lisa's Cancer Blog

Hi there welcome to the family. We are all here to help and support each other. Let us know what is going on as time goes by.

Hug
sherri

Posted on May 4, 2008 at 10:32:55 AM by karlak

Hi Lisa, I am also new here and new to cancer. We are both at the beginning of our jorney, maybe we can travel togeter. Blessings, Teri

Posted on May 16, 2008 at 5:35:15 AM by angelwthwingz

Hi Lisa,
I just found this website and your blog today (June 2).
Wow- do we have a lot in common. Not only with also having stage 4 colorectal cancer, but my name is also Lisa and we’re very close in age- I’ll be 42 in just a month. I’m married and have three kids- ages 15, 12, and 8. How about you?
I was diagnosed just a month before you, in August 2007. I’ll definitely be interested in following your blog. My story is that my stage 4 included mets to liver and lungs. Initially, I was not considered a surgical candidate for liver resection, as there were too many tumors (about 12 & many small scattered tumors in both lungs). I had a very good response to the 6 months of chemo (Folfox + Avastin), in that I went down to just 3 liver tumors, 1 lung tumor, & a shrunken rectal tumor, none of which showed up any more on the PET- just on the CT. I then had 6 wks of radiation/chemo on the rectal tumor. The followup sigmoidoscopy and biopsy showed a complete response with no sign of any cancer in the rectum anymore. Although many colorectal surgeons still would have done the resection, mine chose not to because I had a high chance of ending up w/ a colostomy because of the low tumor location, so she couldn’t see taking the risk of that happening to me when the cancer there was gone! I just got home from the hospital (Moores Cancer Center/Thornton Hospital, San Diego) 4 days ago from having a liver resection. They believe it was very successful. The liver surgeon thought he was removing 3 tumors, but ended up removing 6, plus my gallbladder. Three additional tumors were found, which had never shown up any CT scan before- kind of scary, but I’m glad he got them!
I lean on the Lord for strength- He has never let me down.
Blessings to you- I will look forward to hearing more on your blog in the future!
Lisa D.

Posted on June 2, 2008 at 12:24:11 PM by lisaann

Hi again Lisa,
Oops- I didn’t read your bio until after I posted above, so I now know more about you and how it all started (& that we both also have three kids- mine are one boy and two girls). Sounds like you got the initial brushoff of doctors initially not thinking anything was serious, just like I did too. Probably because of our age. I had upset stomach and bloody stools for 4-5 months before I went to the Dr. Even then, the nurse practitioner at my primary care Dr.’s office told me I had “a very large hemmoroid and that was probably what was causing the upset and bleeding.” I thought it was still a good idea to get a colonoscopy, but put it off for another 2 months because of the Dr. and nurse practitioner not acting like it was anything serious. So frustrating and I sure hope more doctors start taking these kinds of symptoms more seriously!
Lisa D.

Posted on June 2, 2008 at 12:40:28 PM by lisaann

Hi
I just found your Lisa stories. My heart sank.
I went back to that feeling I had 12 years ago.
My 3 kids were little and I got that call I had stage 4 cancer.
I just wanted to write to say…there is HOPE! Always, always, always…I am the example.