In a Holding Pattern

David had his biopsy procedure done on Wednesday afternoon & all went smoothly (one of the hardest parts about the whole thing was going without any food or drink for the 16 hours prior to the procedure -- this is one reason we like having procedures done in the morning!).  The preliminary cytology results from the aspirates obtained at the site of David's previous abdominal surgical bed & surrounding lymph nodes showed no evidence of cancer recurrence -- big sigh of relief!!  The final results won't be available until the middle of next week.  We met with Dr. Fanta (David's oncologist) on Thursday.  He plans to once again present David's case at the GI tumor board meeting on Tuesday to get all of the GI specialists to weigh in on the best way to proceed in treating David's solitary lung nodule (assuming that the final pathology report continues to show no evidence of cancer recurrence at the site of his previous abdominal surgery).  Our two options will be to have surgical intervention (a wedge resection of the left lower lung lobe) or stereotactic radiation therapy (a treatment that delivers a very high dose of radiation to a small area -- kinda like the Cyber knife treatment).  In our discussion of these two options with Dr. Fanta & our own research of the pros & cons of doing surgery versus radiation therapy, here is basically what we have concluded.  One form of treatment doesn't appear to hold a better chance of survival over the other, radiation therapy would be much less invasive & easier on David, but we won't know what the nodule is without surgery -- could be a primary lung tumor, something benign, or a metastatic lesion (the probability is that it is a metastatic nodule & if David's tumor markers decline after radiation therapy, then we'll be able to say it was definitely a metastasis).  So, the bottom line is that we are in a holding pattern until the middle of next week, which we are okay with -- any day without chemo is a great day!

Enjoy the weekend & thanks for the additional attention & caring you have all provided us during this bump in the road!!

Much love, Janet