I have wonderful news to share today!!! We arrived at the Cancer Treatment Center for Matt's dr appt. on Wednesday and he said Matt could get his ct scan right away if he wants or wait until Jan. when we come back. Of course we opted to have it right away since the anxiety of it all is really overwhelming. So many thoughts go through your mind like "will this be the time that there will progression of the disease and this chemo treatment is no longer working?" etc. etc.
Matt had his chemotherapy as planned and then on Thursday afternoon he had his ct scan. Two hours later we met again with the oncologist Dr. Niu, for the results. He came into the room all smiles and told us he had good news and was going to change Matt's treatment plan. He first explained that the tumors in the stomach lining were gone, the tumors in the lungs were unchanged but there were only a couple of them, and that the tumors in the liver had shrunk significantly and some were gone altogether!!! Hurray!!!!!!
He told us that because of this he wanted to change Matt't treatment plan and be more aggressive to add other options instead of just controlling it. Matt's plan has been "chemo for life" while balancing the quality vs the quantity. A person cannot do chemotherapy indefinitely without quality of life becoming a very big issue, and after time the cancer will outsmart the chemo and begin to take over again.
Dr. Niu gave us a very precious gift yesterday....the gift of hope! He told us that he wants Matt to continue his full chemo regimen for the next 3 to 6 months and then he wants to try some treatments that will treat the tumors in the liver locally. If these treatments work then it will add time to Matt's life and could potentially put him in a position to have liver resection which again if it works, will add time and has a 25% chance of giving us a cure.
Of course I started sobbing and Dr. Niu chocked up himself and gave both Matt and I very big hugs!! I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have an oncologist who is so very compassionate and whom you know really cares about giving you the best possible outcome. I feel so blessed right now.
The road ahead will be long and hard, but with this little bit of hope it just got a lot easier!
I pray that you all had wonderful Christmas and I look forward to the what the New Year holds for us all.
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