Sunday, March 24, 2019

OMA - a family of cancers

I did not realize there were so many cancers with oma in them, carcinoma, sarcoma, lymphoma,  blastoma,  glioma, but the one that decided to reside in hubby is melanoma. We found out in March of 2018 that this vicious bastardly thing decided to set up housekeeping on or in his eye,  Ocular melanoma they called it. Quite rare they said, hubby decided to have treatment of radioactive seed plaque to combat this .5mm tumor on his eye. surgery done plaque removed 4 days later, ok seeds, lets get to work and kill this unwanted visitor. 3 month follow-up, looking good, about 1 to 2 % shrinkage of tumor, eyesight is still at a 60% loss, of course this has to be in his right eye the dominant one.  6 month follow-up, looking better (no pun intended here) 3 to 4 % shrinkage, sight ratio is still the same,   9 month follow-up 4% shrinkage, they say it could take 2-5 years for tumor to completely dissipate if seeds do their job.  Hubby also had choice of having eye completely removed but decided against that when he was told most of his sight would return, after all he is an avid shooter, trap & skeet shooting, he won many accolades and trophies enjoying this sport, he is also a bird hunter, pheasant, quail, chukar, he would take annual hunting trips every november to do what he loved doing the most.  One year March 2019 follow-up the tumor is dying the only drawback to this is a distant relative called choroidal malignant melanoma has moved in right next to the dying tumor. This one is also .5mm, now when we were told about the first tumor we asked how long had it been there  "probably one to one and a half years", no symptoms, hubby woke up one day said he was seeing "psychedelic colors" in his right eye and lo and behold this is what it was. Now if this new tumor is the same size as the dying one and it wasn't there 3 months ago i think we got some major issues here. OH yeah, this is a very aggressive one here people.                                                                                                                       Now come all the tests, mri's ct scans, surgery scheduled to completely remove his eye ! whoa, hold on test results show this tumor has decided to take up residence in hubby's spine and liver.  Well panic city here we come !!!  Eye removal surgery is cancelled now, we have more mri's and ct's scheduled later this week and then biopsies to determine what stage this cancer is in.  STAGE !!!  STAGE !!    what the hell kind of role do we play on this unwanted stage,  perhaps chemo, no more radiation we were told, it would do more harm than good  HUH !  Now we are at the stage of wait and see, from what i can see this is bad, and i do mean extremely very bad,                                                                                                                                 This man i see before me is not the same, how can he be, he is rapidly losing weight, he is on painkiller meds, the pain in his back is excruciating for him, this is a macho man people who can take pain like a man (as that saying goes), not this time. he is getting weaker every day, he sleeps so much now, a man who always said naps were for sissies, no appetite, no energy.                                                                                                                                                             Hubby has been dealing with cancer since 2010 it was prostate cancer then, that one was cured, skin cancers, numerous ones, those were cured, We are not too sure about this one though, Sure everyone says keep your hopes up, all are praying for him which is so appreciated, have faith !!                                                                                                                                     We have long days ahead of us here to face, we can only hope and pray, after all it is out of our hands,  come what may,  we can just take it day by day.                                                                    I will be posting as much as i can but with the circumstances here we will see when and if.  Take care my SPECIAL READERS!  Ta-Ta for now. 

2 comments:

  1. Oh my dear not good news my wish is that Mr. Barr gets through as well as you. Always in my positive thoughts.

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