danellsar

My thoughts are with you and your husband.

Praying for you. God bless.

Thinking of you and wishing the best.

Oh no :-( Prayers and hugs for you both

The oncologist (one of the best in the Bakersfield area) never assigned a stage to it, only said that it was "extremely treatable". The surgeon at USC said the same thing, also that he wouldn't be able to tell for sure what stage it was until he physically removed it during the surgery. Surgeon estimated stage 2 or 3 from looking at the CAT scans and PET scans.
Is that normal, not putting a stage to it?

We checked into UCLA, and according to them they don't have a specialist for EC. USC, however, does. Thanks for the other places to look into. We've never had anyone in our family have to travel anywhere for treatments for anything and I wouldn't even know where to start looking. I do like the surgeon we met with at USC, he seemed very knowledgeable and his credentials are very impressive.
As big as Bakersfield is now, it would be nice if we had something here at home. I don't even want to think about the financial burden of having to travel back and forth to LA or anywhere else. We were barely making ends meet to start with :-( ~Becky

Becky- We got the stage right away. If it's surgical, it's below stage 4. My husband was stage 4b, meaning that he was already beyond surgery and the cancer had already spread into multiple other organs at the time of his diagnosis.

As far as "highly treatable", that would depend on where he is to start. For us, we were told it was not curable because it was so advanced. I've heard of a number of folks who have lived long and healthy lives after surgery and chemo from EC. I guess it depends. Sounds like your dad got lucky in having it found so early. Most EC isn't found till it's already stage 4.

There are a couple of great specialists up here at UC Davis (our oncology team), and I've heard of a few in the LA area. I think once your dad is through his surgery, he'll be able to do chemo more locally and have consult visits with specialists. You should call the American Cancer Society, as they have many resources to help with travel and living expenses for treatment.

UGH. Sending you a big hug. That really stinks.

Thank you for your encouragement. We are taking it day by day. He has now started a new round of chemo...once every other week, chemo all day, pump taken home for 48 hours and then removed...he will be doing 4 sessions of this and then they will scan to see if it has shrunk, grow or moved. We were blindsided since he was staged at a II or III, and now a IV. We are hoping this round of chemo does not mess with his appetite because it has finally come back and is eating well....thanks again.

He is having a rough go at it. I hope things start impoving. My prayers are with you and your husband.

One step at a time. I hope you are taking good care of yourself, too.

Rehab can be a good thing and a heck of a lot better than the hospital. Hang in there!

You totally deserve a vacation! Treat yourself to a pedicure. It's a mini vacation at least!

I am glad they figured out what the issue is. He will probably end up going home on Lovenox injections once or twice a day that he can give himself. If the copayment is high for your insurance, there is a program Lovenox has to help patients with the copayment.

Thanks, Carol. As long as he is on heparin, he will have to be on monitoring. He has had poor reactions to the meds, so they are watching him carefully. The good news is a private room.

God Bless You and yours. Ive lost both my mom and dad to cancer and found out today I have lymphoma. We are going to Hawaii at summers end and you should plan on a vacation too - even a day road trip is something to look forward to and help keep your mind off of your current situation.
Hang in there my friend - I will be following you!

HI:
Just wondering if you guys have gotten any answers yet? Hope things are turning around for you and the counts are coming down. Let us know how it's going when you have some time. Praying for you.
Big Hugs
Susie

High white cell count (leukocytosis) can have a multitude of causes. It is highly unlikely for cancer patients to have multiple simultaneous cancers (i.e., esophageal cancer and leukemia). Most often leukocytosis is due to infection, physical stress ( a sick body responding to illness, injury, etc.) or steroids (used for all sorts of things in cancer patients ). If patients are on any kind of steroids that tends to be the culprit, provided they are not running fevers that would otherwise indicate active infection.

They originally thought it was infection, and spent a week treating the infection while blood cultures grew. Nothing grew. He's not currently on steroids, been at least a month since the last course of those. They finally diagnosed blood clots, large numbers through both legs. He has a filter in his vein but it was clogged. He's done badly on anticoagulants in the past, so initially they were not going to do that. Eventually they did put him on heparin and also moved him to the telemetry floor so he could be constantly monitored. He's had 4 units of blood the last few days as he's been on heparin, and his white count is down from a high of 29,900 last Wednesday to 19,500 today.
Ellen

Oh no. Are you getting the support you need? I hope you are also taking good care of yourself.