PLEASE GO TO THE PHOTO GALLERY TO SEE THE LETTER FROM THE CHOLANGIOCARCINOMA FOUNDATION.

This is the letter I received after submitting the donation of $1,200 from the sale of the Bea Strong t-shirts and donations made to the Bea Strong cause.
Due to the generosity of some Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation supporters, the amount of our donation was doubled to $2,400.

BEA STRONG – BEALIEVE

To everyone that purchased a BeaStrong/Bealieve T-shirt and those that made a monetary donation, we finally submitted the donation at the end of December. The total was $1,200 and was donated to Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. Fortunately at the time the donation was made, they had sponsors that were matching donations, so our donation amounted to $2,400. Cholangiocarcinoma is the official name of bile duct cancer–easier to say bile duct, right?!

This foundation uses over 75% of funds for research and was the best use of the money. I recently received a letter from the Foundation thanking all for the donation and what they expect to do with donations during 2015. I’m currently figuring out a way to share this letter with everyone and hope to get a copy to everyone soon.

Thanks to everyone for their support in this loving endeavor spearheaded by my wonderful family.

Wow! It’s been over 7 months since I’ve updated this site. I guess I’ve been busy!

I have been on chemo treatments since May 23, 2014. I had my 24th chemo last Friday, January 16th. My first two chemos were at Mass General. Dr. Zhu referred us to Dr. Hong at the Helen & Harry Gray Cancer Center at Hartford Hospital and I have been going there since June, 2014. We have the best team possible to fight this cancer. I’ve seen Dr. Zhu a couple of times since May. I’ve had a couple of CT scans since then. The good news is that each time I’ve had shrinkage of the tumors. I continue to tolerate the treatments very well. I continue to not show any signs of the cancer, i.e., no pain, no blockage of the bile ducts, no jaundice.

I did experience very minor hearing loss that is referred to as high frequency hearing loss. What happens is that I have a buzzing in my left ear that is fairly constant, but hardly noticeable. My ears get blocked at times. It is most noticeable when I’m in a crowded room with several people. Dr. Hong opted to reduce the amount of cisplatin I get in my treatment to 57%. The reduction began in late October, 2014. Since then I have had no other issues. I’m able to unblock my ears most of the time and very rarely can’t hear what someone is saying.

I’ve uploaded pictures of a variety of people wearing the BeaStrong T-shirts to the site. I’ll add more pictures as time goes along.