All Systems Go ...... Well Almost All

Terry and I spent much more time than we anticipated at The Cancer Institute of NJ and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital today. It took long because we saw three doctors and they each gave us quite a bit of time. We were never rushed and I think we’d still be there if we had more questions because they would not have thrown us out. The end result of today’s meetings is that all the doctors agreed that I qualify for SIR Sphere treatment. I’m very proud of myself. I’ve been training for this for a long time. Oh sorry. I’ve been watching a lot of the Olympics lately. So all systems are go for me to get this fairly new procedure except for insurance company approval. That’s always a potential problem. They will begin seeking that approval right away. There are a lot of details that I’ll write about as time goes on. It’s a very interesting procedure. For now just a couple of things. First there are some tests I need to have done, namely another CT scan and blood test. Secondly this procedure is very specific to the liver. Thankfully that’s pretty much the only place there seems to be active cancer. There are two spots on my lungs but they are very small, not showing “hot” on the PET scan and all the doctors seem to consider them to be fairly insignificant. Lastly, it looks like I’ll probably get at least one more round of chemo before the SIR Spheres. Doctor Jabbour, the radiology oncologist, is going to talk to Dr. George my medical oncologist to see what she thinks. But we know what the Chemo Kaiser will say. She’ll probably come to my home that same day with pumps in hand yelling “hook him up”. There’s no guarantee that this will work (we’re told it’s about a 70% chance) and if it does it may not be permanent and if it is permanent the cancer can still appear somewhere else. But what we got today was all we could have hoped for; clearance from all the doctors to try. For that we thank God. So we’ll carry on. ----------------------------------------------