How The Cancer Was Discovered

I think it was in December of  2011 when I decided to contact my doctor for a routine annual exam. When visiting the doctor they told me that I had high blood pressure and they needed to get me on medication to get that under control. So we did that and I went on for about a month with a lot of anxiety about having a heart attack.

One day while driving back from Portland I was having chest pains so the following Monday when I was back at my Doctors office I told him. He took a chest X-Ray and and EKG to check my heart and everything seemed fine as far as he could tell with the exception of the X-Ray showing that my stomach was up in my chest as the result of a haietal hernia.

I'd been having some trouble swallowing and some back pain too so this seemed to explain what might be causing that. They decided to have me talk with a Surgeon to see about pulling the stomach down and fixing the hernia. The Surgeon said he could not make an assessment about what to do until we were sure there was not a tumor blocking my esophagus and causing my swallowing issue.

Nest step was to have them look down my throat with a camera. Needless to say they found a tumor and said it looked like cancer. A week later I found out it was cancer then a week later I found out it was at least stage 3 then a week after that I had a PET scan which confirmed it was actually stage 4 and they also found it in my liver and my lung.

It was that final bit that set me on the course of treatment I have chosen with the chemo. That and the amount of pain and lack of ability to eat really made me feel like knocking it back with the chemo was the way to go. So now here I am in that process.

For those of you who have not followed the entire blog, please know I am aware of the bad aspects of chemo and I am on a nutrition plan for going into it, during treatment and after. I've seen and read about many alternative treatments that have been shared with me and am engaged in some of them as well.

Thanks to everybody for your support. Mary and I are are eternally grateful for your generosity in helping us financially through my benefit fund or helping us with food and other tasks and many thanks for all of the kind words and love you have all sent out way.