Sigh......Not Good News

It is Sunday night and we are still here at the cancer center. We leave tomorrow morning after being here for a week. The colonoscopy went well as the tumor there has responded to the chemo and is very small. The ct scan on the other hand, did not go well. It showed that the lung tumors have grown and some new very small ones have appeared. The liver tumors are still shrinking so it was mixed results. Of course this is uncommon to have one organ progress while the other responds, but it is what it is. Matt's doctor wants to wait to do any liver directed therapies until we can get the lung tumors under control. He switched Matt's medicine and he is back on the 48 hour pump after infusion so we have to return every other week again and have to stay here at the hospital for 3 days.

We met with the interventional radiologist and he went over all of Matt's scans and answered all of our questions about liver directed therapies. We hope to be able to relook at these options if this new medicine works.

We also met with the surgeon who told us that realistically Matt will not ever be able to have surgery to remove the tumors in the liver. One tumor is located directly on some blood vessels that are needed for the left liver lobe. This means that the entire left lobe would need to be removed and because he has tumors in the right lobe as well, there would not be enough healthy liver left after surgery. This was sad news as well.

We are making plans to make more family memories.

Saturday Matt and I drove to Tucson to a funeral. On the Colon Club forum I met a wonderful Christian woman whose husband just passed away from stage IV colon cancer. The funeral was beautiful, and although Matt did not want to go at first, he was so happy that he went. We both felt the spirit of God there so strong and my friend is an amazing woman of strength and spirituality.

After the funeral, as we were meeting the relatives, Matt and I were introducing ourselves to Bryan's (the deceased) sister. We were telling her that Matt has the same cancer as Bryan had and it got a little "heavy" and so Matt did what he always does in an uncomfortable situation...he made a joke. He said, "is there a message you would like me to pass on to Bryan?" Well he certainly didn't get the response he expected as I burst into tears!!

The funeral opened up some good lines of communication for Matt and I and he told me about some wishes that he would like for his funeral. We were both incredibly grateful that we know that this life is not the end. Our knowledge in a loving Heavenly Father and our Savior makes this journey endurable. Below is a song that was sung at the funeral that Matt loved. He wants this song sung at his funeral. I hope you all enjoy it! It is called "If You Could See Me Now." I was hoping for a link to come up but can't seem to get it right. The address is right, there just isn't a link. Sorry.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=ivM1ytYswNA

Love to all!
Niki