Great News! Bryan's Cancer Treatment is Complete!

So, what's next?

Hey there! If you’re new here, this is a cancer update for my husband, Bryan — not my usual Wednesday newsletter. For the backstory, you can see previous updates HERE. If you’re here for the non-cancer content, I’ll be back on Wednesday with The Usual.

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The ZugHaus is celebrating! As we come to the end of a long, scary, exhausting year, I’m thrilled to report that Bryan’s latest CT scan was all clear!

Because his colon cancer was considered Stage 3 (for breaking through the colon wall into the lymph nodes), his oncology team will never declare him cancer free. Instead, he’s transitioned into surveillance mode. This means:

• blood tests every three months

• annual CT scans

• annual colonoscopy

“You’re treatment is complete,” Dr. Cohen said. “You can get back to whatever you were doing before this all started.”

Celebrating with sushi, which he wasn’t supposed to eat while on chemo.

Lingering Side Effects

Unfortunately, Bryan is still experiencing some neuropathy in his feet and fingertips. Neuropathy is a pins-and-needles tingling sensation left over from the Oxaliplatin chemo drug that was discontinued at the end of July.

His doctor said about 80% of patients experience lingering neuropathy after treatment has ended, and 15% of patients never get over it. Crossing our fingers that this goes away over time, because it’s very uncomfortable for him.

“Near death experience”

I also noticed on our call with Dr. Cohen, Bryan’s oncologist, that she used the words, “near death experience,” when referring to his double pulmonary embolism in August. This is a third mention of the severity of that incident. As it was happening, I felt numb and thought maybe I was being dramatic.

I was not being dramatic. A friend of ours died last month, and I only found out yesterday it was from a pulmonary embolism. Shit.

Thank you, friends.

Bryan’s diagnosis came in the second month of the year, and our the relief comes in the second to last. Ten months of stress and uncertainty behind us, and now we get to move into the holidays and 2024 planning with unabashed joy.

Thank you for being with us — for reading, for commenting, for texting, for bringing us food, for sending funny butt memes, and for praying.