A New Plan

September 16, 2016

We have a new plan! On Wednesday of this week, after much insurance/scheduling drama, I saw Dr. Camidge at UCHealth for a second opinion consult followed by seeing Vignesh (we’ve quickly moved to first name status) at Kaiser on Thursday.  We are all in agreement that more definitive testing needs to be done and so a tumor core biopsy has been ordered to determine my exact tumor ‘driver’.  The advances in finding specific mutations can mean treating with a more effective and less harsh ‘targeted treatment’. Down side to all of this is the extended wait time – another 2-5 weeks between scheduling and test results. The good news is both docs are very impressed with my overall good health (except for the cancer…) and my symptoms are stabilized and minimal.  If however, after the biopsy my symptoms get worse, we can do one round of chemo to knock it back until we get the test results.

All in all, I am feeling quite relieved since deciding on this next step. That’s not to say chemo is out of the question, but I still have hope that another path can be taken.  In talking to Drs. Camidge and Narayanan, I discovered that the fine needle aspiration (FNA) lymph node biopsy was great for diagnosing and staging but left too much room for false positives/negatives when it came to finding cell mutation and tumor cancer drivers. The science is complex, yet interesting and time-consuming and I am immersed in discovering all that I can. I continue with energy healing every day, walking, weight training 2 x per week (my docs were amazed I am still able to do this), and now acupuncture.

And so dear friends and family, I call on you for more prayers over the next few weeks. You have all already done so much and I know that your good intentions have played a significant role in my overall health and well-being. I cannot thank you – each and every one of you – enough for your continued love and support.

Onward….