Sep 29 2008
Meet Dan: our second metastatic liver cancer survivor
Dan left a comment at Metastatic liver cancer mind games and is a metastatic liver cancer survivor for over 30 months now (that’s 2 and a half year).
That makes Dan our eldest secondary liver cancer survivor, followed by Trish (our first metastatic liver cancer survivor), who was diagnosed about 20 months ago.
Unfortunately, these are the only 2 metastatic liver cancer survivors so far. But with a cancer prognosis of 3 months, going 28 months over it like Dan does, Dan must be doing something good.
Please Dan, leave another comment if you feel like it, on how you are doing what you are doing! Like how did you gain weight, what are you eating and how do you exercise?
Just on a side-note: Lance Armstrong must be exercising a lot, so I wonder: does exercise help our body fight off cancer cells?
On another side-note: our father had lost so much weight that he couldn’t do much exercise because it would tire him out even more. And due to the state of his liver: a higher food intake just didn’t result in gaining weight anymore…
Dan’s metastatic liver cancer survivor story
Hi Trish,
Dan here. It has been 31 months since I learned of stage IV metastasized liver cancer from the colon. I had a resection in March 2006 and started chemo in April 2006. The doctors were kindly but expected only about two months survival. I had stints in my liver to open the bile ducts.
I have had the gamut of chemo drugs and the tumors did shrink a little. Irinotecan and Oxaliplatin were the most difficult side effects and loss of appetite fatigue causing medicines.
I am going for the record (living to be 100, 60 now). I have two grandchildren born this year six months apart. They need me around, and I love watching them!
Stay positive and exercise even if it is hard to do. I work three days a week as a consultant, sometimes the side effects force me to drag myself out the door. I was more or less expected to die last April 2008 having lost almost 100 pounds but I have recovered and gained back 50 of those pounds, about the right weight (even a little high).
I simply do not worry about the illness, though I hate being a burden to my wife when the worst bouts of fatigue make me helpless to get out of the chair for more than a short time, but those days come and go depending on the drug I am taking.
Well, I hope this is encouraging to you, at 20 months you have me to catch up to at 30!
Dan
3 Responses to “Meet Dan: our second metastatic liver cancer survivor”
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Hi Dan,
I’ll get to your 31 months, no problem. It’s so good to here another person doing so well, it gives me so much hope.
Last time I left a message, I had just had a CT scan, stupidly 2 weeks before I was to see the doctor, did my mind go crazy, I wanted to start smoking again, I dreamt my tumours got bigger, almost got depressed, it was all I focused on.
When I visited my doctor, he said my results were good, I’d had another shrinkage, and he tugged at my hair and said “I don’t know why you still have hair”. I walked out of the room onto a cloud, all those awful feelings and urges gone, and I thought to myself, if I can puzzle him with my hair, maybe I can puzzle him with the lose of my cancer. I can dream.
Dan, what does stage IV mean. Is there a kinder chemo than the 2 you mentioned? And how come you lost so much weight, I’m the heaviest now than I have been in my whole life, I joined a gym 2 months ago, have only been once, I shall motivate myself to go now. I will go tomorrow before I come to work, last time I did it I was tired for 2 days, I suppose that could be because I’m unfit? Yep.
Gotta go,
Trish
[...] Meet Dan: our second metastatic liver cancer survivor [...]
Hi Trish,
We added some answers and extra questions for you and Dan at :
How to survive metastatic liver cancer?
Please continue this thread to give hope to each other and everybody else who just start their secondary liver cancer path…