Lucas the Mucus Tumor

So, Toby has met a new friend: Lucas the Mucus Tumor.  Lucas lives in the country next door, aka Dave.

Lucas was discovered during routine follow-up scanning for Dave’s pulmonary fibrosis, resulting in another biopsy in April. The pathology came back showing malignancy.  Needless to say, this was NOT expected, and a bit of a surprise for everyone. It doesn't appear that the two diseases are related in any way.  It is just bad luck. Off we went to the Juravinski Cancer Centre once again. Ugh. Definitely not one of my top ten favourite places to be.  

The technical name for Lucas is Mucinous Adenocarcinoma.  According to Google AI, it is “a type of cancer where the tumor cells produce a large amount of mucin, a gel-like substance, which can be found in various organs. It's a subtype of adenocarcinoma, a cancer that originates in glandular cells.”  Doesn’t that sound lovely?  I can assure you that it is not.

Here is the nitty-gritty: Lucas was partially hidden by Dave’s pulmonary fibrosis.  What was originally thought to be an approximate 3 cm nodule was determined by the radiation oncologists to be a 7 cm mass.  The good news is that it doesn’t look like it has gone anywhere outside of the lung environment.  The bad news is that treatment options are severely limited due to the pulmonary fibrosis.  Normally, even this size of tumor can be treated somewhat successfully with surgery, radiation, heavy chemotherapy and immunotherapy – but in Dave’s case, all of these options are off the table.  Any one of those first line treatments will cause his fibrosis to basically shut down his lungs.  A lung transplant to treat the fibrosis is also no longer a possibility.

The only course of treatment that Dave’s oncology team could recommend is palliative chemotherapy.  This treatment is not meant to “cure” him, but rather slow down the progression of the cancer and give us a little bit more time with him.  The treatment plan consists of four cycles of two chemo drugs every three weeks, and then only one chemo drug every three weeks until he chooses to stop.  It is going to come down to quality v quantity.  He is two cycles in already, and the side effects have been minimal so far - mostly just fatigue (and some grumpiness, of course).  His prognosis is difficult to determine as the pulmonary fibrosis complicates things, but we have been advised his life expectancy is about 12 months.  Dave is determined to beat that.

The only good thing about cancer is that it forces you to take stock and view things in a different light.  We move to London in just 5 days, and our new house is only a 10-minute walk to Nichole’s.  We will be able to see the granddaughters almost everyday, and this will bring some much-needed joy to both of us. 

This is Dave under his quilt from Victoria's Quilts Canada.  I didn't make this one, but did get to finish the binding on it.  Now we both have a VQC quilt, but I wish neither of us ever qualified to be a recipient of such a comforting gift. 

*No Daves were harmed in the posting of this blog, and it has received his stamp of approval.