor thought it was funny when I described the procedure as opening me up and scraping me out with a stainless steel shoehorn.

I don't know how long recovery will be. It'll be done up at OHSU. Light googling says up to 5-6 weeks.

They want me to do CT scans ASAP so that they can judge liver volume and check out that there's no metastasis. The doctor wants to meet with me again in about two weeks for more information.

UNFORTUNATELY, that meeting relies on the CT scans being done, and OHSU's automatic scheduling has the next time for a CT at four weeks out. I've get a call in to figure out how to solve this conundrum. I'm sure the doctor has some CT mojo that he can use to get me an appointment for the procedure that he and I want to do.

When I told my boss today what the resection was going to look like, she commented to me that it must be "awful scary." I said that I've been scared for a year, maybe I could try something else this time.

Yeah, it's scary, but doctor use the word "cure" in the conversation a couple of times. Oncologists and other doctors aren't particularly excited to make ANYTHING resembling a promise, but the two doctors that I met with were very positive.

I'm hopeful, but I'm not out of the woods yet. Time will tell how things are going to work out, but you know what? I'm happy to have such a good outcome so far. And I'm so very thankful to all of you who have been so supportive. You're great!

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