Bill Reilly

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.

If you are visiting this website, then you probably already know that I was diagnosed with having colorectal cancer.  This completely sucks, but I feel it is important that my people know what is going on so that you can send positive thoughts/vibe/whatever to me and my family to get through this successfully and be cancer free at the end of it. 

As it stands now, I became aware of a tumor in my colon last week (March 28th).  The test came back positive as it being a cancerous tumor. Since then I have had a CAT scan, spoken with a surgeon, and had an MRI performed. The MRI discovered nearby lymph nodes as possibly showing signs of spreading locally. The CAT scan showed that the cancer has not spread to other organs in my body, so that is a bit of good news.  

I spoke with the surgeon I met with last week about the MRI results.  Since the results showed some localized spreading to nearby lymph node(s) the recommended plan of action is to meet with oncology on Monday, April 17 and will hatch the plan to start chemo/radiation for approximately 6 weeks.  There will then be a 10 week waiting period to let the chemo/radiation treatments settle in and hopefully shrink my tumor and stop the cancer in it's tracks. At the end of the 10 weeks, there will be a surgery to remove the tumor and hopefully be on the road to being cancer free. The recovery from surgery will be a 6 week period. 

Currently we are moving forward full steam ahead with Swedish Medical Center. Barb and I are working on getting a second opinion from Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, but that won't happen until the week of 4/17. 

Obviously, this sucks big time! But I do value you sending positive thoughts my way. I am working on changing some things in my life to optimize a positive mindset in order to beat this. Please feel to reach out any way you feel comfortable doing so. I just needed to set this up so I can manage the dissemination of information to my people.   

Currently I feel 100% normal, except for the fact that I/we are scared shitless. For now I will be proceed with life as if all is normal, which will mean I am still living my life with work and personal stuff as all is good in the world. Should things become overwhelming, I will adjust my plan accordingly.