Journal: News & Comment

Busy days

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Today I got another look at my cancer. That's because, after some blood tests, a urine test, an electrocardiogram, and a talk with Barb the radiotherapy nurse, I walked two blocks over from the Cancer Agency to Vancouver General Hospital to see Dr. Tai, who used a flexible sigmoidoscope to take eight (!) small biopsy samples from the body of my tumour, as I watched on the video screen.

It doesn't look like much—a slightly puffier chunk of my intestinal wall, with some blood on it. The exam wasn't comfortable, but the sigmoidoscope is actually less obnoxious than some of the other exams I've had, and I couldn't feel the biopsy pinches at all, which is a relief.

Dr. Tai will compare those to biopsies she will take of tissue removed during my surgery in three months or so, to see if all the bevacizumab, oxaliplatin, 5-FU, and radiation have an effect on the cancer at the cellular level in the interim.

I sure hope they do. And I told Dr. Tai that I didn't mind all the samples she took. The more of that tissue that gets out of my body, the better, as far as I'm concerned. I see Dr. Kennecke the chemotherapy specialist again tomorrow, then talk to the nutritionist and presumably get my schedule for starting the bevacizumab on Thursday.

Maybe I'll get a break Wednesday. Maybe!

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