Finally Getting Started With Treatments!!!

DeBary, FL.

74 deg. Partly cloudy, no wind.

Forecast = Partly cloudy. High 91F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph.


Yesterday, Jim had an appointment with the Chemo Doctor, (Dr. Gupta), and so he and Linda finally got some answers!!

You see, Jim took a disk of his PET Scan to the hospital and answered a bunch of questions way back on the 20th. He was told that the doctor would look at the scan and then they would call him and let him know when he should come in for the biopsy.

Well,  ,  ,  ,  ,  he waited and waited. Linda finally called the hospital but never could get an answer. She then called the chemo doctor, (who had ordered the biopsy), but got no answer there either. Both places said that "they'd get back to her", but never did! :-(  However, at one point, someone did say that they didn't know if Jim was a "good candidate" for the procedure as the left lung was "compromised" and he does have some emphysema.

Anyway, yesterday, he had an appointment with Dr. Gupta and he and Linda finally found out what was going on. The doctor at the hospital didn't think it was a good idea to do the procedure, but somewhere along the line, there was a lack of communication and that fact was never relayed to Jim and Linda. There was one more option, but it involved surgery and it would be risky as well, so it was decided to just go ahead and treat the new spot on the lung as though it was a worst case scenario.

This next Tuesday, Jim will go to the chemo doctor's office for "Patient Education" and then on Friday, he'll have his first treatment. They will be using the new drug, OPDIVO, and it will be given to him every other week for at least 9 weeks. At that time he will have a "scan" and any further treatment will depend on that.

There are some side effects of this drug, but he was told that most patients were able to tolerate the drug very well. Hopefully, the treatments won't be too bad.

Also, either sometime this next week, or possibly the first part of the next, Jim will start radiation treatments. It sounds like they will be scheduled just like they were the last time. 5 days a week, Monday through Friday.

So,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , now you know just about all of what I know. These last few weeks have been very stressful, but now that we know when and what these treatments will be, it takes a lot of the stress out of it. Hopefully everything will go fairly smoothly and we can get back to a more normal life.

A Quote to Ponder :   "Look up to the sky. You'll never find rainbows if you're looking down"
                                        Charlie Chaplin

Woof!!!