Good Day!
I know that many of you are waiting anxiously for some news today. We are so happy….ecstatic….and elated to report that the large cancerous tumor that Judy has been treated for over the last 9 months, is dead. There is, however, a new, very small, spot on her liver. The doctors are VERY confident that they will be able to remove this spot without incident. This procedure will probably be sometime in the next week or two.
I will be sure to expand on this information and our/my feelings about it later, on my blog.
Thank you all for your support and prayers thus far. We wouldn’t be where we are without them. Keep them up!
God bless you all!
Chris
Well! I guess I wasn't so SURE about my need to expand my FEELINGS on this blog...I'll try, but first let's bring the story up to NOW:
After we got the results of the scan, we were so relieved and happy. But we did still have some work to do. The follow-up procedure for the 'spot' on her liver was scheduled for the following week. Let's talk about the 'spot'. Under normal conditions, the 'abnormality' or 'lesion' that they could see on her liver would need to be identified prior to treatment. Meaning, if one had no previous health condition(s), and just happened to have a scan done that showed this type of 'spot', the Dr.'s (and patient) would want to know what it was first and THEN decide what do to about it. Because of Judy's illness, it was every one's assumption that it was a cancerous tumor. She has cancer in the area, it is thought to be a metastatic cancer, blah blah blah. So, in the interest of avoiding ANOTHER procedure (a biopsy), we all decided to move forth and treat it as if it needed to be removed asap.
The way it would be treated was similar to how her original tumor was first attacked. Dr. Charlie would do what is called RFA, or Radio Frequency Ablation. Where the first time we used extreme cold, this time we would use heat and cook it. The tumor was in an area of the liver with plenty of good tissue around it. So a probe was inserted, the heat turned on, and the tumor, plus a good margin around it just be sure, was killed.
Afterwards, Judy was moved to a room for observation. The room was on the 12th floor where we had spent almost two full months. Many of the nurses who cared for Judy during January and February were able to come in and visit. They were all VERY excited to see her doing so well. Her Oncologist told her that it was a real morale boost for them. They just don't get to see this kind of turnaround very often. Most of their patients, sadly, don't ever get better.
A couple of weeks after this procedure, Judy went back in for a follow-up scan to see the results of the RFA procedure. The scan was clean but it did catch another problem that needed to be dealt with. Judy has some collateral issues relating to all of this treatment which I usually don't go into - it's all more than most want to know about I'm sure. You can imagine though, that after having seven probes inserted into your abdomen creating a large -120F ice ball in an attempt to kill a tumor almost 2L in volume, then giving birth to twins, then having six weeks of massive amounts of radiation with a dash of chemotherapy and a subsequent burning probe to a liver tumor, that you MIGHT have a few other issues in that general area, yes? Suffice to say, one of these other issues cropped up and Judy had to spend another few days in the hospital but all went as expected, which is all you can ask for most of the time.
Our next scan is set for the July 13th. We will meet with the Dr. on the 17th to review the results.
I have posted many new pictures on Facebook. Check them out!
Chris
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