What day is it?

Toward the end of the week, Phillip was getting restless to bust out of the hospital. If you know him, you know he is one that does not sit well. The goal was for him to leave the hospital on Thursday. Unfortunately, due to his abdominal clots, he was put back on Heparin after his biopsies. Late Wednesday night Phillip endured extreme pain which led for another CT to be done only to confirm he had internal bleeding in his liver from the biopsy and blood thinner combo. This setback resulted in another night's stay in his room with a view.

Thursday night resulted in the same adverse reaction with his liver and blood thinner and the bleed occurred again. Phillip's care team decided to pause any Heparin for the time being and let his liver heal. Given the liver's vascular properties it is prone to bleeding and the Heparin was only exacerbating this situation.

On Friday morning, we met Dr. Sushma Tatineni from MN Oncology. She sat down with us and shared the results of the biopsies. Although we knew what to expect, there was still a glimmer of hope his liver was riddled with fatty tissue and not malignant tumors. But time stopped as she said the word adenocarcinoma of the colon and liver. We were told his cancer is stage IV and the primary cancer developed in the colon and then spread to his liver. Due to the number of tumors on Phillip's liver, a surgical resection is not an option right now. The main focus is on controlling the liver cancer and shrinking the tumors to allow for him to hopefully be a candidate for surgery down the road.

Dr. Tatineni put in a referral for him to be seen with Mayo's Oncology and Surgical Oncology teams. We feel so fortunate we have one of the best medical facilities in the world right in our backyard! If you have a few minutes, watch this amazing video of the advancements in liver cancer care that have been made at Mayo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr_VvPglwiw

The conversation with Dr. Tatineni hit like a meteorite—no warning shots, just impact and aftermath. We're still sorting through the debris. It's the ultimate cliché until it happens to you: life really does pivot on a dime. One minute you're deep in riveting debates about which cat to spay, and the next, your browser history reads like a medical textbook's greatest hits—"immunotherapy success rates," "liver cancer breakthrough treatments," and the heartbreaking late-night search: "how to explain cancer to a child without shattering their world." The cosmic whiplash of it all leaves you wondering which version of your life was real—the before or the after—and how the same week can contain both mundane pet decisions and conversations that redraw the map of your entire existence.