No More Chemotherapy, For Now...

Hi folks! Here's the latest update. There is some good news; no more chemotherapy, for now. I had a CT of the chest and an MRI of the tumor last Thursday afternoon. Patti and I met with the oncologist and the surgeon that is the head of the sarcoma team here at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

The bad news is this. After two rounds of chemotherapy, the tumor is larger. About a centimeter larger in length and width. Additionally, I had a PET scan the day before I started my first chemotherapy treatment. That study showed some lesions in my lungs that were described as being "to small to classify." These were not present on the original CT of my chest done on 2/13/08 and so we were watching them. It appears that some of these lesions have increased in size and one even disappeared. Also, early on, a 7mm lytic lesion was observed in the body of my T9 vertebrae. This has now increased to 9mm.

The word we got today is that my sarcoma has most likely spread to the lungs and the spine and as I already said, the chemo did nothing to help. I am scheduled to meet with the radiation oncologist on Wednesday morning. The plan is to treat the tumor (and presumably the spinal lesion) with radiation therapy for about a month. This will cause some irritation and edema. The surgeon will have to let this all calm down for a couple of weeks and then plans on doing surgery to remove the tumor after that. No specific time periods other than that have been offered. It is still a lot of wait and see how it responds type of approach.

One of the residents explained it quite well today. He said that sarcoma in adults is rare enough that treatment plans are somewhat behind as far as understanding how to approach it compared to many of the other more common cancers. That makes sense to me.

Finally, after the surgery, there is likely to be more chemotherapy. I have a tube coming out of my chest called a "Hickman line" that was passed directly into a major blood vessel, a more direct route for chemotherapy. I get to keep it and care for it for another couple of months. I am so thrilled.

Additionally, we are now starting to have issues with the insurance coverage. We received notice that a bill of over $5,000.00 for the original surgical open biopsy (for diagnostic/identification purposes) hasn't been covered by the insurance and that they are telling us that it is our responsibility. Oh joy. I love insurance companies. So, now I get to deal with them. I was hoping for smooth sailing. So far, they have been great. Hopefully, it is some clerical error.

Please know how much I appreciate all the kind thoughts, prayers and well wishes. It means so much to me. Thank you to all. Please keep us in your prayers.

Jim & Patti and family.