Henri's Blog

Last Wednesday, Henri's oncologist Dr Lin popped in on Henri's appointment with his palliative care nurse and became concerned about Henri's continued weight loss. Since cancer cells burn a lot of calories, he was concerned that the cancer may be growing and/or spreading despite the radiation therapy. A CT scan on Friday confirmed his suspicions. Henri's primary tumor has grown slightly, the liver tumors have grown and more have appeared, and new tumors have shown up on Henri's bowel.

This was the calculated risk involved in stopping chemo for radiation therapy -- that it may or may not help the primary tumor shrink, and that it would not be treating the metastases at all. It is still too early to say whether the radiation will end up having shrunk the primary (it takes a couple of months to see the full effect), but right now we cannot let the metastases continue to grow. We know that chemo works so we are going back to that as soon as possible.

The new tumors may be constricting Henri's bowels, which could help explain his bloating and intestinal pain. He will be seeing his GI doctor, Dr Saunders, this week (we hope) and may be having a colonoscopy to determine whether the bowel is constricted and whether a bowel stent might be indicated.

He will also be seeing Dr Lin Tuesday to determine a course of chemo. We are optimistic that as he recovers from radiation he will start to feel better and more energetic, and that when he starts chemo again his tumors will start shrinking again, as they did before.

Radiation has been a pretty rough ride, and it's disappointing that it didn't work, but on the other hand it's nice to have it over with (a week early). It was a good experiment but we probably won't be trying it again for a while.

-jill