Overcoming Life's Challenges: A Father's Fight Against Cancer

09 February 2025

My first marathon 26.2 miles of “pure fun”. This race was in St. Petersburg Florida.

15 February 2025

Emergency Department Visit for what I thought was kidney stones. During a CT it was found to be a pulled muscle and not kidney stones. However, this is where the mass in my liver was found.

28 February 2025

CT with contrast suggested the mass in the liver was a neoplastic lesion. First, hint that it was cancer.

03 March 2025

Primary Care Provider appointment to get referral to cancer centers for consultation.

05 March 2025

First visit with Rochester Regional Healthcare for consult with Oncology.

06 March 2025

Liver biopsy with St. Lawrence Health System. Also, my birthday. Part of what I love about working for a small healthcare system is a friend who is a Dr. came to check on me during this procedure

10 March 2025

Colonoscopy with Rochester Regional Healthcare.

13 March 2025

First consult with SUNY Upstate for Liver Surgeon Oncology. I was told I would need some form of liver surgery potentially “IF” chemo was successful.

14 March 2025

First consult with SUNY Upstate for Oncology. I was told I needed inpatient chemo to get started on chemo as quickly as possible. After inpatient I would have port placement and continue my chemo outpatient.

17 March through 20 March 2025

Inpatient Chemo with SUNY Upstate. My first experience with chemo and how it would impact me. Upon getting to the hospital, they did an MRI to validate where I had cancer throughout my body. Also, while inpatient they decided that before leaving on 20 March they would do my port placement.

24 March 2025

First appointment with liver Surgeon with Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). First glimmer of hope. This is when we started talking about the HAI pump and what is going to happen.

01 April 2025

First round of outpatient Chemo at Suny Upstate.

03 April 2025

First appointment with MSK Oncology and discuss a plan going forward. The oncologist validated the plan of the liver surgeon and we had a plan. 4 rounds of chemo, followed by a liver resection, colon resection, HAI pump and removal of Lymph-nodes.

07 April 2025

PET Scan completed at SUNY Upstate.

11 April 2025

First meeting with Colon Surgeon with MSK and discussed colon resection and what it looks like.

15 April 2025

Second round of outpatient Chemo at SUNY Upstate.

29 April 2025

Third round of outpatient Chemo at SUNY upstate and last round of Chemo prior to surgery.

01 May 2025

Telehealth Oncology appointment with MSK to discuss PET scan and process going forward.

05 May 2025

CT with contrast for abdomen/chest, and MRI with contrast for abdomen at MSK. This was needed to determine if chemo is working. Much to my relieve it was working and everything has been shrinking.

13 May 2025

Met with MSK Liver surgeon and it was determined I am ready for surgery. It will be a liver resection, hai pump placement, and a right sided colon resection with lymph-node removal.

22 May 2025

Pre-surgical testing at MSK

22 May 2025

Met with Colon surgeon to sign paperwork needed for colon surgery and get set to go there. Lining surgery up and getting everything in place.

28 May 2025

Pre-surgery interview with MSK via telehealth.

11 June 2025

Today was surgery day. I was called and asked to arrive early for my liver resection, colon resection and HAI pump placement. Once at the hospital everything move very quickly and smoothly. I was very impressed with the efficiency of MSK.

16 June 2025

Discharged to home from the hospital.

18 June 2025

Minor complication with a small fever of 100.6 and leakage from the surgical site

19 June 2025

Complication subsided and moving forward.

27 June 2025

Follow up with Colon surgeon. Everything is going well according to her surgery went according to plan and we couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. Between my large and small intestine they took out a total of 12″. The reattachment went well and we are set to go. She said we had clear margins and out of the 44 lymph nodes she removed only 5 showed signs of cancer.

30 June 2025

Started the day meeting with the liver doctor. Based off what the liver surgeon said again things couldn’t have gone better and everything went according to plan. They removed almost 40 staples from me, and 3 stitches. I also have an incision under my left breast where my HAI pump is. Again, he said he had clear margins and everything went according to plan.

The next appointment of the day was with my oncologist. She too was pleased with everything. The plan is to hopefully get 4 rounds minimum of chemo in the HAI pump. This will be done every other week starting on 7/15/2025. I will also have a CT scan on the 15th. Then on every other week starting 7/28 I will start systematic chemo back up again. It will be a modified version of what I had before. This will last roughly 6 months.