9p.m. phone call

Well my heart stopped for a few minutes.  I got a call from Dr. Duane, my Oncologist, at 9 p.m. last night.  A cancer doctor calling you at home that late?-yeah I was a little freaked out and was thinking the worst.  He started out telling me that he just finished reviewing my PET scan results from earlier in the day.  He said that everything looked very similar to my CT scan from earlier in the week, except for a 3 mm spot found in the lungs.  Colon cancer usually spreads from the colon, to the liver and then to the lungs, so that was disconcerning.  But… Dr. Duane said he doesn’t believe that it is cancerous, rather that it is scar tissue from a previous bad cold I might have had(later I thought it could be a result of the infection I had in the hospital while trying to recover from my 2nd colon surgery).  Dr. Duane said that sometimes our technology is too good and picks up everything-including stuff we don’t need to worry about.  In summary he said, “I don’t see anything from these scans that would prevent you from having surgery.”  He said that we will just watch the liver spot over time to see if anything happens.  So overall good news-although Dr. Sielaff(the Liver Surgeon) still needs to sign off on it at our next appointment on Tuesday.  The reason Dr. Duane called me so late was he was trying to save me a trip into his office for today, as the news was nothing surprising.  I am still trying to absorb the adrenaline rush from that “non-surprise” last night.  Once again your prayers are much appreciated and have been answered.  Thank you for your faithfulness!!!  I will post something next Tuesday once I hear from Dr. Sielaff and his thoughts on the surgery.

Conservatively celebrating in Lakeville,

Chris

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Busy Scanning

Hey all,

I have been busy working, doing family time, attending cancer support groups/functions and getting my body scanned.  I had an MRI last Friday.  It took about an hour inside the tube.  I just closed my eyes, put some headphones on, listened to some inspirational music and rested.  I won’t know those results until next week when I meet with the surgeon.  That test was mainly for the surgeon to review so he doesn’t get any surprises during surgery.  I had a CT scan yesterday-that was a late addition to my scan regiment.  My Oncologist called me today to say the results were once again good-no new growth, no new cancer seen anywhere else.  The final and decisive scan/test will be the PET scan on Thursday.  That will determine if there is cancer anywhere else in the body-if so than the surgery is off.  I will post something on Friday after I learn the results of that one.  Lots of prayers welcome!

Sarah and I attended the informational/kick off meeting for the 5K walk/run for Colon Cancer awareness last night.  Basically we got a huge packet of information on what it is all about and some fund raising forms/tips.  The good thing is that they are going to post most of these forms on their website(link on this home page).  Right now there are 13 teams signed up and we are the number one team as far as participants and funds raised.  The number one team from last year is gunning for us as we are burying them right now.  They think they will beat us?  They don’t know us very well do they?  A special thanks to Sarah for taking the lead on this one!   She promises surprises along the way-the first I think we can reveal…we are having a graphic artist work on a T-shirt design for Baty Sisu.  We have a good group of runners and walkers signed up right now, but we need more.  Anyone considering joining us-please do!  It is not a big family clique thing.   There will be people from Barr Engineering, Proex, Varsity Photos, there better be a few cyclists, Pictura employees, hopefully some Bemidji folks, maybe some Iron Rangers, High school classmates, Strattons,  Manors, some neighbors, hopefully some Hosanna church members-everyone is a welcome addition!  To sign up for the event, just click on the links on this page(Get Your Rear in Gear-is the official name of the event).  When you sign up just pick team name Baty Sisu.  If you have any questions/concerns let me know.  We just met the organizer of the whole event last night and she is more than willing to help.  It will be a pretty cool day, albeit a little overwhelming.

God Bless to all!  A special blessing to all you fellow cancer warriors    (Charlie Wifler, Jennifer, Patty, Sharon Shovan, Debby Baty, little Abe Fagerstrom, Judy, Glen, Johnny O, Laurie T., Burl, baby Evan , Taisa’s mom and all the rest I am missing).

Chris

Trae Christopher Baty

This is Dave and Jill’s big news for the week.  My nephew was born Jan. 14th.  He weighed in at 8 lbs. and 12 ozs.  Mom, Dad and baby are doing fine.  Zane his brother, now the middle son, I think is in for a rude awakening-just means he will probably need more uncle time.  Caden, the oldest, looks like he is going to do a great job of helping Mom and Dad.  He has already done well with letting Zane double up with him in his room, so that Trae has his own room.

I also got word this week that a surgery date has been set-February 11th.  That is about a week or two sooner than I expected, but I am glad to continue the battle.  It looks like another special day(Valentines) will be spent in the hospital.  My present will be my presence.  Last Fall I had surgery on our anniversary.  Again surgery is all dependent on them not finding anymore cancer, other than on the liver, at the PET scan on Jan. 29th.  For now I am just enjoying my break away from all the chemo. and the newest addition to the Baty Clan.

