TESTS, TESTS, AND MORE WAITING

The liver biopsy came back as inconclusive so on to more tests. We met with the gastroenterologist, Dr. Sampath, who performed an endoscopic ultrasound & biopsy, which confirmed it was officially gastric cardia cancer.  This means that it started at the top of the stomach near the cardia flap and had grown in to the esophagus. We then had a PET scan which confirmed that it had spread to several lymph nodes, the liver, and unfortunately to the lungs as well.  We flew home the next day with an appointment to meet with Dr. Joseph Chao  on September 22nd and to hopefully start treatment ASAP.

As you drive in to City of Hope (COH) it is hard not to be impressed, valet parking, a patient liaison walked us to our office and the facilities were top notch.  We had done our research and asked for recommendations.  Dr. Chao came up as one of the top doctors in the area who focused on targeted therapies.  He explained we had several options for treatment two of them depended on certain markers (HER2 & PDL1) being in the tumors and the third was basic chemotherapy.   He clarified that there was not a cure but best case scenario the treatments will shrink or maintain the cancer and he will be able to live on with this like any chronic health problem.  Finally some good news.   He explained that the soonest chemo would start would be two weeks and if we wanted to shoot for the immunotherapy trial it would be closer to three weeks as they had to send a tissue sample to Scotland to search for the marker.   We offered to take it to Scotland, personally, in order to get things started faster but shockingly he declined.  

Needless to say 2-3 weeks felt like an eternity and neither of us are very patient, we left a bit deflated as we thought we would start treatment the next day, but insurance and tests were holding us up.  We scheduled an appointment for the next week to have a Port-a-Cath inserted into his chest to make receiving chemo and blood tests easier and began the next agonizing wait. 

Rocking the pants at PET Scan appt. 9/19/16