Today’s Visit with the Oncologist

Let me start by saying that apparently people are reading this blog. For those of you that are trying to keep up withmy Mom’s progress, I apologize for my lapses. The truth is though, some days nothing happens.

Today we went to meet with the oncologist. This was the first we had seen her with the exception of the couple times she came to see Mom while she was hospitalized.

First off she went over some of the reports she had from Mom’s recent CT scans and the pathologist report. Most of what she had to tell us was encouraging. First, there is no new cancer showing on any of the CT scans that were performed on March 12th — but we already knew that. However the report from the pathologist that she went over with us differed from the preliminary pathology report we had been given right after Mom’s surgery. According to the final pathology report two of six lymph nodes removed from the right side tested positive for metastatic tumor. One on the left side closest to the bladder also tested positive.

So what does all this mean? She recommends that Mom have chemotherapy as a preventative to future cancer. However, she wants to wait until Mom gets some of her strength back and hopefully gains a bit of weight. She also feels Mom needs to get the pain under control before moving forward. She suggested that Mom might want to consider seeing someone who specializes in pain management.

All this being said, we didn’t get into the specifics of the chemo all that much. It is all extremely confusing any way. She did say the combination of drugs she would use is Cisplatin and Gemcitabine and that it is a 3-cycle course of treatment. That translates into about two and a half months.

I wanted to know statistically what the reoccurence rate is with and without chemotherapy. She says that without chemo the chances of reoccurceare about 50/50. With treatment her chances of reoccurance drop by 30-40%. Because I write and am no math genius, I think that means with treatment she is at a 10-20% recurrance risk. See I do words not numbers. I told you it’s confusing stuff.

We are scheduled to go back and see the oncologist in a month to reevaluate Mom’s condition and readiness for chemo.

Also, we learned today that during her surgery her appendix was removed. We didn’t know that was part of the procedure but I don’t think she will ever miss it. Not only that, now she doesn’t have to worry about appendicitis.

Finally, a woman from mom’s church brought food over this evening. She brought enough for a small army — salad, entree, dessert, the whole works. And she didn’t bring just a plate, it was the whole cake, a big tray of food, a loaf of homemade bread. We are going to need to freeze some of it. This way Mom will have food when I’m not around.

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