Those pesky little cancer cells made it to the naughty list.

Let’s recap a moment….tumor discovered on my pancreas in June. Took 3 separate endoscopic biopsies to determine what kind of cancer this was. Final diagnosis made in early September.

Stage 4 metastatic renal cell clear cell carcinoma of the pancreas. Or in simple English, kidney cell cancer on my pancreas.

After meetings with two oncologists and a pancreatic surgeon, it was decided that surgery for this cancer would be necessary but not until I could lose some weight to make the surgery safer. The combined opinion of these experts was this was a slow growing cancer and we had time. They also felt that no treatment was necessary at this time. The plan was to wait until December and then check my progress. So 12 weeks later, I was down 31 pounds and ready for this to get out of me. But life has other plans.

I had an MRI on Dec 12 and it showed that the tumor had grown, slightly but still growth. And there was now a second tumor on my pancreas. Not what we had hoped for. I met with both oncologists and the surgeon this past week. The major concern is the new growth. Seems there are some pesky little rogue cells roaming around looking for places to settle. So the plan changed. Surgery will be pushed back 3-6 months while I begin a course of immunotherapy that will consist of a daily pill and an infusion every 3 weeks. We do not want these cells to set up house on other organs. So these drugs will shrink the current tumors and seek out and destroy those little traveling bastards. This is what happens when you make it to the Naughty List.