My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer

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Those images are in the coronal plane. Below are axial images.
Again, the small image shows the tumor surrounding the bowel.
So, what next. I await a callback from Dr Nghiem. I have spoken briefly with Dr Flam. I
have also spoken with Dr Ed Felix, a good friend, who is well known in the field of
laparoscopic surgery and who has trained as an oncologic surgeon. I wii see him on
Monday. I think he can remove this tumor using laparoscopic technique, with relatively
little morbidity. Hopefully this will happen in the next week or so before I develop a small
bowel obstruction. After that, who knows? Chemotherapy? Watch and wait for the next
mole to pop up? It may be a while before I get some answers.
I would not have been surprised to see liver or lung metastases on this examination. In
fact, I was almost expecting liver metastases to account for the indigestion. This was a
shocker, and speaks to the variability of this disease.
Well, I still will not give up. If the bowel lesion is removed and is confined to the bowel,
and the mediastinal lesion is not growing, maybe we can get rid of every trace of this
bully for good.
Posted by David Shuster at 03:09PM (-07:00)
My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer