Microspheres and Retirement

We had a successful visit at Northwestern. We met with Dr. Mulcahy, who was very direct (almost as much as Dr. Kemeny, but Kemeny is unbeatable), and who was very competent. She looked everything over, but she'd already had an entire team set up to meet us. We spent 2 hours in consult with her and her team today. I've never heard of seeing any doctor for two hours.

So, she basically said that yes, he's eligible for radiation microspheres. We're going to do a trial that enables Northwestern to use a microsphere that they believe to be the most successful. Apparently there's more than one type of microsphere. One is encased in glass, the other in a resin. When I say encased...each microsphere is 1/3 the diameter of a piece of hair, so it's not the casing they are worried about - they just use that as a distinguishing factor when explaining it to laypeople like us. So we are excited about that - it's nice that they have a choice on what to use.

We met with the Interventional Radiologist today. He looked young (in his 30s?!) but he seemed very relaxed and competent, which was good. (Not so for some of the young doctors we met at Mayo, so this was a refreshing change.) Northwestern considers themselves the leaders in radiation microspheres. I'm not sure if there's tons of data to back that up, but I liked the way they handled things. I liked meeting the Interventional Radiologist right at the beginning. And Dr. Mulcahy was clearly on top of things.

Dr. Mulcahy did manage to "tick Jim off" (thanks, Shauna!) by telling him that he'd never get rid of his cancer. (I was having a hard time explaining the word exchange with Dr. Mulcahy and my friend Shauna said it most succinctly - "So she ticked him off!") He's determined to take better care of himself, build up his strength, and put up a full-fledged kicking and screaming fight. And then we may have to do a giant conga line where we go to each doctor that told us he couldn't do it and throw bananas at them. Or something like that. I haven't thought that out completely yet.

Anyway, she was still very positive and basically said that the goal is to stabilize him. That's our goal too, so everyone's on the same page.

Next up: we go back for a scan on Friday. Then the following Monday is a big day - he gets an angiogram (An x-ray of blood vessels; the person receives an injection of dye to outline the vessels on the x-ray) on his liver. Then they actually do a trial run to see where the radiation microspheres will go in the body. They don't want random microspheres floating around, getting out of the liver, and ending up in the heart or lungs or anything like that. They said it's pretty rare but I'm glad they check.

Then, he comes home and waits until the Friday of the NEXT week, because they have to order the microspheres. Since it's radiation, it degrades the longer they let it sit around. Who knew?! So they need to order it and then get him in there to do the procedure while the microspheres are still "fresh".

Let's see...what else am I missing?

On a totally different note: Retirement, here we come.

My Uncle Tom and Aunt Tina lent us their apartment in Chicago. It's their retirement place - they'll have this one in Chicago and one near their daughter and son-in-law in South Carolina. Anyway, it was the coolest place ever. As you know, my childhood dream was to own a loft in NYC. WELL, THIS IS THAT PLACE, except in Chicago. The moment we stepped in the door, our entire retirement took shape for me. Winters in Arizona, summers in Chicago, living in a cool loft. Jim got kind of smirky and said "I knew you'd be talking about this". Because of course, now that I have the vision I can't let it go. Pretty soon I'll start badgering him "Don't you think we should get a place now? That way we can have it all ready when we retire in 25 years..."

Jim's got a tall order. First, get the radiation microspheres to get rid of the cancer in his liver. Then, do systemic chemo to get rid of the ones on his omentum. Then get the hepatic pump so we can keep him cancer-free. Then design a lot of boxes and save his customers lots of money so that he can buy me a loft in Chicago. Then we'll get the place in Arizona. Then we can retire and jet set between our-not-yet-chosen-city-in-Arizona and Chicago. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?