Liver transplant and CKD, now husband diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

Posted by smithpamelag @smithpamelag, Jun 22 1:51pm

My 70-year-old husband received the news last week that some tissue samples from an EUS came back as cancerous. He has a complex medical history having had bile duct cancer in 2020, a liver transplant Feb 2021, Chronic Kidney Disease and alot of other things prior to that. Since he has transplant, he has frequent blood work including the CA 19-9 done quarterly as well as some scans. His CA 19-9 started to climb last year, nothing was showing up on imaging. Since July of last year its gone from 81 to now its over 10,000. CT Scan done today shows no masses on lungs. The MRI in March didn't show much either, but the most recent EUS did see some changes in the dilation of the pancreatic duct. We live in Cleveland, OH and get medical care at the Cleveland Clinic. Today we met with the surgeon and next Wednesday will be meeting with the oncology dr. But it sounds like the plan is chemo for 2-3 months. Repeat labs and scans to see if things have responded and if he's a candidate for surgery. He also has lingering post shingles nerve pain since January 2024, so constant pain has really worn him down and he's very sedentary right now. Not a great place to be when starting the chemo journey. Our questions this week for oncology dr will be the drugs used for chemo and how often they are administered. Sounds like they plan to do chemo 2-3 months, then retest/scan to see if numbers have dropped and if he's a candidate for surgery. We've got a long road ahead of us! Wondering if scans may have missed seeing any masses or tumors with such a high CA 19-9 number its seems like maybe its been there awhile.

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Update. So since last meeting with oncology Dr my husband had an MRI and PET scan. I put results into chat gbt and it helped to me understand it and as I suspected it has progressed. The dr confirmed it’s stage 4. Surgery is off the table. His CA 19-9 is up to 21,980! We went ahead with the first chemo infusion yesterday as well. He’s getting the gemcitabine and abraxane drugs.

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Latest update. We met with oncologist on 7/9 right before his first chemo appt. This was first time appt since updated MRI and PET scans were done. We were told the cancer is stage 4 and not operable. This was hard news to receive as you can imagine. There is a lot of vascular involvement as well. He got the chemo Wednesday. He seemed to handle it okay with the first day after just being really tired. Then Friday and Saturday the joint pain started and Sunday afternoon a fever spiked to 101.5. So went to ER and he was admitted.

They have been doing cultures and identifying the bacteria and monitoring all the lab functions. So the week 2 treatment didn’t happen yesterday. He’s still in hospital with hopes of coming home soon.

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Profile picture for smithpamelag @smithpamelag

Latest update. We met with oncologist on 7/9 right before his first chemo appt. This was first time appt since updated MRI and PET scans were done. We were told the cancer is stage 4 and not operable. This was hard news to receive as you can imagine. There is a lot of vascular involvement as well. He got the chemo Wednesday. He seemed to handle it okay with the first day after just being really tired. Then Friday and Saturday the joint pain started and Sunday afternoon a fever spiked to 101.5. So went to ER and he was admitted.

They have been doing cultures and identifying the bacteria and monitoring all the lab functions. So the week 2 treatment didn’t happen yesterday. He’s still in hospital with hopes of coming home soon.

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Does he have a bile duct stint ?

I had to get on antibiotics when my stint got clogged. I was close to getting sepsis…

I also had to have my stint unclogged

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Profile picture for barnesjt59 @barnesjt59

Does he have a bile duct stint ?

I had to get on antibiotics when my stint got clogged. I was close to getting sepsis…

I also had to have my stint unclogged

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Not currently. He used to have them before liver transplant and when battling bile duct cancer.

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Profile picture for smithpamelag @smithpamelag

Not currently. He used to have them before liver transplant and when battling bile duct cancer.

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MD Anderson would not do a Liver Transplant. I have Pancreatic Cancer with Mets to the Liver. Considering doing the Nano Knife procedure

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