FINALLY

We finally got some "good" news today. Most of the cancer is concentrated immediately around Jim's liver. It's pretty sad when that's the "good" news, but hey, we'll take what we can get.

SO, Dr. Haid, our cancer boon and guru, went over the PET scan with us today. We are very excited that most of the concentration is around the liver, because as per Dr. Kemeny's plan, we will now proceed to treat Jim's liver directly. She gave us two choices - treating the liver directly with chemotherapy, or doing the radiation microspheres. Since the microspheres aren't available at Sloan Kettering, our next choice is someplace close to home. Although treating the liver directly with chemo (called hepatic arterial infusion) is the more prevalent of the two choices, we've done chemo (albeit systemic)...and without much luck. So we're choosing to try the radiation microspheres first. We haven't done them, and we're hoping that our lucky number comes up with these little suckers.

We'd thought of going to Madison, but I started wondering last night if we wouldn't have more success in the Chicago area. After all, it's a larger concentration of people (read: a larger concentration of cancer), let alone those that travel there for treatment. So I found out that they do the radiation microspheres at Northwestern and University of Illinois, Chicago. Yee haw.

After we confirmed all the liver information with Dr. Haid, I expressed my concerns about going to Madison for the microspheres. Dr. Haid told us that he wasn't too impressed with Madison. Suddenly the list is down to two. Then Dr. Haid says "Well, I was at Northwestern for 25 years, and Dr. Al Benson is a friend of mine. Let's call him now." So, Dr. Haid made the call. Well, Al Benson is out of the office until the 25th. So they tried to give Dr. Haid the fellow's information. Dr. Haid told them that working with a fellow is completely unacceptable, it would have to be his replacement. SO we got set up with Dr. Mulcahy in the meantime. We're seeing her this Friday. At 10:00 am. Heaven sent.

We still have to call Dr. Kemeny's office tomorrow. We still need to investigate the trial at St. Luke's down in Milwaukee. And we still need to consider if we want to do the trial through Dr. Kemeny, do the trial in Milwaukee, or do traditional chemo in addition to the radiation microspheres.

We are excited. It seems that a path is forming with new possibilities. We're making a good choice by asking Dr. Haid to coordinate Jim's care. We're doing the right thing by sticking with Dr. Kemeny. And now it seems that we're being pointed in the right direction by going to Northwestern.

We need your continued prayers. Thanks, also, to those of you who have let me know you've heard Lola. I believe we are getting signs that we should press on. He might not be cured this week. He might not be cured next week. But what if he could be cured soon? That's what we're hoping for. We are painfully aware of where we are in this process, but new treatments and new directions give us hope.