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32-year-old cherishes family time, tries not to think about disease
Editor’s note: This is part of a monthlong series on the battle against cancer.
Andy Obermeyer has a one in five chance of living more than five years after cancer invaded his colon and spread to his liver.
He has a one in five chance to see his 5-month-old son, Camron, attend his first day of kindergarten.
A one in five chance of celebrating his 10th wedding anniversary with his wife of nearly six years, Rachel.
Obermeyer was diagnosed in March 2007, just one day after celebrating his 30th birthday.
“To really get rid of it is not usually in the cards,” said Andy Obermeyer, 32, of West Chester Twp.
Obermeyer had mild symptoms — a nauseous feeling, a small amount of blood in his stool — for six weeks before his diagnosis. A doctor told him he was just getting older and everything was normal.
But his symptoms persisted, and Obermeyer visited a second doctor, who ordered a scan and found the cancer.
“To this day, I still appreciate that second doctor who took the time to do some diligence with my symptoms,” he said.
“If it had gone much longer undetected, there’s a very good chance I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said. “Don’t ignore any symptom that could be colon cancer.”
Obermeyer has had a lot of setbacks in his two-year battle with cancer.
The 32-year-old new father was diagnosed in 2007 with colon cancer that had already spread to his liver.
He started right away on chemotherapy, spending seven-hour sessions in a clinic allowing the drug to drip into his body.
He and his family consulted with doctors on the East Coast, but found the protocol would be the same no matter where they went.
He then had surgery in November 2007 in Columbus, in which doctors removed 65 percent of his liver and with it all visible signs of the disease. A new liver would quickly become invaded with cancer again. Doctors learned just how fast moving his disease was.
He tried more chemotherapy. His doctors tried inserting radioactive beads, flown in from Australia, into the tumor site — a therapy that cost $100,000 and has a 90 percent success rate. But Andy was on the short end of that statistic.
Now he is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy and quickly adding to the total cost of his treatment, which is reaching $500,000. Most is covered by insurance.
“The scary part of it was that after you take enough of a certain kind of chemotherapy, your body becomes immune to it,” he said.
Realizing the irony, the engineer admits he is fascinated by cancer treatment — like the differences between introvenous and oral chemotherapy — and yet wishes he didn’t have to know as much as he does.
“There’s a responsibility on the patient to learn,” he said, filling another glass of water, which he drinks to keep away the dryness that comes with chemotherapy. “It makes a difference when the patient takes an active role in their care.”
His wife, Rachel, also an engineer, used to track the results of his blood tests on an Excel spreadsheet. At the beginning, the results seemed to indicate Andy was getting better, the lesions were shrinking. But two years and so many set backs later, she has stopped.
“Now I don’t even want to know ... it gets to be too stressful,” she said. “It seems that you start to become immune to the waiting process. You have to stop anticipating because you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
“It’s a constant head game that you don’t like to play,” Andy said of waiting for test results.
Andy keeps a blog online for people close to him to track his treatments and how he’s feeling so he doesn’t have to talk about cancer constantly and can focus on spending time with his family, especially his infant son.
“You don’t want him to grow up without a dad, but that’s become a real possibility,” Andy said.
Andy and his wife decided they didn’t want to look back in five years and wish they had started their family. They rely on day care and their parents to help care for Camron.
Andy’s mother, Janet Obermeyer, said she focuses on helping Andy when he needs it, like days he is too fatigued from chemotherapy.
Instead of hounding Andy with questions, Janet has been going to a support group in Blue Ash, where she asks the questions she doesn’t want to pour on her son.
“My son decided he didn’t want to be around cancer any more than he had to,” Janet said.
“I didn’t want to pound the questions on him,” said Janet, of West Chester Twp. “I can’t put anything else on him but what he’s going through right now. Just be there whenever he needs me to be there.”
“If he wants to tell me something, if he needs anything, give me a call. That’s always my last words to him on a phone conversation,” Janet said.
The weekly support group has helped her navigate what her role should be, supporting her son but letting him make his own decisions about treatment.
Read more stories about survivors, view photos, learn tips and more.
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