Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday's Procedure
Monday morning at 10:00 AM. George will have the Endoscopic Ultrasound at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The Procedure will give the Surgeon a clear picture in determining if George is eligible for the Whipple procedure or not. It should also give them the ability to give us a "Staging" of the Cancer. We will then be meeting with the first Surgeon on Tuesday afternoon, who is part of our Medical group. We already know that we will be asking for a referral to another outside Surgeon to seek the treatment based on the complexity of the surgery. Please pray that this continues to move along without delay.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Need to Blog
Dear Family and Friends:
During the past week it has become very difficult to keep up with all the emails and text messages. I was grateful to have so many of you concerned and wanting updates, yet feeling overwhelmed trying to get the information out. We decided to follow the recommendations of many of you to create this blog and post as many updates as we could. Sometimes it will be me doing the updates and at times George (he is a far better writer than I), so here goes...
Recap of the past two weeks:
2/6- Just as the Superbowl starts George's Primary care doctor calls to say his liver enzymes are elevated. He had done routine blood work the week before in preparation for a check-up that next day. He did tell the Doctor he was itchy.
2/7- He has all the lab's repeated, with added tests, and in a few days we see the enzymes are even higher.
2/10- We are sent for an Ultrasound of the Liver, the Doctor felt he may have a gallstone blocking a
duct. No stone is seen, in fact the tech just noted some fatty areas and we were told this would not cause the elevation. George continued to have severe itching and started on medication to help rid the Liver of any toxin's that could be the cause. All the blood work was negative for any viral cause and the enzymes remained high.
2/14- Enzymes levels were tested again, Donna worked that day and upon returning home could see that George started having yellowing of the eye's, skin, and periods of chills.
2/15- We waited for the Doctors call, and felt we needed to be more aggressive in finding the cause. When the call came we were both on the line, and before Donna could ask for more to be done we were told the enzymes were still high and we needed to go the the ER immediately. Family came to help with the kids and our friend Rick V. met us in the ER. After a long night George was admitted for a full workup with a Liver specialist.
2/16- The GI/Liver Specialist had more blood work, and requested an MRI. That afternoon we were told the news that a Mass was seen on the head of the Pancreas. They then did a CT to see a more detail view and confirm that it was a solid mass and what area's were involved. They could see it was blocking the ducts that bile and enzymes excrete from, and he would need to have a stent placed in the ducts the next day to open this up. It was a day filled with tears and anxiety as we shared the news with family and close friends. The Liver Specialist warned us that due to the size it was unlikely benign.
2/17- The call came in that this was a solid mass and is 4 cm by 4 cm. We would need the stent right away and a Surgical evaluation to determined if a resection (removal) could be done or not. The surgery to remove it is a highly specialized procedure called a "Whipple" and is not always possible. Several friends and family came, and at one point George had 3 RN's at his bedside (Donna's fellow colleague's) when he went in for the ERCP with stent placement. The procedure was only about 45 minutes and the Doctor was able to share with Donna photo's that were taken. It was clear that an area just outside the pancreatic duct was already ulcerated and the tissue looked like the presence of cancer. You could see the mass is pushing the ducts closed, and narrowing was present.
2/18- The comfirmation came that the tissue just outside the Pancreas was postive for Adenocarcinoma. We know that this is the same type of Cancer cell that George's Mother passed away from over 20 years ago.
2/19- George was released from the hospital and the jouney for more outpatient procedures, and Doctor consultations, begins.
During the past week it has become very difficult to keep up with all the emails and text messages. I was grateful to have so many of you concerned and wanting updates, yet feeling overwhelmed trying to get the information out. We decided to follow the recommendations of many of you to create this blog and post as many updates as we could. Sometimes it will be me doing the updates and at times George (he is a far better writer than I), so here goes...
Recap of the past two weeks:
2/6- Just as the Superbowl starts George's Primary care doctor calls to say his liver enzymes are elevated. He had done routine blood work the week before in preparation for a check-up that next day. He did tell the Doctor he was itchy.
2/7- He has all the lab's repeated, with added tests, and in a few days we see the enzymes are even higher.
2/10- We are sent for an Ultrasound of the Liver, the Doctor felt he may have a gallstone blocking a
duct. No stone is seen, in fact the tech just noted some fatty areas and we were told this would not cause the elevation. George continued to have severe itching and started on medication to help rid the Liver of any toxin's that could be the cause. All the blood work was negative for any viral cause and the enzymes remained high.
2/14- Enzymes levels were tested again, Donna worked that day and upon returning home could see that George started having yellowing of the eye's, skin, and periods of chills.
2/15- We waited for the Doctors call, and felt we needed to be more aggressive in finding the cause. When the call came we were both on the line, and before Donna could ask for more to be done we were told the enzymes were still high and we needed to go the the ER immediately. Family came to help with the kids and our friend Rick V. met us in the ER. After a long night George was admitted for a full workup with a Liver specialist.
2/16- The GI/Liver Specialist had more blood work, and requested an MRI. That afternoon we were told the news that a Mass was seen on the head of the Pancreas. They then did a CT to see a more detail view and confirm that it was a solid mass and what area's were involved. They could see it was blocking the ducts that bile and enzymes excrete from, and he would need to have a stent placed in the ducts the next day to open this up. It was a day filled with tears and anxiety as we shared the news with family and close friends. The Liver Specialist warned us that due to the size it was unlikely benign.
2/17- The call came in that this was a solid mass and is 4 cm by 4 cm. We would need the stent right away and a Surgical evaluation to determined if a resection (removal) could be done or not. The surgery to remove it is a highly specialized procedure called a "Whipple" and is not always possible. Several friends and family came, and at one point George had 3 RN's at his bedside (Donna's fellow colleague's) when he went in for the ERCP with stent placement. The procedure was only about 45 minutes and the Doctor was able to share with Donna photo's that were taken. It was clear that an area just outside the pancreatic duct was already ulcerated and the tissue looked like the presence of cancer. You could see the mass is pushing the ducts closed, and narrowing was present.
2/18- The comfirmation came that the tissue just outside the Pancreas was postive for Adenocarcinoma. We know that this is the same type of Cancer cell that George's Mother passed away from over 20 years ago.
2/19- George was released from the hospital and the jouney for more outpatient procedures, and Doctor consultations, begins.
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