Michael’s
job with Pepsi-Lipton required a lot of overnight travel. Consequently,
the fatigue he was feeling toward the end of 2006 did not surprise
him. But an increasingly frequent experience of being unable to
swallow food did get Michael’s attention. The week of March
12, 2007 Michael saw his physician and a gastroenterologist. Within
days he received the results of a barium swallow test, a CT scan
and an endoscopy from which his esophagus had been biopsied. On
March 16, 2007, Michael was diagnosed with esophageal cancer,
Stage IV, with metastasis to the liver and lymph nodes. Michael
and Tina met with an oncologist and a thoracic surgeon to review
their treatment options. Within a week, Michael began chemotherapy.
By Easter Sunday, three weeks later, Michael’s tumor was
obstructing the esophagus to such an extent, that he agreed to
have surgery the following week for insertion of a feeding tube
into his stomach. The expectation was that proper nutrition, made
easier with the feeding tube, would help to keep his red and white
blood cell count up and his immunities strong, enabling him to
continue chemotherapy and begin radiation therapy.
Unfortunately,
those expectations were never realized. The esophageal tumor grew,
the spots on the liver multiplied, and enormous amounts of his
medical care centered not only on the cancer, but on keeping the
feeding tube from compounding the complexities of the metastasized
cancer. Michael spent most of the month of May in the hospital
too sick to receive more than a couple chemotherapy treatments.
He was brought home on May 31 and died the following day surrounded
by his loved ones.
All
who knew Michael have wondered how a person with such a healthy
lifestyle could be stricken with such a deadly cancer with so
little warning. In putting together the pieces, it has become
clear that Michael had been living with gastroesophageal reflux
disorder (GERD) for some time, possibly a few years, before Michael
was diagnosed and treated. Prior to obtaining a prescription for
GERD in the fall of 2006, Michael had been treating his symptoms
with TUMS, not realizing that his problem went beyond the discomfort
of “acid indigestion”. The diagnosis of GERD was made
by his physician based upon his symptoms. An endoscopy, which
revealed the extent of damage to the esophagus, was not performed
until he complained of difficulty swallowing in March 2007.
Michael’s
story represents the stories of thousands of others who die each
year following a diagnosis of esophageal cancer. The symptoms
of this disease are so subtle and often go unnoticed until the
cancer is in an advanced stage.
