Possibility of Surgery for Bile Duct Cancer?

Ok, the letters got some reaction. My state senator actually emailed me back, several times!! Gotta love that, and besides the response, she also sent my letter to AHCCCS (medicaid) who called ME up! Her name is Paula Aboud, State Senator District 28, Tucson . NICE LADY!

When AHCCCS called, the woman explained some "in's and out's" of the spend down program and gave me some hope that this all might work out somehow and my medical expenses may get at least partially covered. We'll see! My advocate at the cancer center is in the process of getting appointments and billing timed as best as possible to cover as much as possible.

Last night I got ANOTHER call from someone from DES! I'm to call him back this morning, which I will as soon as it's office hours. (I'm still not sleeping much, so I've been up since 5am!) Didn't have a good night last night actually. This guy said that I should qualify for the "Freedom to Work" program of SS/DES. I've read up on it and am not sure. This whole thing about working and SSDI seems a slippery slope. I'll post more as soon as I hear what he has to say. In any case THEY ARE CALLING ME! That is the most shocking thing! When does a government service actually do that?

I also heard back last night from the Pittsburgh the UPMC Liver Cancer Center where I sent my CT scans and records. I called her back this morning. Dr Gamblin looked at my stuff and said it looked stable to him and as long as the systemic chemo was doing the job (keeping things from growing) he wouldn't change anything. I don't think he caught that the last scan showed some growth (to the doc's here anyway) and that they put me on Xeloda, but in any case it was a small amt of growth. He said though that I am NOT resectable. That's a major bit of news.

He said that if my tumors begin to grow again however, he'd recommend chemo embolization. That's where they temporarily block the blood flow to your liver and pump chemo stuff directly there, rather than throughout your entire body. I'll have to look this up again, but it's another procedure and often recommended for liver cancer. You can click on this Blog's title (Possibility of Surgery...) and it will take you to a link that has info on chemo embolization. It is at: http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=chemoembol&bhcp=1 He also said my bilirubin count has to be less than 3. So far that's the case for me. Bilirubin is measured by a blood test, and mine is around 1. People who have bile duct blockage (which I don't, thank god!) tend to have jaundice and high bilirubin counts because the bile is not getting out of the liver. It's these two things that usually indicate bile duct cancer, but mine's "intrahepatic" meaning it's all inside my liver and there is no blockage.

So that was the good news-bad news for this morning so far - and it's only 8am!