The Plan

We met with two oncologists in the last two days. The choice for was almost immediately clear to us both. Unfortunately the doctor that we liked was not the one with with the office closest to our house, with the granite and cherry furnishings, attractive staff and a candy dish at every desk. Both doctors came up with basically the same prognosis and course of treatment, but Dr. Weinstein just felt like the right man. After talking to him for a few minutes he had to leave the room, Tom looked at me and said, "I like him". I said, "Me too, damn". The office was fine, sort of a Best Western compared to the Hilton.

Tom is healing well from the surgery, his appetite and energy are increasing daily, and his pain is being managed. He does need to be all healed up before he begins chemo. So here is the plan; in two weeks he'll go in for a PET scan which will be his baseline. The scan should show if there is any cancer remaining, but it's possible that there may be some that doesn't show. He will also have blood work that day. Two weeks after that, he'll have a port placed in his chest that the chemo will be administered into. There will be a two-week cycle of chemo probably for six months. He'll go to the clinic where some of the chemo will be administered over the span of a few hours, then they will put on a fanny pack style of pump that will administer the rest of the chemo over the next forty-eight hours. Tom will then go back to the clinic and have the pump removed. The whole thing is repeated every two weeks. This is the standard protocol for colon cancer. We are told that the side effects from this chemo are not too bad and there are good medicines for many of the side effects. Also the doctor gave us the name of a naturopath that works with chemo patients.

Our hope, of course, is that at the end of all his Tom will be cancer free, and that is certainly possible. Tom's cancer had grown to a stage where a permanent cure is harder to come by. So there may be additional chemo, perhaps with different drugs or additional surgery down the road. We don't know when Tom will be returning to work, first he has to heal from the surgery. We are told that some people tolerate the chemo very well and are able to work through it. Time will tell. That is where we are at. It feels like a long stretch of uncertainty, but if you stop to think about it, life doesn't really offer much certainty. So we are going to try not to think about the uncertainty, we are going to fight the fight and celebrate the incredible support being offered by our family, friends, coworkers and community.

Jan and Tom

PS. We want all of you receiving these updates to know that you are free to pass them on to anyone that has expressed concern for our situation. We want people to have accurate information and not have to wonder what's going on.