(Mostly) Positive Update

The good:

Surgeon is very happy with the overall results of the torture procedures (25%+ shrinkage of a decent amount of the tumors) and feels optimistic/hopeful the liver tumors will behave or grow only minimally over the next year, so Paul should hopefully have about a year of liver stability. She did mention the reality/likelihood of needing to repeat the procedures in the future, and I’m pretty sure I saw him laser beam a hole in her brain with his eyeballs 👀⚡️💀.

New questionable lung nodule:

There’s a new tiny (0.3 cm) nodule in his lung. Oncologist said It’s possible the nodule is metastasis to a new organ, but it also could just be inflammation or something benign. There is literally nothing we can do right now, as it’s too small to biopsy. He said not to lose sleep over it (ha!), as he will be watching it carefully and will scan it again in three months. Then we can determine if it's anything to worry about.

This definitely isn’t the worst news, but we really could have used a 'procedure went as expected, no new issues, go enjoy life for a bit!' report. Thankfully, we can still do that and are so grateful; it just would have been great to not have this new worry creeping in our minds.

Leg pain:

Paul is still struggling badly with around-the-clock leg pain, and it’s only gotten worse. Going up a flight of stairs is the new bane of his existence. Vascular and rheumatology both ruled out problems on their end last week. They referred him to a neurologist on March 6th to see if it could be nerve-related. The search for answers and relief continues.

Miserable belly:

His stomach has been a wreck (even more than usual, which is impressive), and it's significantly affecting his quality of life every day. Since he stopped his treatment and his liver tumors have been reduced, his oncologist feels he should have had more digestive relief. He’s now being sent back to GI on March 5th to see if they can figure out what might be going on.

Reality Check:

Doc (as nicely as possible) told him today that he is going to have to accept and learn to live with the fact that he's going to always have some extent of disease, disease progression, procedures, etc. (Barring any new miracle treatments/cures in the future, of course.) It certainly wasn't the best thing to hear, but it is the truth and reality of his cancer, and we appreciated the transparency and reminder of the reality of his future.

So... we will continue to do what we have been doing. Give Paul the most amount of enjoyment/fun between the symptoms/procedures.

Hopeful + Moving Forward:

While he still gets bouts of fatigue/crashes and the leg/GI issues are a problem, the procedure pain is thankfully fully gone and he’s closer every day to feeling back to 'normal.' In true Paul fashion... he went from being bed/couch-ridden straight to throwing himself super hard into working his ASS off (shocking!), playing what feels like a never-ending game of massive catch-up, and trying to get back to enjoying life.

Hopefully no more updates until May/June 🤞🏻🙏🏻

P.S. If you leave a comment, please also let us know who you are! We get many comments that come through as "GuestXXXX" and we can't tell who they are from!

Dayna :)