My Story
Welcome to my journey. My name is Patrick. The last couple of months have been a roller-coaster of emotions and a mental nightmare to say the least and one of the main reasons for me doing this journal. Non-stop thinking of how my family is going to deal with this? What stage is it? Did it spread? How long do I have? I have spent hours researching the internet, which looking back, gave me high anxiety and many unanswered questions. This journey will be my daily/weekly updates on this path. If this blog can help just one person whom is recently diagnosed, it will be well worth it.
couple of months:
I was experiencing difficulty eating with food getting stuck in the middle of my chest. It was to the point where I wasn't eating as much and losing weight. I'm not the most in shape person but definitely not the worst. I'm 48 years old...active...playing basketball at that time 2 days a week.
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My wife was obviously concerned and scheduled me to see my primary care doctor. Although my bloodwork was good he was still concerned enough to set me up with a specialist. I met with the specialist who suggested I should get an endoscope to get some answers. This would be the day that changed my life.
April 25, 2022 The day of the scope
My life changed in an instant that day. With my wife at my bed side in the recovery room, I'm waking up from being sedated for the endoscope, still a little woozy, the doctor walks in. He says in a very caring and concerned way that he came upon a tumor. The tumor is in the lower part of my esophagus at the junction of my stomach. He said it is an adenocarcinoma caused from Barrett's esophagus. My wife asked him are you sure? Did you do a biopsy? He was sure and did a biopsy during the scope. I asked what did I do? He immediately responded that this could have been caused from years of reflux. That was it, my life changed with those words.
The next couple of weeks
I had a CT scan of my body and a Pet-CT done. The CT showed that lymph nodes were affected and it was inconclusive of metastatic disease, I needed a Pet-CT. Now I have to wait to get that done. That was probably one of the worse things about this was the all the waiting. 2 days go by and it feels like a week. Waiting for approval from insurance, waiting for calls back from doctors etc. Felt like a life time. I had to also get a EUS, which is a scope, but instead of the scope being a camera in my esophagus it is a ultrasonic camera. So I was sedated again. The final staging is what is so important. I met with a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, surgery is not an option right now, I need treatment first. The Pet-CT showed that the tumor is localized with 2 regional lymph nodes affected, it did not spread to other organs. They staged me at stage 3, Which was a huge win. So after meeting with many doctors the plan is to get high dose of chemotherapy 3 days every other week, Radiation 5 days a week for about 6 weeks. I got my port put in on Friday June 10th and will have my first round of Chemo starting Tuesday June 21st. With the support of my family, friends, and my music, I'm going to give this my best shot!!
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Please follow my blogs "A Day In The Life" & "My Daily Spin" at the link at the top of this page.
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