Blessings to all of you,

Chris

Quick Update

I met with Dr. Duane and we went over the game plan moving forward.   Dr. Duane was very happy to see that Dr. Sielaff  accepted me as his patient and agreed to do surgery on me-pending my PET Scan.  The plan is to have an MRI at Methodist on Jan. 23rd to get a better view of my liver and gall bladder so Dr. Sielaff will have no surprises during surgery.   Jan. 29th I will have my PET scan done to make sure there is no cancer elsewhere in my body.  If the PET scan only shows cancer in/on the liver then he will go through with the surgery.  I am going to call Dr. Sielaff tomorrow to see if they want to pencil my surgery date in, now that my scans have been scheduled.  Again, if I am “lucky” enough to have surgery it will be during the latter half of February.  They said I would be in the hospital for 5-7 days after the surgery(in my world probably closer to 10-14 days) and then 4-6 weeks recovery time.  The nurse said that she was guessing that I could probably handle going back to work part time about 3 weeks after my surgery.  The only restriction I will have is not lifting anything over 10 lbs. for the first 6 weeks.

“Get Your Rear in Gear”, April 19th is the day of the event.  Team Baty Sisu already has raised over $500 and has more than a dozen people already signed up.  If you want to join us you can choose to walk or run the 5K.  I will be in the walking group as I doubt my body will be ready for any type of running at that time.  The cost for signing up for the event is around $25.  On January 26th they have a kick off meeting that Sarah and I will be attending.   You can start raising money now just by directing people to the fundraising link on the side of this page.  The kickoff event, I believe, is open to anyone who wants to attend-you may have gotten an email if you have already sigend up for the 5k.  Sarah and I will gather all the info. from that meeting and then post what we find out.

Thanks for all your support!

Chris

It’s never easy

So I met the Liver Surgeon today-Dr. Sielaff.  Dr. Sielaff was recommended to me from another surgeon who said that if he had what I had, this was the guy that he would want working on him.

It looks like I will probably have a Liver Surgery, but it does come with some reservations(I will explain the “probably” down below).  The 7 tumors that I have left are still located on multiple areas of the liver.  The hope was that the chemo would have killed off all the tumors either on the right or left lobe-no such luck.  For the surgery to be successful the surgeon will have to cut the left lobe off (it has the biggest tumor left).  He then will have to make wedge cuts and cut off the remaining tumors.  He then will radiate any remaining areas he cannot cut.   He summarized all this by saying, “We are pushing the envelope with this surgery and it will be difficult”.  Basically it means my liver just makes it inside the boundaries of him feeling he can be successful. He pointed out that the other patient we saw in the waiting room had almost the exact same diagnosis/procedure and it was successful.  Ready for the kicker?  He said that my liver and gall bladder  have a congenital defect.  Haven’t I heard this before?  That is what Dr. Belzer said about my Colon.  Also that is what they told my Mom when I was born with a pyloric valve that didn’t open and I had my first surgery when I was a newborn.   My liver is shaped weird because it is intersected by the gall bladder.  The doctor said it has no effect on how I daily function, but it will effect what he does during surgery.

Earlier I said I will probably have surgery.  The doctor ordered two more scans be done before we move forward.  The first scan, called a PET, is similar to a CT scan but seems to do a better job of detecting cancer cells.  If the scan picks up signs of cancer anywhere else, then we won’t do surgery and just continue on with chemo.  During my two colon surgeries and my 3 CT scans they haven’t seen any other signs of cancer anywhere else.   The second scan is a similar to the others I have had done, but this scan further breaks down how my gall bladder and liver function together.  I can’t remember the name of that scan but it will further help the doctor be prepared for surgery.

So we are moving forward.  No chemo for now in preparation for the scans and surgery.   The two scans I need done will be in the next 3 weeks.  They want to wait 4 weeks since my last chemo treatment(Dec. 26th) before they do the scans.  We should have the scan results a day after the scan is performed and then if everything checks out,  they will schedule a surgery about two weeks later.

I guess it is just never going to be easy with me and this battle.  No problem. I am up for it and won’t lose.  After all,  I have all of you on my side wishing me good thoughts and praying for me.

Thank you for taking the time to read, pray  and walk this journey with me and my family.

Chris

p.s.   Next post-let’s talk about this Colon Cancer fundraiser thing that is coming up april 19th.  I need to ask Sarah if we can bet on this 5K race thing?  All my money is on Nathan (thanks again for running in my honor last Fall).