I started up chemotherapy in October, 2022, immediately after finding out the cancer had metastasized to the liver. I started my chemo journey at Tennessee Oncology which was very convenient as it is only 20 minute drive from my home.
I got started on a regimen named Folfox, a common, highly effective combination chemotherapy regimen used primarily to treat colorectal cancer, consisting of leucovorin calcium (folinic acid), fluorouracil (5-FU), and oxaliplatin. The game plan was to be on this every two weeks for 12 weeks.
The 5-FU is a standard chemo used for colon cancer, the oxiliplatin can be interchanged in some patients with Irinotecan. In which case it is otherwise known as Folfiri. The oxiliplatin can be rather rough. The doctors warned when I leave the building I may feel colder than normal. Also, I may feel a sting when grabbing cold items such as food out of the refrigerator or freezer. Boy, they weren’t kidding. Trying to grab ice cream, or frozen meat to cook was a challenge as it sent a shock through my hands. Wicked stuff.
Anyway, the overall goal for this 12 week period is obviously to kill off the cancer or, at least, have the lesions decrease in size. (Lesions and cancer may be used interchangeably in this post.)
After the 12th round of chemo at TN Oncology, my lesions still appeared. This prompted my oncologist to suggest I transfer my care to Vanderbilt University as they offer a more aggressive chemo procedure named “Hepatic Arterial Infusion“. This procedure begins with the surgical implantation of a pump under the skin. The pump acts as a reservoir for chemotherapy medicine. It delivers high doses of chemotherapy directly to the liver through the liver’s main artery, called the hepatic artery.
I had this pump placed in me on August 23, 2023, almost a year after my original diagnosis. The pump would be filled every 2 weeks along side a regimen of Folfiri as well. So basically, we are attacking the lesions in multiple ways. I was on this HAI procedure for upwards of a year and , in the end, it really didn’t accomplish for me what was hoped. The lesions still remained but were remaining stable or a slight decrease in size.
Exactly a year later, on August 23, 2024, my surgical oncologist decided to get aggressive and had me come in for an operation on my liver. He performed a resection of the right lobe and ablation on the left lobe. Resection is removing the liver, ablation is burning away the lesions. The liver is actually the only organ in the body to regenerate itself. This is why it is ok to resect at least half the liver and why transplants work so well.
Effectively, after this surgery, I had no lesions remaining in my liver, yay! But was I free of cancer???
Once you become Stage IV, there is no such thing as “healed”, or “cancer free”. What we call it is “NED”, no evidence of disease. The problem is, once you are this far along, the cancer can re-emerge or pop up anywhere at any time.
Every now an then after the operation, I would take new MRI’s and CT scans to determine if the cancer is still gone or came back. unfortunately, a scan finally came back that revealed the cancer had now spread to the lung. More bad news. It was still gone from the liver, but meant time to go back on chemo.
I spent the next 6 months, through March of 2025, on a every other two week chemo regimen. Fortunately, the lesions in the lungs don’t grow significantly fast. All the lesions either remained stable or decreased in size. So in April, the onologist decided it was time to take a break from chemo as too much of it for too long could kill me also.
During that same time, we decided to have my HAI pump surgically removed as it was no longer being used and didn’t really help to begin with. So I was looking forward to getting back into exercising, running, biking, weightlifting, etc.
Then BAM! One more setback. My bilirubin sky-rocketed, from a normal range of 0 – 1, all the way up to a 10 at one point. Therefore I had to have two drainage tubes surgically placed in between my rib cage and placed into my intrahepatic arterial ducts. The cause of my spike in bilirubin was strictures in my intrahepatic ducts ultimately caused by years of pounding my body with chemotherapy. To this day, Jan of 2026, I still have these drainage tubes in me. They extremely reduce my ability to do much of anything. I can make puzzles, paint, etc. but have no ability to get physical. I couldn’t even go in my freakin pool this past summer or the hot tub. So annoying.
Then in August, 2025, a new MRI/CT scan showed lesion had popped back up in the liver. So that’s when it was time to go back on chemo again. Later that month, my surgical oncologist suggested we try another procedure, relatively new since late 2023 named “Histotripsy“. This is a non-invasive, radiation-free, and incision-free FDA-approved (2023) treatment for liver tumors using focused sound waves to create “bubble clouds” that liquefy cancer cells. This precision technology targets tumors up to 5 cm while sparing healthy surrounding tissue. It is an outpatient procedure offering a 95.5% success rate in trials with minimal side effects like temporary pain or discomfort.
This procedure turned out to be a success and killed off one of the lesion. We couldn’t do this to all the cancer in the liver as they have to be at least a certian size. All my lesions are rather small, 2-6mm in size.
So this is pretty much where I stand at the current moment. I still have a handful of lesions in the liver and in the lungs. I will go for my 53rd round of chemo on January 30, 2026.