We had a fun weekend (took family photos, Dana ran in a 5K run for cancer survivorship, and Eila's birthday party!!!!). Eila was still wearing her birthday crown as we drove up to Portland to meet with Dr. Thomas.
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| From May/Jun2015 |
Unfortunately none of the three outside institutions we've reached out to (Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dana Farber, and St. Jude's) have given us their second opinions, so we're still in a holding pattern. We still met and asked more questions about possible paths forward, and we told him about our conversation with Dr. Ehrlich. We should receive the second opinions in the next couple days, and we will wait to see what those say before deciding on what to do. Unlike Eila's previous tumors, the path forward is not clear. We may have some tough choices to make and we are hoping that the second opinions will clarify matters. But they may not.
No matter what, Eila will have to undergo chemotherapy again. Dr. Thomas walked us through Eila's most likely protocol. Unlike her last two treatments, when we essentially had one session per week, this time we are also going to have several three and five day sessions because of introducing two new drugs (Cyclophosphamide and Etoposide). The whole cocktail is going to be much stronger and much more toxic, and these new drugs have scary side effects. They could affect Eila's fertility, and they will increase Eila's risk of later cancers. Scary and depressing, but what can we do?
After our meeting, Eila underwent a CT scan of her lungs. The lungs are the most common place for Wilm's Tumor it migrate (which is why Eila gets a chest x-ray at every post-chemo follow-up appointment), so it was important to make sure everything is clean there before we decide on a treatment plan. We got the scan, and went home.
Tonight Dr. Thomas called to tell us that there is a small 3mm nodule on Eila's lung. He thinks it is probably an inflammatory nodule from an infection and not cancer, but neither he nor the radiologist can say conclusively. The only way to know for sure would be to remove it and test it, but he isn't recommending we do that at this time. Instead, it sounds like we will check back in about a month to see if it has changed after starting chemo and then act accordingly. If it's an inflammatory nodule, it will go away on its own (we all get them, but no one is looking that closely at our lungs); if it's a tumor, chemo may cause it to go away...
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| From May/Jun2015 |
Tonight Dr. Thomas called to tell us that there is a small 3mm nodule on Eila's lung. He thinks it is probably an inflammatory nodule from an infection and not cancer, but neither he nor the radiologist can say conclusively. The only way to know for sure would be to remove it and test it, but he isn't recommending we do that at this time. Instead, it sounds like we will check back in about a month to see if it has changed after starting chemo and then act accordingly. If it's an inflammatory nodule, it will go away on its own (we all get them, but no one is looking that closely at our lungs); if it's a tumor, chemo may cause it to go away...
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, messages, calls, and texts. We love that stuff.
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