surgery-and-diagnosis

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Well, it has been awhile since my last post, and to be honest, it's taken me much longer to get back to blogging than I expected. Essentially, so much has happened and I've been through a lot since my previous post. I suppose I needed some time to emotionally, physically, and spiritually process all that I've been through so far. I'm ready to share now, where as until today, it has been difficult to put fingers to keyboard without an overly emotional reaction to the words in my head and emotions in my heart. 

My intent with respect to today's post is to just share my surgery experience and diagnosis with you, and then continue sharing my journey from there. So, I'm expecting this to be a relatively short post, you never know, I tend to be wordy at times!

Surgery
Tuesday morning, March 3, 2015, my surgical oncologist Dr. Matthew Holtzman, MD (cool cat...not your typical surgeon!), performed surgery to remove what was determined to be a 9+ centimeter malignancy from my colon. The surgery became more complicated and complex when Dr. Holtzman realized their were actually two malignancies which on CT appeared as one. The larger of the two malignancies penetrated through the colon wall and metastasized to the beginning part of the small intestine known as the duodenum. Long story short, approximately 35 centimeters of my large intestine (colon) was removed and resected. A small part of my small intestine (duodenum) was removed and repaired, and 19 lymph nodes were removed.

Diagnosis
All the tissue and lymph nodes were sent to pathology for microscopic evaluation. It was determined that there were actually 2 separate and distinct malignancies or cancers growing simultaneously. Additionally 17 of 19 lymph nodes contained cancerous cells. Essentially we were told that I have an aggressive stage 4 cancer and will require chemotherapy. 

Planning ahead
I was discharged from the hospital Thursday afternoon, March 19, 2015, a day earlier than expected. I am now home with my family recovering, healing, and building up strength to begin chemo in approximately 3-4 weeks. I will have a follow up appointment with my surgeon next week, as well as an appointment with my oncologist, in which we will learn more details about the chemo, including integrative approaches. One thing's for sure, I treasure my wife and kids considerably more and the little things that use to bother me are so very insignificant.

Now that I've managed to emotionally and spiritually reconnect through my blog, I will continue to post frequently, documenting my journey. If you would like to show your support and contribute financially towards my battle to beat cancer, you can do so by clicking the link below. All donations go towards offsetting medical expenses. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

http://www.gofundme.com/mikebauman