Plan B

Where I currently find myself, staring at Plan B, which is scheduled for Monday, May 6th. A mere 2 days from today. This plan involves a surgery which has been dubbed MOAS, the Mother Of All Surgeries. It includes a cytoreductive surgery, plus the right colectomy and any debulking that needs to be done, combined with a procedure called HIPEC. It is a 12-16 hour surgery in which the team goes in and removes all (or as much of) the visible tumors as possible. They take each organ and inspect it for tumor nodes and resect (remove) as many as possible. Then they do a targeted chemotherapy treatment directly in the abdomen. Its awful. My husbands body will literally be spread open and his insides exposed for hours. The infection rate is dismal, the opportunity for something to go wrong is high. Its terrifying. But so is having stage IV cancer. What is our other option? Do a traditional chemotherapy treatment, which, I think, through the research I’ve done, I know not to be very effective for this PMP type of cancer.

I have good days and bad days. I am trying to stay as positive as possible but my mind is consumed with this barbaric procedure that my husband will have to endure. I’ve been trying to keep busy with work, but as soon as I start something, my mind immediately comes back to this. I am so lucky to have a job that supports me and is understanding of what I’m going through. I know not everyone is as lucky as I am in terms of flexibility and I cannot imagine having someone hold job performance over your head as you’re dealing with this. Like you don’t have enough to worry about. And me? My job? My P1 team and my opportunity that I had been working for, waiting for? That was on hold. In life you have few chances to choose the right thing. To prove to yourself and to the people who you hold most dear that they are truly your priority. My family is my #1 priority and there was no question in my mind, this wasn’t a choice. When they need me most, I will be there. Everything else gets moved to the back burner. Period.

What I am yet to understand is how this thing could have spread so uncontrollably with absolutely NO physical symptoms!! I mean, how does that happen? One of the reasons we were so convinced that Plan A was going to be our path was because my husband was completely fine! I mean, if someone had stage 4 cancer, you would think they would be exhibiting some kind of symptoms, right? You see people with stage 4 cancer on their death bed, not up, frolicking around with their 4 year old and living a completely normal life. How did this get so out of control so quickly? And why did they not resect it when they first saw it at the last surgery?? All these questions roll through my head with no time left to ask them before the surgery on Monday. I didn’t even have time to get a second opinion before all this was set into motion. Now, if we pump the breaks, we basically risk the cancer spreading more prolifically and being worse — a risk I am not willing to take. I am convinced enough and have enough evidence from the research I’ve done to know that this HIPEC is our best hope, so the fact that our doctor is using this as a strategy to attack the cancer is good enough for me at this point. But I am worried. I recently connected with a facebook group for people with appendix cancers, PMP and PSM. And the thing that EVERYONE keeps telling me is to get with a specialist who knows about appendix cancers. Our doctor does not, he is not an appendix specialist, but he is the only one in our area who knows how to do HIPEC and if we end our journey with him after the HIPEC and seek out someone who is more experienced with my husbands specific cancer, we do that. But we’re sticking with him through the procedure.

But what happens after that?

I didn’t get a chance to even ask that question. Never in a million years did I think I’d be in this position, but also, never did I think that we’d have to resort to Plan B, so I never asked any of the questions around Plan B — and what comes after it. Is it a round of traditional chemo? Has that recently been found to be effective? I have no idea what’s next.