Surviving Against All Odds: Carole's Journey as a Liver Transplant Patient

After receiving a stage 4 colorectal cancer diagnosis, Carole defied the odds by becoming NED (having no evidence of disease). Unfortunately, her liver then began failing. She then faced the tough choice of taking a chance on a new treatment that had only been done once before in the United States and was unsuccessful in that patient. Learn about why a liver transplant was an option for her, how she found a donor, and what it's like being an organ recipient (and donor).
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[@puppypundit]

Thank you, Carole and Jelena for this EXTREMELY informative segment. I'm in Canada where this kind of transplant for non-resectable colorectal cancer liver metastases has only just recently been approved. Thank you for being a trailblazer, Carole! I'm currently doing all the workups to see if I'm a candidate for a deceased donor transplant so it was really enlightening to hear more about the process and recovery and navigating returning to life where cancer isn't the first and last thought of each and every day.

[@mzdial]

Thank you Carole for sharing your story with Jelena! I'm a stage 4 @ 47yo that is trying to determine surgical options. I was diagnosed in February, but I started noticing something was wrong about four months prior. Not sure if I'll get to where you are, but it is inspiring to hear positive outcomes!

[@TheOneTrueGesta]

Hi Jelena my name is Joshua, I am a 27-year-old male from Iowa. I recently finished my six month rituximab and bendamustine curative treatments for stage 2 grade 3a Non-Hodgkin's Follicular Lymphoma back in May, it was only in one spot in my neck, and was not found in my bones. They said my PET/CT scans were fantastic and I only had a 10 to 20% chance of relapsing, however even after how confident my oncologist is and getting my chest port removed. the anxiety and PTSD that I still have and constantly checking my neck, armpits, shoulders, head, and pelvis for bumps, and if I notice something that is even slightly off automatically have a panic attack, and I will often Google my symptoms and seek reassurance from others, and I have been seeing my therapist and psychologist more. This has become a lot harder to handle since I have SAD and I don't handle fall and winter well, and I have a strained relationship with my father due to conflicting ideologies and beliefs. It has caused me to have trouble sleeping, and can sometimes affect my normal daily activities physically I'm perfectly healthy yet the long-term psychological effects that cancer can cause are the most difficult.
Edit: I forgot to add that the only side effects I had from my immunotherapy were elevated liver enzyme levels and neutropenia, my follow up scan and visit with my specialist is on December 5th and December 12th. I was lucky to keep my hair and not get sick or throw up from the treatments in the month before I started. They wanted to check my heart(EEG), do a bone marrow aspiration, and do a pre-treatment scan before they started. I had that one lymph node removed out of my neck back on October 12th of 2022. There was also a possible spot in my chest. My treatments were 2 days every month for 6 months with a PET scan midway through and after finishing immunotherapy treatments.

[@SurvivorJelena]

Hi Joshua. Life AFTER cancer treatment is just as hard as going through treatment. You don’t have all those people rallying around you anymore and you have time to really process what happened. I’m glad to hear you’re seeing a therapist and physiologist to help you through this. I would lean harder into them to help you better cope with your cancer PTSD. It’s a real thing that so many of us deal with. I went through daily panic attacks after I finished treatment and physically was “fine” - mentally I was a mess. I had to go on medication to help reset my brain and get my life back, and luckily it worked for me and I only had to take it for a year. I’m not advocating for everyone to get on meds, but sometimes the issues are chemical imbalances in our brains and we can’t just positive vibes them away. I hope you can feel a little comfort in knowing you aren’t the only one that experiences this 💙