Update on bigredman

[bigredman]

Got results of latest CAT scan today. The three tumors on my pancreas are the same size. The one surrounding the artery is slightly restricting the blood flow to my spleen (this also prevents surgery). It appears the tumor near the liver is causing the intra and extrahepatic bile ducts to dilate due to pressing against them. This is causing my increased pain. I'll be seeing a gastroenterologist tomorrow to see if I need surgery on that (inserting a stint). The worry is that if the condition worsens, it could cause me to become jaundice. My oncologist has increased my chemo strength and number of drugs. My chemo treatment will be 5 and half hours long each time now and each session will continue to have three treatments. We will do two more sessions at this increased strength to see if there is any change in the tumors (this week and in April), if no change, then we will begin radiation therapy with the chemo probably in May. She also increased the strength of my morphine patch to deal with the pain. So it's good news (tumors haven't grown or spread), bad news (tumors haven't reduced in size and other complications have developed) kind of day. I broke even I guess and I can live with that...literally. Thank you all my ClanRam brothers and sisters for your support as well as all the Rams players that have left comments on my carepages site. You can keep track of my progress by going to carepages.com, become a member, and then search bigredman.

[HUbison]

Stay strong, big guy.

[AvengerRam]

Keep fighting Randy. We're all thinking of you.

[Ramblin` Ram]

keep fighting warrior...

your courage in battle is inspiring me to combat in my own personal battle.

[Keenum]

Been checking in on your carepages site, thanks for the update.
Hang in there man, I know you can get through this.

[georgie430]

Hi, I dont know you but admire your strength and courage inbattling this disease.
Its something very close to home for me, adn would like to tell you that people like you are very inspirational to people like me (not that strong) would love to follow your home page if possibe, I dont know if your religious or would welcome prayer, but I would like to ask God to look upon you Bigredman and your family.

with the best of intentions,

georgie in NY

[ramstiles]

keep fighting big man

[RamDez]

Keep fighting Randy, your an inspiration to everyone big guy

[Goldenfleece]

Thanks for the update, big man. We'll be rooting for you to beat this thing.

[Azul e Oro]

Got results of latest CAT scan today. The three tumors on my pancreas are the same size. The one surrounding the artery is slightly restricting the blood flow to my spleen (this also prevents surgery). It appears the tumor near the liver is causing the intra and extrahepatic bile ducts to dilate due to pressing against them. This is causing my increased pain. I'll be seeing a gastroenterologist tomorrow to see if I need surgery on that (inserting a stint). The worry is that if the condition worsens, it could cause me to become jaundice. My oncologist has increased my chemo strength and number of drugs. My chemo treatment will be 5 and half hours long each time now and each session will continue to have three treatments. We will do two more sessions at this increased strength to see if there is any change in the tumors (this week and in April), if no change, then we will begin radiation therapy with the chemo probably in May. She also increased the strength of my morphine patch to deal with the pain. So it's good news (tumors haven't grown or spread), bad news (tumors haven't reduced in size and other complications have developed) kind of day. I broke even I guess and I can live with that...literally. Thank you all my ClanRam brothers and sisters for your support as well as all the Rams players that have left comments on my carepages site. You can keep track of my progress by going to carepages.com, become a member, and then search bigredman.

My thoughts & best wishes are always with you, my Rambrother. I'll post this on your care page as well but I wanted to mention some personal specific experience I had with my mom's own battle with pancreatic cancer that may be helpful. Hopefully you already know. Her tumor was already so large that the jaundice issue had already developed; it was the jaundice that led to its discovery, in fact.

We were living in the UK at the time & alternative medical options were still relatively unknown there but were gaining wider recognition.There is still a lot of resistance in the conventional medical field in the US but it seems, thankfully, to have more momentum here 20+ years later.

In short, have someone in your support team look into B17/Laetrile therapy.

It isn't a replacement for modern medical technology but I can attest that I am sure it lengthened my Mom's life & improved the quality as well; she was given a guesstimate of 3 months & lived for over two years.I hasten to add that the terminal nature of her situation was due to the cancer's late discovery & it was over 20 years ago so I'm sure you are in a better position in terms of its stage & the advances in conventional treatment.

Even if you are skeptical of homeopathy, it certainly helped both my Mom & our family psychologically to feel specifically pro-active in fighting the disease with something tangible & ordinary like diet. One of the toughest aspects of the experience for my Mom & our family, along with the overall stress, on a daily basis was this helpless feeling that there was stuff going on in her body that we didn't fully understand &, let's face it, that the complex techniques/chemistry/machines in the doctors arsenal were scary and confusing and seemed so alien & abstract. Put another way, doing something as simple as eating the right things felt like we were supporting her body, rather than regarding it as an enemy to be defeated.

Again, my best wishes to you & yours. The absence of your life-affirming generous & joyous spirit here is our loss but it's the best reason to believe that you can beat this thing. A lot of it is about heart,imo, and you have a huge one.