Another Round Down

Finished up all my follow-up appointments for this round with an Oncologist visit on Wednesday and an appointment with the ENT Oncologist on Thursday. Both went well with no surprises to report. That's a good thing.

Dr. Williamson (Oncologist) did give me a little more info on prognosis and life expectancy that I posted about a couple of months ago, though. Not specific numbers but generalities.

With a year and five clean scans behind me he said the prognosis is "much improved" over the initial survival rate they gave me before treatment started. He said each year that goes by without incident the prognosis goes up pretty significantly. While not unheard of, he said it's rare for the cancer to recur after two years of clean scans. Again, no specific statistics but encouraging generalities.

On the life expectancy after a successful 5-years of scans question, he said cancer survivors do have increased risk of contracting other cancers compared to the general population. In my case, lung cancer or esophageal cancer would be the highest risk. The drugs and the radiation do create a somewhat increased risk of heart problems but, overall, he said life expectancy after successful treatment is only slightly reduced from the general population.

So, good news on both fronts.

I now have a follow up with Dr. Tsue (ENT Oncologist) at the end of April then nothing else until July when I'll have my next round of scans and follow-up appointments with everyone. My goal is to get things stretched out far enough that when I go in they don't recognize me and pull out my chart before I check in. Non-recognition, in this case, would be a positive thing.

I'll likely stretch out my postings as well so I can do what I can to get out of Cancer mode and back into normal population mode. Shouldn't be much to report for quite a while any way.

I got a nice little surprise this morning. I had my latest round of scans Monday morning. My appointment with the Oncologist to go over the results was scheduled for Wednesday but had to be moved to next week because of a business trip. But this morning I had a follow-up with the Radiation Doc and he jumped right in and went over my scan results so I didn't have to wait until next week after all.

Scans were clean. Still Cancer Free.

I think I now go to 6-month cycles for my scans but I do have to wait for next week's Oncologist appointment to confirm that.

I finished several of the "Vital Stim" treatments I mentioned in December. That's electrical stimulation to improve swallowing. I've seen incremental improvement there but not wholesale improvement by any stretch. I have a Video Swallow Study January 19th that will gauge my improvement a little more scientifically than "Cliff's opinion", but I'm expecting the conclusion to be "Oh well, we tried".

Things are going well in general. Struggling to stay warm and to keep my driveway free of snow, but I feel good. Haven't gained any weight back and I still have a limited repertoire at the dinner table, but other than that all's well.

I hope everyone had a good and safe holiday season.