A Picture Worth 10,000 Words!

Sheboygan Dan, a fellow Appendilooza, recently sent a link to this profoundly right cartoon:

Even the timing shown in the comic is about the same as mine!  The cartoonist's "xkcd" cartoons (A webcomic of romance,
sarcasm, math, and language) can be found here.  Whoever he is, he's a genius as well as being hilarious!  His author's "blag" can be found here.  I ran across this site a year ago or so, and loved it immediately then, but then completely forgot about it until Sheboygan Dan sent the link.  Apparently there's more to this story, as you can discover for yourself by following the link and then clicking on the comic:  

Family Illness

Posted on June 30, 2011

Last fall I posted about a family illness, but didn’t give a lot of details.
In October my fiancée was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. It’s rare for young women to get breast cancer, and she’s otherwise healthy and has no family history, so it was a real bolt from the blue.
She’s been in nonstop treatment for the last eight months, which has been an emotional and physical ordeal that’s hard to describe. We both have all the support we could ask for—including an incredible medical team—and we’ve had some really good moments during these months, but it’s still a terrifying and isolating experience. Treatment is ongoing, and there’s no well-defined end point; things are going to continue to be scary and difficult for a while.
I’m usually pretty private about my personal life, but I wanted to explain why I’ve missed some midnight comic deadlines and have been particularly hard to reach lately. I’ve also spent a lot of these eight months immersed in cancer science, and I want to be free to talk (and draw comics) about stuff I’m learning without the unexplained subject matter leaving everyone worried and guessing.
Thank you so much for your patience, kind words, and all the little flash games you all sent. And all the best to those of you who are also caring for someone with cancer, or who are struggling with cancer yourselves.

I certainly wish xkcd and his  fiancée/wife all the best and hope and pray for her stage III breast cancer to go away completely and permanently!  Along with my appendix cancer!

Finding Chemo (Again)!

I had my 15th chemotherapy treatment (FOLFIRI) today.  We hit a bit of a speed bump on the road to complete cancer freedom with my most recent CT scan, which I had on Wednesday, April 11, 2012.  We were hoping and praying, of course, for a result of No Evidence of Disease (NED our pal!), but instead were told, on April 12, 2012 (ironically one year to the day after my marathon 12-hour debulking/HIPEC surgery!), by my wonderful surgeon, Dr. Paul Mansfield, that there was, in fact, Evidence of Disease.  There were at least a couple of spots in my abdominal cavity that appeared to be growing, probably on my peritoneum, the large membrane that envelops the gut.


In retrospect, looking back at my previous CT scan from Wednesday, January 11, 2012, one of the spots that was clearly seen on my most recent CT scan was present there, too, only it was too small to be noticed if you didn't know exactly where to look!  Apparently, a result of NED only lasts until your next CT scan and can be somewhat contingent on subsequent CT scans!  The odds were definitely in my favor (as Katniss and Gale would say in the Hunger Games), given that 1/3 of HIPEC patients go into more or less complete remission, as opposed to the 1/1000 patients who do who only receive IV chemo!  According to the laws of probability and statistics, even then 2/3 HIPEC patients don't go into more or less complete remission!  But, we haven't given up hope, nonetheless!  I still feel in my heart of hearts that I'm truly an "outlier" and can beat this appendix cancer, yet!  Especially with everyone praying for me and wishing me the best and directing positive thoughts and vibes in our direction!  If God is for us (and I know beyond knowing that He is, in all senses of that affirmation!), who can be against us?


We don't know if these tumor cells somehow evaded the HIPEC sloshing during my marathon 12-hour surgery last year or if they were resistant to the Oxalyplatin used for my HIPEC surgery and the subsequent 8 FOLFIRI chemo treatments I received after I'd recovered sufficiently from my surgery or both (or neither)!  Only time will tell!  Amen!