Call Me NED

This morning I visited my thoracic surgeon, Dr. S. He's the fellow (along with my oncology surgeon, Dr. P) who cut open my chest and abdomen in order to remove my stomach and 1/2 of my esophagus. This was a post surgical follow-up visit, which seems to be a pretty standard follow-up for these things. His words to me are that I am recovering and progressing very well. He likened my surgery to being hit by a Mack truck and that the recovery should take quite a while. I still have soreness in my left rib cage area from under my arm to the middle of my chest. Naturally, the impatient side of me wants all this to be over with, but Dr. S assured me that this is to be expected and it could last for a few months. He also reiterated that I am coming along very fast. I guess that I need to take homage to his expert opinion despite my impatience!

Dr. S also declared me NED. NED stands for No Evidence of Disease. Basically, the tumor is removed and there are good margins, meaning there was no cancer messiness near where they cut off the esophagus and stomach. Great news! Only one of the lymph nodes that were removed was cancerous, and it was adjacent to the area of concern. As such, he has confidence that things are going well. However, he has adjusted his opinion a bit and seems to be in agreement with Dr. P that follow-up chemo is warranted. I'll find out more about that this afternoon as I am going to see my chemo oncologist this afternoon. I believe that there will be chemo in my very near future. The biggest questions are: "When will it start?"; "How many rounds?"; & "What will the intensity be?" Whatever the answers to these questions, I have very mixed feelings about chemo. I'm in support of getting it done to make sure cancer doesn't rear it's ugly head again. At the same time, I am not looking forward to the way chemo affects me. The yin & yang of the situation!

Well no matter how this goes, just remember to call me NED. NED is excellent!