NINETY FIVE PERCENT

Yesterday I reported on my recovery. A topic that can only be of interest to myself and my two daughters, who are tired of me using my ailment as an excuse not to walk the dog, take out garbage and other assorted Dad tasks.

Today, in other and much more important health-related news, I am sharing an update on my wife's ongoing battle with a very rare liver/bile duct cancer that turned our lives upside down, two days after the country went on Covid lockdown in March of 2020. 

The past year and a half has not been fun. But Cancer Queen and I and our two amazing effervescent daughters are making the best of it. 

They can't take away our ability to laugh.

About two months ago, the Radiologist on our UCLA Team (the best in the land for my money and the money of United Healthcare) called us out of the blue. Dr. Sid, short for Siddharta, suggested we look into the possibility of the relatively new Y90 treatment. 

In laymen's terms --because I'm no doctor, though as I often remind my wife, "I got an A+ in Biology as a freshman in college" -- the nuclear medicine team would prepare a special batch of microscopic glass beads containing radioactive material with a very short half life. The beads are injected into large arteries which are feeding the tumor. They then begin to embolize the surrounding tissue (tumor) and effectively kill it.

We thought long and hard over the wisdom of trying this procedure. It was not without its risks. But since the chemo had stopped working and my wife was bedridden 23 hours a day from the never-ending fatigue, we decided to go Y90.

That was a month ago, about the same time I was being filleted for my surgery. 

In the weeks that followed, Deb was down for the count. Not eating. Not reading. Not moving. Not doing much of anything. Sad confession, she wasn't nagging me either, so that was nice.

Last Monday, she went in for the very telling CT scan, which would inform us whether those tiny pellets had done what they promised to do. And two days later, Dr. Sid called us via a televisit.

He gave us a painfully lengthy preamble, much like the one you're reading right now. Admitting, that because of the complexity of Deb's tumor, this Y90 treatment was the trickiest one he had ever conducted, including the hundreds he had done at University of Washington, my daughter's alma mater.

Finally, with a big smile he announced, 

"It worked. The embolization has effectively killed 95% of the tumor!" 

Tears. Smiles. More tears. More smiles.

This fucking tumor, which has sunk its insidious tentacles into all our lives, has met its match.

As anyone who ridden the Carcinoma Train knows, we are not out of the woods. Yet. But the next steps can wait. In fact, our lead oncologist said we can have 2-3 months without any procedures or any chemo. And with increased energy and positivity, Debbie can slowly recover and get back to some normalcy. 

Nothing would make me happier. Even a little nagging.

Deb and I hope to celebrate by taking Lucy on a hike. Something we haven't done in what feels like 95 years.