Our Morning at UCLA was long, but we feel encouraged after meeting with Dr. Tomlinson. First I must say he and his staff were very kind and helpful. He spent almost an hour with us going over the treatment options available for Pancreatic Cancer. The main thing that we discussed was the fact that Surgery will not benefit George at this point, and chemo will be the first step. The option of Surgery is not closed, but it will be reevaluated after it is seen how the tumor respondes to the chemo. The Pancreatic team that Dr. Tomlinson presented George's case to all agreed that the CT done at Henry Mayo is lacking in quality and needs to be redone on a higher quality machine to get a proper reading and staging. UCLA started working right away on the paperwork and request to have the CT approved by our insurance and scheduled. We talked a great deal about the chemo option, and were told that many types are available. Most encouraging was the fact that Dr. Tomlinson said that if "Plan A" stops working or George doesn't tolerate it, we will move to "Plan B" and when that stops we move to "Plan C" and so on. He must have listed 3-4 different drugs that have been effective in shrinking pancreatic tumors. We know this will not be easy, and we may have very difficult days ahead, but he said George is young and healthy and can do this!
We talked about the possibility of the tumor shrinking enough to be resected at a point down the road. Dr. Tomlinson said if and when he feels that benefit outways the risk of the Surgery then he will offer that option. It is major surgery and not without very serious risk. Dr. Tomlinson had just preformed the Whipple Procedure yesterday on a patient, and has another scheduled for Friday morning. We feel he is very qualified, and knows what is resectable or not.
Next, we will be waiting for the call to say the CT approval is in, and then set the date to get it done. We will then request approval to allow chemo treatment to be done by an oncology doctor that works with the Pancreatic Team.
Sorry for the delay in getting this information updated, but it's been a very long day...
Good night,
~Donna
Sounds like you are in good expert hands...a good team and ally to have your side, compassionate, intelligent and good bedside manner and advocacy, able to lay out the options in a professional and personal and respective manner. We are wishing you all the best there is to hope for with this disease. As always ANYTHING you need we are there !!! by phone, text,email or Words with Friends =)
ReplyDeleteXOXOXO
Kim and Co
Dear George,
ReplyDeleteWe think about you every day and we miss seeing your smiling face in our store. Wishing you the best. We'll follow your progress here on your blog.
You're tougher than Gary Cooper ever was.
Rick and Nancy Manzer