June 22, 2018

6.22: Hello. It has been a while since I have posted an update, so here we go ... In late May my father had a follow up appointment to review his MRI from earlier in that month. The MRI was performed 2-3 weeks after my father had started his chemo medication, while this wasn't the ideal amount of time to get a true reading of how the pills were working, the doctors were able to provide some follow up. My fathers 4 tumors had grown to 5 but 4 out of 5 had stayed relatively small measuring 2 cms or less. One however had doubled in size to 3.7 cms. Today my father will have another Taze procedure to hopefully eliminate the largest tumor. This procedure was very successful in November, and we are hoping for the same result. His follow up MRI to the Taze and chemo medication will be on August 6. I will post another update at that time. Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers.

April 22, 2018

Hello and thank you for visiting/donating! This is the first update posted, but I feel like so much has happened already. Anyone who knows my father, knows he is a rather private person but in times like this he realizes that sometimes you need to share your story and ask for help, and that is ok. This first update will probably be a lengthy one to catch you up to speed, however going forward they will be much shorter but just as informative!

Here we go ..

In November 2017 my father was diagnosed with Liver Cancer. He had 2 lesions on his liver and under went a TACE procedure where chemotherapy is administered directly into the tumor. In addition to the Liver Cancer, he also has Cirrhosis of the Liver and was placed on the Liver Transplant list in early January. Getting on the list is a very small part of the full battle, and remaining on the list will be an additional adventure.. if more lesions form, they must remain under a certain size and the cancer also must stay contained to the liver.

After the initial procedure, my father went in for a follow up MRI on February 7th, while the TACE worked and eliminated the initial 2 tumors, 4 smaller ones appeared. Naturally this news was bittersweet, it was great to hear the procedure was effective, but the discovery of 4 new lesions was less than ideal. After meeting with the Oncologist and the transplant team it was decided that the best follow up action would be for my father to start taking a type of chemo pill to try and eliminate or contain the tumors.

That brings us to today, my father has been taking these pills a little over a week. So far the side effects are minimal and he seems in good spirits. He will have a follow up MRI on May 7th with results communicated by the end of the month.

Any donation is greatly appreciated and will help with the medical costs, mainly pharmaceutical, pre and post transplant. My father is retired and has insurance but unfortunately the insurance only covers so much when it comes to these medications.

Thank you again for visiting and following my fathers journey, we are very fortunate and blessed to have such a great and supportive network of family and friends.

Sincerely,

Marisa, Mark, Michael and Mario