Sara and Rylan at the regional riding awards – Rylan cleaned up! But the best part was that Sara was able to go, when a few short months ago she thought she would be too sick to make it.

Sara’s surgery date has now been scheduled for January 25. It turns out that the surgeon, who is a liver surgery specialist, will only move forward with the surgery if Sara doesn’t have cancer anywhere else in her body (aside from the colon cancer). This means that if even 1 lymph node is found to be cancerous, the surgery is off for the time being. If this is the case, Sara would then resume chemo treatment and then undergo more tests (CT scan, PET scan, etc). As you can imagine, this is a very high bar to pass so Sara is anxious to find out the results.

A PET (positron emission tomography) scan was scheduled and took place yesterday. PET scans use a radioactive solution to look for signs of cancer in the body (so yes, for a little while Sara might be slightly radioactive – ha!). Sara reported that it went fine, just made for a long day of preparatory procedures, fasting, the IV placement, the scan itself, etc. The results of the PET scan will be ready on Monday, January 18 so please think good thoughts for her in the meantime!

Sara also did learn a bit more about the liver surgery itself – the plan is that a portion of the right lobe of the liver would be removed, which is called a “non-anatomical wedge resection”. She will probably be in the hospital for about one week, and then the recovery period at home is estimated to be 4 – 6 weeks. In some cases (not many though), the surgery can be done laparoscopically. In Sara’s case, this is not possible, and the surgeon informed her that she will have a scar across the front of her body, just under her diaphragm. So as you can imagine, this is a pretty major surgery. Sara is eager to move ahead though and is ready to be tough (remember, horse people are tough!)

Sara also had genetic testing done for known markers of colon cancer mutations, such as Lynch syndrome, familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), Apparently up to 25% of colon cancer cases have a family history of colorectal cancer (CRC), though known mutations only include 5% of this group. The remaining 20% may have other contributing factors, such as undiscovered mutations or other unidentified genetic backgrounds. Even though the risk of a genetic form of CRC is not that high, it is obviously better to rule it out sooner than later, for Sara’s children’s’ sakes and that of other family members.

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