The Results Are In

Good Evening Everyone!

As you can imagine it was a long, nerve wracking 10 day wait for the radiology report to come back but we finally have the results. After going over it with a fine tooth comb and asking a ton of questions, I can now share what we've learned with all of you. Chad had 2 Cat Scans done on September 6th, one of his chest and one of his abdomen. The chest scan came back completely clear with no change from the previous scans. This is good news as we can celebrate that the cancer has not moved outside of the already identified areas of the body.

The abdomen scan results were a bit of a mixed bag, not stellar but not dreadful either, to use a common Chadism-not all sunshine and rainbows. I'll start with the brightest spot from the report and that is the cancer in the lymph nodes continues to shrink. The largest nodule is smaller in size again, going from  1 x 1 cm to 0.9 x 0.9 cm, 2nd largest went from 0.9 x 1.1 to 0.7 x 1.2 cm, 3rd largest going from 0.8 x 2.7 to 0.7 x 1.2 cm and a few more that were on the previous scan are no longer visible. Great news! The stomach lining is also slightly thinner which is also a positive takeaway as you may remember that Chad doesn't have large cancerous tumors but instead has cancerous cells that clump together and increase thickening in his stomach lining. The fact that it's thinner is indicative of shrinking and dying cancer cells. More great news! 

The grey area of the scan report was new thickening along the small bowel wall and duodenum (this is the area where Chad's stent is placed). This is very concerning of course, we don't want to see thickening, especially not in a new area. However, the oncologist does not believe that this thickening is more cancer. He believes that the thickening we are seeing is inflammation. There is a new ulceration in his stomach wall that appears to be causing a lot of irritation. In addition, there was a large amount of debris in his stomach even though his stent doesn't appear to be clogged. The doctor called this delayed gastric emptying which is also caused by inflammation. Chad is not able to create enough protection in his stomach lining because it is so compromised so his tissue is being aggressively attacked by stomach acid. He started a new medication yesterday that will hopefully help coat his stomach lining, repair the damaged tissue and combat the stomach acid. Providing this type of relief will also help with his nausea, bloating and not feeling so awful after eating which in turn will help with his weight as well. Now, with all that being said we still have to hope that this is the fix and that we don't see this same amount or worse thickening on the next scan, if we do see it we won't be able to rule out disease progression to the bowel. 

Our least favorable news from the report is that there is cancer progression in the omentum. This is the area outside of the stomach. The nodules in this area that were there previously are larger and there are more nodules than before. The largest measuring 1.2 x 1.3 when previously all were too small to measure. This is the most concerning as it could mean that Chad could develop carcinomatosis which is a big word for saying that the cancer will spread at a swift rate to areas outside of the region it's currently contained in. The doctor gave us 2 reasons that he thinks we should not jump to that conclusion just yet. 1)-the omentum is one of the hardest areas of the body to treat with chemotherapy. There are a much smaller amount of blood vessels to bring the chemo so it's harder to penetrate and harder to measure therefore it's given a little more leeway when it comes to treatment expectations. 2)-the cancer is controlled in all other areas and is having a favorable response in some areas with this chemotherapy regimen. Therefore, we are treating this as an early warning signal, something that we will monitor closely but will not alter the current treatment plan at this time as the changes were not drastic enough to warrant that. Chad had his first infusion of round 3 last week and we will scan again around November 6th.

Our entire family continues to appreciate your love, support, prayers and positive words. I say it a lot because it means a lot so please keep the good vibes coming. We love you all and need you all!

I can't sign off without sharing that Chad made it to Browns opening day! A lot of you saw my post on social media but I thought I'd share it here again. Chad not only attended his 186th Browns game (not counting pre-season games) but he got to go with his sweet niece Natalie! When Chad started making lists of all of the things that he wanted to do going to a Browns game with Natalie was ranked high. The game didn't go the way that we wanted but the experience and the memory were what he hoped for. Natalie being a legit Browns fan at age 9 makes Chad so happy! Thank you Cleveland Browns for turning it around last night on Monday Night Football!!