Day 320, Year 10: To Boston, To Boston
Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Temp in the Low 80’s F, A Bit Windy
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
We traveled to Boston today and, unexpectedly, we will travel to Boston again tomorrow. It’s a good thing we like Boston! Today was Mark’s appointment at Mass General with his oncologist, Dr. Kwak, and his radiation oncologist, Dr. Hong. They had reviewed the scan done last Friday and announced the plan for the next few months. Mark explained to Dr. Kwak that his oncologist on the Cape, Dr. Aviles, had him skip his last treatment due to all of the various side effects he was having. He reported that he was feeling much better, so at that point Dr. Kwak looked at Mark and said, “Then, Mark, I think you will be happy with what I have to tell you. The cancer has grown a bit.” Mark looked confused because the cancer growing is not a good thing. But then she explained that the next step will be five weeks of radiation and then NO cancer treatment for a few months. That is what she thought he would be happy about and he is. This means that we can travel this winter and not have to worry about getting somewhere every two weeks for a treatment. We will have to get scans done every two to three months, but that is not a problem. So once again, Mark is being given the gift of time to enjoy what he loves most . . . sailing. Mark has been living with this cancer for almost four years now. After the first operation and round of chemotherapy, the cancer returned. Mark read that most people in this situation would have three to four years to live. That was three years ago. Then after the second operation and the spread of the cancer to the liver last fall, Dr. Kwak explained to Mark that he could have another year or two. But then the biologic treatment was so successful that the tumor in the liver was no longer perceptible and things looked brighter. Now the biologic is no longer effective and the cancer is growing, so we’ll try radiation again. Dr. Hong is confident that the radiation will totally shrink the tumor in the liver but the swollen lymph nodes in the back of the abdominal area are a bigger problem. Mark asked Dr. Kwak what he can expect now. She explained to Mark that he is still healthy and that his body is putting up a good fight. The cancer is growing slowly and has not spread to other organs, which indicates that he still has some time. But she did add at this point that he should not ask what she means by “some time” as she doesn’t know. She just wants him to continue enjoying life and she’ll deal with issues as they arise. So starting on September 8th, Mark will be living in the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge Center in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston for the next five weeks. I will join him for at least a couple of days each week and he will come home to the Cape on the weekends. He’s done this once before and time passed very quickly. After the radiation treatments, they will wait a month before doing the next scan. During that month we will sail Windbird to South Carolina and fly home from there for the scan. After that we will either sail to Puerto Rico or to Florida and the Bahamas for the rest of the winter. We had eliminated going to the Bahamas because of the cost of flights to and from Florida for treatments, but now that we don’t have to worry about traveling to and fro for treatments, that possibility is once again on the plate. The final decision on where we will spend the winter might be made by the weather. So we’ll just take one step at a time and make decisions as we go. And the first step is returning to Boston tomorrow for a planning scan for the radiation treatment. We had hoped to be here when Heather, Jed, and gang return tomorrow afternoon, but we’ll just have to wait until Friday morning to see them.
