Surgical consult delayed

Hello all,
The surgery consult was delayed until net Wednesday 3/1/06. We will meet with Dr. Stein then and find out exactly what he thinks. We are hoping that he thinks he can operate. Elizabeth is anxiously awaiting surgery. She felt that the two options were surgery and an MRI, and Elizabeth felt that surgery would be the best option. As Marcio said, "the boss" wants it so we should go for it. (His reasoning went deeper, but I think that was the most important point)

Sorry for not posting until now. We found a last minute airline deal for Mom to go back and visit her Grandma, so we went for it. We dropped her off at the airport last Thursday. Her grandma is struggling through the final stages of a similar issue Elizabeth is going through. Her is lung related, but the similarities are so close. At any rate, the trip has been good and it seems like great-grandma is doing well and is good.

More to come after we meet with the surgeron.

Thanks for listening.
Dad

Quick note about yesterday

So, the meeting with Dr. Marcio went well. He is recommending surgery (which happened to be Elizabeth's preferred choice!) and we are stopping the Avastin and Tarceva to prepare for that. Ya!, no more Tarceva rashes. Trying to work it out, but tentatively, we are to meet with her surgeon, Dr. Stein, for a consult on Friday.

Earliest for surgery will probably be about the end of next week.

Dad.

And here we go again...

Okay, so the AFP for last Thursday, 2/16/06, was at 1330. This time, it was up about 350 in one week. Each of the 3 previous measurements were at 2 week intervals and increased by about 300.
Elizabeth's CT was last Thursday a well. We got the preliminary report yesterday and it shows a retroperitoneal nodal mass that is about 3.2 cm x 2.5 cm x 5 cm.
The evastin treatment for today was cancelled. So we have a clinic appointment that is already scheduled for this afternoon. So, this shall be the main topic and hopefully we will get some clear answers on where he wants to go from here.

I will post more when we get some clarity.

Dad.

Treatment update

So, we have been holding our breath for the past couple weeks. Still haven’t got a good answer on what the PET/CT showed back in January. Since, then, Elizabeth’s AFP has been checked every 2 weeks. As of the last update on 1/10/06, it was at 311. On 1/24/06, it was up in the 600’s (Mom will have to fill in the exact number). Yesterday, it was up to 946. At least symbolically, it did not break a thousand. Elizabeth had her Avastin yesterday and all went well with that. She also has started on the Tarceva, which is a couple pills she takes everyday.
We have a meeting tomorrow to try and sort some of this out, so hopefully, we will have more.

On the lighter side, Elizabeth’s Grandma and Grandpa from Tennessee were out for almost a week. Elizabeth (and the boys) really enjoyed seeing them. It had been a long time since seeing them last. Distance from family is often hard enough, but when you have stuff going on like with Elizabeth, it makes it so much harder. My Dad’s sister, Aunt Kathy decided to use up some of those frequent flier miles and come out at the same time. So, it was a good week until yesterday with lots of hanging out, swinging, playing and just plain visiting that we have not had for quite some time. Of course, Elizabeth also insisted on taking Grandma and Grandpa to her favorite restaurant, Elephant Bar. Hopefully, we will get some pictures up.

More to come as always.

Dad.