One year later, no sign of Cancer

Here I am once more, grateful for the opportunity to tell the world, I am alive and feeling so blessed. One year ago. After a lengthy heart examination by Dr. Mehta, an Elizabethtown Cardiologist, it was determined that there was something out of the ordinary, showing up in my exams and scans. With the insistence of Dr Mehta, we engaged another doctor q,Dr. Marshall Johnson, for his assistance in determining exactly what it was they were seeing . After a few more tests, Dr. Johnson felt it was something that required a specialist. He immediately hooked me up with Dr. Charles Scoggins at Norton's Hospital. We then made arrangements to have it checked out, whatever it might be, as soon as possible. Within a week. I was meeting with Dr. Scoggins when he expressed to us, it was indeed cancer. A GIST cancer. He had seem enough to know. Our next step would be to take it out, send it off to determine other factors. Fast or slow growing and in what stage.Within another week, I was headed for surgery with Dr Charles Scoggins at Norton's Hospital. At 5:30 in the morning of June 17, 2014 .I was being rolled into surgery. After roughly, an hour later, we were informed that a mass the size of an orange, was sitting directly on top of my stomach, not in the lining as was originally thought. Now the waiting. Four days later, about the time I was ready to be released from the hospital, the results were in. Dr. Scoggins came to my room to tell me and my family the results of the tests we had been waiting for. The Gastro Intestinal Stromal Tumor was a fast growing tumor in the 3rd stage. We were indeed blessed. Had it gone into the fourth stage, it would have metastasized and went to my liver and my brain. There would have been no stopping it. So, here I am, one year later, having just recently got the results of my one year scan. All Clear. Praise, God!  Although it has been a somewhat difficult year for me, adjusting to the fact I do not have the strength I once had, I do feel I am so grateful. I feel I am getting my strength back gradually. I have been on the chemo pills for the last year and was told I will need to be on them one more year, if all goes well, and they do not change the guidelines on that order. There has been talk of moving the time on the pills up to five years. I feel tthe chemo pills are holding me back from regaining my full strength, but I am trusting that with the help of God,my Oncologist, Dr. Vivek Sharma,and my surgeon, Dr. Charles Scoggins, I will be just fine.