wujcik.blog

When I entered the hospital, exactly a month ago, it was my first hospitalization since I was a small child, more than fifty years ago, and I thought the doctors were just over reacting, treating a stomach flu as if it were a heart attack.

Later that day I had an ultrasound. The tech was close-mouthed, but I knew something was wrong, if for no other reason than a routine examination shouldn’t take all that long, or require that much double-checking. Sure enough, as the follow-up CT Scan and biopsy revealed, I had cancer, malignant, in multiple places, none of them good. It had started in the pancreas (explaining my diagnosis of diabetes earlier in the year), and spread so extensively to the liver that the tumors were described as ‘innumerable.’

A couple of days later I was informed that my beloved friends, Dan and Tina Iyama-Kurtycz, had booked flights from Madison, Wisconsin to Oakland, California, and that they had made arrangements for me to see a world-class specialist in pancreatic cancer at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Since they’re both medical doctors, with hellishly busy schedules, it was a big clue they were taking this thing seriously.

Fast forward through various meetings with Kaiser doctors (I’m covered by the Kaiser-Permanente HMO), including my primary and my new oncologist, and it was clear that the prognosis was dire. Of greatest concern is my liver, and trying to maintain its function, so ‘aggressive chemotherapy’ was recommended.

The only remaining mystery was about the exact nature of my cancer, on a cellular level. Based on the written pathology report from Kaiser, it was thought I might have a very rare form (Dan’s only seen two cases in 30 years!). Just a couple hours later, after Dan and the experts at the University Pathology Lab reviewed the slides, there was an indication that my cancer might be something even more rare and obscure. At this point, until more material is excavated from the ‘block’ (the thing that contains the raw cells from my biopsy), nobody really knows.

Whatever it is, I start chemotherapy on Monday, December 24th, at 8:30 am pst.

Wish me luck.

Erick (San Rafael, California)