The Cancer is Alas Back, But I am Fighting

ADDENDUM 6 OCTOBER 2024: Again, I thank everybody for their generous assistance. This is what's happening now. Last month I had surgery to cut out about 25% of my liver. The latest tumor was completely excised and I have begun a new round of chemotherapy which will last six months. It is a different cocktail and I do not know how my body will tolerate it. The last round left me with permanent nerve damage in my extremities.

The GoFundMe has reached its goal -- a new goal, as it was begun to clean up after cancer, not to address the cancer that has come back in a new place. I have received some additional donations after I announced this, and I thank those who did this in the last week or so. I need to say that I am not closing the GoFundMe at this time, but keeping it open for any additional amounts that come in. It is my intention at this time to mention it only once a week or so on Facebook, to let folks know it still exists, but to take the pressure off because the need is not urgent at this time. I do not know where complications, etc., will take me. But right now I am prepared to fight the fight, and I want everybody here to give themselves a pat on the back. Thank you.

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ADDENDUM: The Cancer is back, as reported in an update below. The following entries include my first announcement that it appeared to be gone, but if you scroll down you will get the grimmer story of where it is now.

JUNE 12 2024:

Okay, so here's the skinny. Many friends have been informed. If you are close and I have not told you, forgive me. My mind is jangled.

The answer: yes, I have Cancer. Again.

Or rather...Still.

My time pronounced Cancer-Free was a function of metastasis being too small to see.

What I have is a tumor in the liver, five centimeters in diameter, one that has finally gotten big enough to yell its damn fool head off.

And what needs to be understood is that this is not LIVER CANCER (a different disease with a different prognosis), but a new colony of the COLON CANCER (which got elsewhere through the lymph nodes).

It being in the Liver makes this Stage Four Colon Cancer.

Which is the stage before death.

However, the tumor is relatively small, and it seems to be discrete, and the liver is tolerant of being sliced up.

They remove this and give me another round of chemo and it is pretty survivable. Which is a lot different than this would be if the Colon Cancer had metastasized in any other organ. Anywhere else would have been a case of, "okay, we're bailing water to keep the boat afloat until it sinks."

On the scale of having Stage 4 any kind of Cancer, this kind of cancer is not as bad as most. Okay? It's survivable.

Does this suck?

Yes.

Does it suck a lot less than it could suck if it has to suck?

Yes.

So what is happening now is that a surgery, probably one involving my prior surgeon, is being wrangled, and my blood is going to undergo testing at a genetic level to determine what chemo I get this next time, and the same will be done to the little bugger once he's in a specimen tray, and the good news is that this time, my chemo will be in my immediate neighborhood, not an hour's drive from me. In all ways not involving whatever side-effects I experience, this will be a smaller impact on my life.

The surgery may be as long as two or three weeks away. It is not scheduled yet. It will be determined. Maybe it's next Tuesday. Don't hock on me about demanding it be earlier. We are doing the best we can. People with actual power are already speaking up.

I will change the name of the current GoFundMe and establish that the cancer is back, though I do not expect spectacular uptick in collection, given how frequently fate has returned me to the same well. It will remain open, in any event. I can use the help. But this is the shitty sequel. Let it not be a trilogy.

Knowing is better than not knowing, by a mile. Not twenty minutes after I got the news, I asked Dina (who came along as moral support), "Do you know what happens when you've had cancer five times?" She said, "What?" I said, "You get a free yogurt."

I would rather live without a second yogurt, let alone a fifth, but it's yogurt that fate has decreed I must get, and hey, I remind you: It's still the first yogurt, really. It's just a piece that got away ("Fred"), and we will be working to excise Fred. It's just where I am, and it's where I have to be, and, hey.

Where I am is that this might kill me but it critically might not, and I am doing my best.

Thanks, all.

12 JUNE 2024:

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Hello. I'm Adam-Troy Castro. Last year you helped me with colon cancer. I am happy to report that after surgery and six months of chemotherapy, there is no sign of the illness and right now it appears that I am cancer free.

Why am I here, then? Because not everything neatly fits into the calendar years of dire need. "Kicking Cancer All the Way Back to the Curb" will require six thousand dollars not covered by my deductible, just to start, for the surgical removal for the port that was used to provide my chemo drugs.

I have also just been informed that the cataract surgery I had in December, covered by insurance but ruined by the formation of scar tissue, will now require a minimum of two thousand dollars cash outlay to fix. I cannot afford to pay for both surgeries at once. So, as of 13 February, this has become a crisis. I have put off the eye surgery.

There are certain other medical expenses coming up, including scans and a colonocopy, some related to my diabetes and some related to a urological issue. After the first six thousand, my insurance will take care of some of this, but not all. I am as before deeply grateful for any contributions you can offer as we evict the crab from considerations.

ADDENDUM: Details to follow: but, alas, as of now, the cancer is back. I will import an update. I thank all who have helped so far. Honestly, I had intended to provide a victory statement, but this is where I am.