Waiting for surgical updates – I have a few other cancer updates from our week.

We were here for about four hours on Monday. Our final appointment was with our oncologist (Dr. Anna Chalmers). Mark had another chest CT scan that morning and we were anxious to hear if the immunotherapy has been effective at all. We didn’t really get around to talking about that… the fluid has either been returning to his lungs or there was still fluid left from last week. Too much for her to observe the status of the tumors.

Here was her main concern – she could see that the left lung was either full of fluid again or full of tumors. She said it was very possible that they had just been explosive because this was how the leg tumor had behaved… and they are all related.

This generic text update just came in: surgery is progressing, the patient is doing well.

Back to the lungs. Earlier we had met with our surgeon where he told us that Mark’s MRI from last Saturday actually showed that the leg tumor had grown just a bit despite or perhaps because of radiation. It hasn’t really hurt for a few days so he gave us the choice to forego surgery at this time and focus on the lungs. We explained that when Mark said he wasn’t really feeling pain it just meant that it was improved. The night before we had decided to put together a 300 piece puzzle and it took about an hour. After sitting that long (plus dinner) Mark had come back to our room shivering with pain. The surgery needed to happen. Also, focusing on the lungs means chemotherapy which we all know would compromise Mark in many ways for a future surgery.

Now, along with our oncologist, we were very concerned. What if his lung was really that full of tumor? She discussed a very aggressive chemotherapy regimen which would begin as soon as our surgeon gave the green light. Mark would need a port though they would be able to do the first dose with a pic line. The infusions would be every three weeks and he would have to be in-patient. We were scheduled for an echocardiogram up in Park City for the next day so that they could have a baseline of his heart health.

We left her office with a lot of consider. He worked for a few hours. Work is a blessing.

Aside from hospital visits, Mark has scarcely left the home for more than a handful of minutes at a time for two months now. Since he was feeling pretty good – well, his breathing has not been great… but the pain wasn’t bad, we decided that we could go to a movie if we could find one that was showing in a luxury recliner cinema. Trickier than that was finding a movie that we could handle sitting through! They are rare indeed!

We ended up watching “The Blind” though we had no idea what it was about. We both liked it and recommend it. (We are almost tempted to watch an episode of Duck Dynasty.) Anyway – while we were there Dr. Chalmers left a message saying that the radiologist was reporting that most of what we were seeing was fluid, not tumor. What a relief!

That being said, we went ahead and enjoyed a beautiful drive to Park City for the echocardiogram on Tuesday. We went ahead with surgery today (obviously). As Dr. Jones and his resident studied the images today (trying to decide on the need for a chest tube) Mark chose to not turn his head and look, but I took a peek (but not a picture). Along with the fluid it does appear that at least one of the tumors has grown substantially.

We already know that surgery will not be the end of this cancer battle. They are probably letting us get through this surgery stay, but it is possible that the next stage is flaring up sooner than anticipated.