Hi, my name is Robin.  I have been married to Mike for 19 years.  We have two beautiful girls, Alexa, age 12, and Lola Rose, age 7. Mike first got sick on our family vacation in May 2005, at Disneyland. He was very sick--so sick we had a Dr. visit our hotel. After the airplane trip home, his right leg began to throb. He was diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg just above the knee. He was hospitalized because he was severly anemic and needed a blood transfusion. He was losing blood almost as fast as they gave it to him.
Our family doctor diagnosed him with a bleeding ulcer, even though his upper G. I. didn't show anything. The doctor said that ulcers can hide and he was sure that was all it was. Both Mike's mother and I asked the doctor to check out everything possible, that cancer ran in Mike's family and we wanted to rule it out. He said he was "one step ahead of us."

Mike left the hospital after one week. He was doing some better but had to go every other day to monitor his hemoglobin and PT. After approximately 6 weeks, Mike felt terrible and was bleeding so badly he was admitted to the hospital again for a colonoscopy. That day was truly the beginning of our journey into what I now call "Mike's fight."

Mike was only in the O.R. for about 20 minutes. He told me in the recovery room, "I know something's wrong. I was in there too short of a time." The gastroenterologist told us that Mike has cancer. A tumor in his colon. My heart sinks. Cancer. We both were very upset, but we can deal. It's in his Sigmoid colon, part of the large intestine after the descending colon and before the rectum. We talked to several surgeon friends who visited Mike and they seemed upbeat. It could possibly be an easy surgery. The next step (set for later in the same day) was a CT scan to see the extent. More bad news. I heard Mike with several doctors saying, "It's over, then. I guess that's it." One of the surgeons who is Mike's buddy, broke the news to me. It had metastasized into his liver and his lung. We cried together. I thought I would pass out, like you hear about or read about, everything was black. I held Mike and he kept saying, "The girls, the girls! What about our girls?" I didn't have an answer.

That was July 2005.  We have now fought this metastatic disease for almost 2 years.  Mike has taken chemo weekly for that entire time.  We first heard about SIRT (Selective Internal Radiation Therapy) from a friend who is a radiation oncologist.  He knew Dr. Kennedy in Cary, N. C. and got us in touch with him.  We met Dr. Kennedy in January 2007, and Mike had treatment March 7, 2007.  At that time he had small tumors in both lobes of his liver.  Six weeks later Mike had a scan and the radiologist's report indicated there was no sign of metastatic disease in his liver!  The hard part was over, (except for fighting with Blue Cross over reimbursement), we feel so blessed. 

Mike has some tiny bb sized mets in his lungs.  We are now looking for some miraculous treatment to blow those away as well!  We take one day at a time, and enjoy the days Mike is feeling well.

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