Warning: Lots of swearing. Like, even more than normal.
Four years ago this month I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time, I searched for an appropriate domain where my blog could live. Bob helpfully suggested that "tittiecancer.com" was available. I ended up going with "cancerouskate.com", which was fortuitously general; I can easily revive it for Cancer 2.0: Liver cancer.
What the fuck? Yes, it's true! I have liver cancer. It's a bit weird because we've been doing endless testing on Abbie dog; it was looking like he might have liver cancer, and that prospect was pretty stressful and upsetting. Turns out he has Cushing's disease, which is totally manageable.
The same week we found out Abbie does NOT have liver cancer, I had a biopsy that ultimately showed that I DO have liver cancer. Seriously, though, what the fuck?
This all started in January when I saw my oncologist after slacking on breast cancer follow up because of Covid. A routine blood test showed an elevated liver number, more scans pointed to apparent fatty liver disease. Which isn't great, and it's something I count in the same bucket as gout and pre-diabetes as afflictions of middle-aged poor decision making. Shortly after that diagnosis, I started working with a nutrition therapist to try to get a handle on what I was eating, and also try to rebuild my gut flora after it was decimated by chemo and weeks’ worth of IV antibiotics. Basically, I stopped eating gluten, dairy, cane sugar, soy, caffeine, corn, peanuts and a whole lot of other stuff that my body was reactive to in blood tests.
It is almost irritating how fucking good I felt (and still feel). No more eating handfuls of Tums. No more body aches. All of my myriad inflammatory conditions improved dramatically. I lost weight without trying to lose weight -- but not in a sick way, more of a “what happens when you snack on berries rather than cookies and ice cream” way.
I was supposed to schedule a follow-up MRI on my fatty liver in three months. I was pretty sure that with all of my dietary changes, I was about to dramatically defeat fatty liver, but just to make sure, I held off a bit on that appointment to give me more time on the super clean eating plan. And I prepared to receive my medal.
Instead of a medal, I found very a very confusing result in My Chart after the new MRI. Paraphrased, it said there was one area in particular that has doubled in size, could be nothing, could be a really terrible thing, but might be nothing, but kind of looks more like the terrible thing. A quick google of the terrible thing defined it as liver cancer. Because this result arrived early evening on a Friday, I got to spend the weekend consulting with Dr. Google, who determined I was looking at a 24-month expiration date.
Luckily, with time has come much more information, and the more information we've received, the better my future looks. And longer. Like pretty much definitely more than two years, barring any rogue encounters with a Mack Truck. I have hepatocellular carcinoma. It is unrelated to my breast cancer – this is a whole new cancer. It is growing quickly, but the tumor is still small at 4 cm x 3 cm. It's unusual to find these tumors in people who don't have cirrhosis, hepatitis, or massive drinking issues (weird). It's also unusual to find them when they're still this small (good).
And I'm getting tired of this story, but the takeaway is that Mayo's head of surgery is laparoscopically removing the affected part of my liver later this month, as I don’t need all of my liver and the tumor is well situated to be just lopped off (the physician's assistant we saw at Mayo yesterday laughed and said, "Oh, this will be easy!!" when she pulled up my scans). My oncologist doesn't think I'll need any chemo or radiation afterwards, just monitoring. The surgeon said that a month after surgery, I'll be 100% recovered and good as new.
We have been lucky to be able to pay insane health insurance premiums to make sure we've got excellent coverage – and the Mayo Clinic is in-network, just in case of fuckery like liver cancer. I don't know how much I can really complain about bullshit like new cancer when I can have one of the best surgeons in the world at one of the best hospitals in the world address it quickly and at absolutely zero out-of-pocket cost to me (already hit my max for this year!). I don't take any of this for granted. But still. What the fuck.