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| Ray |
Ray is a 53. Married for 30 years with 2 adult children. Ray had his first colonoscopy soon after turning 51. That changed the world. A suspected cancerous area was discovered in his colon, confirmed by lab a few days later. That started the whirlwind of getting a surgeon, scheduling surgery, dealing with a medical leave from work as well as the emotional turmoil. He had a laparoscopic colon resection in April 2011 with a staging of IIIC. At the time it appeared that it had not spread, confirmed by CT scans. This was followed by 12 treatments of FOLFOX. Ten months later, with his CEA rising, a PET/CT scan revealed a reoccurrence at the original surgical site as well as other areas in his abdomen. In April 2012 Ray has HIPEC surgery, 12 hours in the OR followed by a 12 day hospital stay. A number of semi-important internal organs were removed and has a permanent colostomy as a result of this surgery. This was followed by 30 treatments of radiation and Xeloda pills. Through this time his CEA was rising again and started FOLFIRI+Avastin in October 2012. Today Ray continues to receive chemotherapy, Xeloda + Zaltrap.
Aside from recovery time from surgery Ray has continued to work full time as a Project Engineer in the medical instrumentation field. He also works out regularly and enjoys life.
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Thanks Ray for the great blog post below. It is a great reminder in this hurried world we live in. I appreciate your contribution and I know the readers will as well! ~ Linda
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