Surgery update
Apologies to those who have received this update in another form, and were looking for something newer and wittier here...
This morning we heard from Dr. Bradley, my radiation oncologist, who met with three surgeons, three medical oncologists, and a radiologist last night.
In a nutshell, my surgeon (Dr. Patterson) is strongly opposed to surgery. He feels like the spot on the left lung (the "good" lung) is tumor, and so to do a proper surgery, he'd have to take out the right lung AND dig around quite a bit on the left. You just can't do surgery on both lungs at once and expect the patient to survive, he said.
The radiologist did say that the multiple "nodules" are so tiny that we shouldn't be concerned--that they could be almost anything right now.
So that seems like a solidly closed door at this point. We've been praying for God to direct our paths, and that's about as clear a direction as we can get.
All involved in the meeting were strongly in favor of chemo, so that's probably what we'll do next, once we get back from NY. We'll explore as many options as we can there, in terms of different drugs, protocols, etc. We're meeting with Dr. Robert Maki, who seems well-published and well-respected in the field.
So that's where we are this morning. We've had to remind ourselves that surgery was not the end-all-be-all cure for this, that God holds all the healing in his hands. There's a reason he wants me to keep both lungs, even if it's just to spare us the experience of going through another major surgery.
This morning we heard from Dr. Bradley, my radiation oncologist, who met with three surgeons, three medical oncologists, and a radiologist last night.
In a nutshell, my surgeon (Dr. Patterson) is strongly opposed to surgery. He feels like the spot on the left lung (the "good" lung) is tumor, and so to do a proper surgery, he'd have to take out the right lung AND dig around quite a bit on the left. You just can't do surgery on both lungs at once and expect the patient to survive, he said.
The radiologist did say that the multiple "nodules" are so tiny that we shouldn't be concerned--that they could be almost anything right now.
So that seems like a solidly closed door at this point. We've been praying for God to direct our paths, and that's about as clear a direction as we can get.
All involved in the meeting were strongly in favor of chemo, so that's probably what we'll do next, once we get back from NY. We'll explore as many options as we can there, in terms of different drugs, protocols, etc. We're meeting with Dr. Robert Maki, who seems well-published and well-respected in the field.
So that's where we are this morning. We've had to remind ourselves that surgery was not the end-all-be-all cure for this, that God holds all the healing in his hands. There's a reason he wants me to keep both lungs, even if it's just to spare us the experience of going through another major surgery.
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