Steve Ward

Welcome! We hope this will help to keep everyone informed about how Steve and the rest of our family are doing throughout our battle with colon cancer.
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Our story begins on Christmas Eve 2008. Steve had some symptoms that required that we go to the ER, inspite of the fact that it was Christmas. It was determined that Steve had a large mass on his colon, as well as a tear in his colon. The tear was allowing the contents of his colon to fill his abdomen. In addition, Steve's body had formed a connection between his bladder and colon, allowing the contents of his colon to filter out through his bladder.  We ended up staying in the hospital until New Year's Eve. Steve received heavy duty antibiotics to combat the infection in his body. At this time, the doctors all said that he was either suffering from Diverticulitis or colon cancer...but nobody would say for sure.

Steve had surgery on January 16, 2009. Dr. Peebles was his surgeon. He removed a baseball sized tumor from Steve's colon, which was obviously cancerous to Dr. Peebles. He had to remove half of Steve's bladder due to the spread of the cancer. Steve's appendix was also removed, just for good measure. At the time of surgery, Dr. Peebles identified several cancerous spots on Steve's liver. When I met with the doctor after surgery, he informed me that because of the spreading of the cancer, Steve had Stage 4 Colon Cancer. Dr. Peebles estimated that the tumor on his colon had probably been there for 2 years.

From that moment on, our lives were changed. Cancer had invaded our lives.

Steve had a rough time of it in the hospital. He was there for one and a half weeks. Steve required two blood transfusions in an attempt to raise his dropping blood pressure. He had gotten down to about 120 pounds, so building up his strength and body weight was priority number one when we came home. After surgery, Steve's CEA was 300 (normal is < 5).

On March 4, Steve had a CAT scan done. This showed that the tumors had multiplied and grown on his liver since his scans that were done in the hospital.  He was now up to 6 tumors, the largest 2 measuring 2 inches each. The remaining 4 were all under an inch each.

Steve began chemo on March 11. He is taking FOLFOX + 5FU. He takes chemo every other Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

On April 30, Steve's CEA was down to 82. A new CAT scan showed that the liver tumors were responding to the chemo. All six tumors had shrunk. They measured 4 and notated 2 tumors. No new tumors were found.

On July 28, Steve had another CAT scan done. Thankfully, this showed further shrinking of the tumors. They measured 2 and notated 4 tumors. Again, no new tumors. Steve's CEA has now dropped to an amazing 13!