Continuing my story.....I woke up in the middle of the night, throwing up and feeling miserable...assumed I had a stomach virus. In the morning, I went to work without eating since anything I ate came right back out. After getting the boys out to school from my job (group home), I did the paperwork necessary and went home early to sleep it off, but by the late afternoon I was not better. I made an appointment with my doctor and went there with my wife. Bryan stayed home doing his homework.

The doctor was quick to diagnoses that something was blocking my intestines. After a stool test where it came back positive for blood, he admitted me to the hospital. When the Barium drink they gave me did not go through for the CAT scan to show anything, I was admitted. My boss had been admitted early for her pregnancy and was due any minute. I was concern that with both in the hospital who was going to run the facility.

Starting December 23, 2008, I spend 19 days in the hospital. I have documented each day in a journal which I did during the months of recovery at home just to keep the experience clear. I promise that one day I will post the journal, all 20 plus pages, for those who may be interested. For now, a quick summery.

It took until December 29 for the Barium to flush out of my system so that the doctor could repeat it by doing a series of x-rays to observe where the obstruction was located. During all this time, I was on no fluid or food restrictions and my weight dropped rapidly. By the time I left the hospital at the end of the 19 days, I lost about 35 pounds!

On December 30, I had a colonoscopy done to see what was the obstruction since now the knew where was the location. The night before as I walked the hospital halls with my wife, I had a bad feeling that it was cancer and told my wife. She tried to change the topic and stick to a simpler problem that it was a polyp or trapped food in the colon. However, I was right and it did turn out to be colon cancer but we were not aware how bad yet. Surgery was scheduled for the next day.

So, as everyone else was getting ready to celebrate the new year, I was being taken to the operation room where they took out a baseball size tumor from the colon, a large section of the colon with the appendix, 21 lymph nodes which 2 had cancer, and a biopsies of the liver which had 3 small tumors.
When I woke up in excruciating pain, I knew that it was bad, stage 4 colon cancer. Again, I will omit the details for the rest of my stay at the hospital and defer to the journal once I post it.

In the middle of January, I went back to surgery to place the port on my left shoulder for future chemotherapy. I started aggressive chemo in February 2009 for six months, 12 sessions very two weeks. It sucked!!!!!!!!!!! Best way to describe the feeling is to tell you to put your brain in a bucket of bleach and maybe you may come close to chemo.

I returned to work after 4 months and completed my chemo rounds by July 2009. Then, just as I was feeling better, I had the surgery on the liver to remove the 3 tumor in August 2009. I was cancer-free. In September 2009, I started six months of chemo pills as precaution with Avastin treatment every 3 weeks. I remained cancer-free. I completed the pills in March 2010. However, four months of the chemo the cancer returned, three new tumors on my liver which were detected in September 2010.

During my cancer, a dear friend was also diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. She went through similar events of treatment and was cancer-free as I was. Then her cancer returned in August 2010 while my was detected a month later. After some delays with insurance issues, I was operated in November 2010 and was once again considered cancer-free. However, my friend died in early November. I could not understand why I was cured and she died. It hit me hard. I cried for a long time.

In December 2010, I started aggressive chemo with different type of medication but just as bad. I hate chemo!!!! I remained cancer-free while on chemo. Once it was stopped, it returned four months later in the liver again. This time one tumor, November 2011.

I just had an ablation procedure at RWJ Hospital to burn the tumor. Although easier and quicker to recover from than surgery, it still hurts! I am again cancer-free but for how long?

At work, they call me superman since I recover quickly for the treatments and kept my weight. Most people would not have guessed what I have been through by looking at me since I do not look like the typical cancer patient. I do look healthy and strong, but each treatment takes it toll of me. I do try keeping positive and have lots of support from friends and family but it sucks. The worse is the waiting for the next scan, anticipating that it going to return and the nightmare start again. I hope this will be the last. I have an appointment with my oncologist this week, hopefully no more chemo, at least for now.

I figure that there must be a reason why I am still live........for the life of me, I do not know why. With this blog, I hope, one, to express my frustration/feelings and, two, maybe connect with others sharing similar experience and help them through it. I hope to explain it in more detail, my experience and how it has affected me and, more, how it has affected my love ones (my care-givers).