I dont know what all that means but it sure sound freaking awesome!

Awesome. Keep fighting the good fight. What a great Christmas present and may God Bless you.

It has been a while since I posted an update, so here it goes. My new port healed faster than the first one and was much more skillfully placed into my chest. The first night, it hurt mightily getting into bed, since lying down put pressure on the incision and also where the tube goes into an artery in my neck. The next morning, I noticed it didn't hurt nearly as much to move my head side to side or to get out of bed, as if I had skipped a day or two ahead in the healing process.

I wish I could say my chest wound is doing as well. That blasted thing is STILL open and the nurse is coming tomorrow to change the dressing. It used to hurt when she pulled the blue foam stuff out and not when she packed fresh stuff into my wound. Now it is the reverse. She told me when this all started, the tunnel where the infection ate away at me inside was about 2.5 inches deep. Now it is less than half that. She has to make the foam piece smaller and cut a lot off of it as well as making it shorter. Maybe next week, I can get the order changed and do away with the blue stuff at last. I just want this wound shut and healed! At least I can safely lift more than 5 lbs. now, so that is something. It was maddening being so limited in what I could do for 10 days after my surgery. I may give it another day to be safe, though. Why not?

Don't push yourself to hard.... You will heal up just fine and keep getting plenty of rest! God bless

My patience is in short supply, so that is the problem. I have stuff I need to do and Saturday looks like the day to get it done. I won't have to push myself tomorrow, just have to deal with another wound tending. Ugh.

Keep rocking on Ed. You are an inspiration to many.

Yeah!!!! Keep rockin', Ed!!!

Hey Ed. Glad you're doing well. Hope that wound heals up. Keep kicking ass.

I've been having some stomach troubles that they can't figure out so I had an upper GI scope and they had to put me under sedation. So I had to get the gown and all that shit. Then they start trying to give me an IV. I got pretty queasy and they turn me upside down and shit.

So you aren't the only one!

I don't know what the deal was. I'm not scared of needles. I used to give myself four allergy injections every week. MYSELF. I think the deal is that since I was in that damn gown, they had the heat up pretty high. I don't handle heat very well. Then they threw this blanket on me that had to be 120 degrees. That's when I started to get queasy.

I hope it isn't anything too serious! I need cool air and my feet up before they start jabbing me. The time I passed out totally and the time I almost did, my feet were flat on the floor. No more of that for me. I lucked out during my hospital stay, if you can call it luck, when they did a TEE on me, which is a scope down the esophagus and a scan of the heart. I heard the doc say to the nurse, "Start the anesthetic," then I blinked a couple of times and saw him walking toward the door and the nurse putting stuff away. I asked if it was all done and she said, yep. I was out for over an hour and have absolutely zero recollection of the procedure. That was one hell of a power nap! I probably mentioned that before, but I didn't want to go digging through the thread.

Here's to you and getting those guts back in line!

My 8th treatment went well aside from the nurse jamming the needle into my port a bit too hard. I asked the nurse prac. for more about what my CEA numbers mean exactly. She said the drop from 20.5 in November to 6.3 now was "stupendous" and she went on to show my liver scans and the thing is littered with spots between two larger tumors. The big one was over 5cm, like 5.2 or so and they hoped for the best shrinking, about 25%, but it has shrunk 40% and that was why Dr. Baranda was giddy when I saw her. I've also topped 200 lbs., got 203.6 lbs. so I've put on 20 lbs. since this treatment regimine began.

Now I just need the wound care to change orders. The wound hole is too small for the hydrafera blue and yesterday, the nurse hurt me pulling it out. It stuck in there so she stretched and stretched it until it went POP and came out. That was not pleasant at all. She had to tamp the fresh piece in like a musket and that also hurt. My case manager had better start managing this! :cuss:

Awesome!

So was it the old scan that was littered with spots, and those have shrunk? Or a more recent scan shows the shrunken spots? Sorry, i missed that.

Either way - 40% sounds like incredible improvement!!!

Yes, the first scan showed the spots and larger tumors and the next one showed them getting smaller. I want them down to zero as in eradicated, though. I told my nurse that was my goal. She said, "we're helping a little, too." I replied, "Meh, yeah I guess," and she rolled her eyes at me. She loves me, though!

The nurse said they hoped for up to 25% shrinking, as that was what they expected to be the ceiling. Seeing 40% made them sit back and look at it again and blew their minds. She said if the spots and tumors didn't grow at all, that would have been an okay result. 25% is fantastic, so 40% is as she said, "stupendous." I just have to keep my immune system fighting that cancer with all the righteous fury of my Viking ancestors. Valhallaaaaaaa!!

Wow! Great news man. Keep fighting!!