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We decided to stay in St. Louis an extra night to get a second opinion from an oncologist at Siteman Cancer Center. We had an appointment at 11:00 this morning. The cancer has been diagnosed as stage 2 locally advanced. We were presented with 4 treatment options ranging from doing nothing to participating in clinical trials. Well, were definitely doing something but don't want to take the chance of being a guinea pig in a clinical trial so were left with options 2 and 3. Both use chemoradiation but method 3 will be harder on Gary (we think) and the treatment has more side effects. The benefit of option 3 is that it's based on a study just released from M.D. Anderson that had better results than option 2 for shrinking the tumor. Shrinking the tumor is the goal. This would allow Gary to be reevaluated for surgery which is the only hope for a cure. (Besides a miracle of course). The doctor told us today 4 people out of 100 survive pancreatic cancer. Dad made it clear to the doctor that he wants to be one of those four. So we have some decisions to make and a few weeks to make them while Gary recovers from surgery. It's a tough decision. Both 2 and 3 have potential to shrink the tumor with 2 being the norm as far is treatment and 3 being a new treatment that has a slightly higher chance of shrinking the tumor. When I say norm it was the norm for Siteman prior to the M.D. Anderson study released July 20, 2008. If they proceed with treatment 3 dad will be the first person treated at Siteman with this new procedure. There's a lot of unknowns. Treatment 2 is more aggressive than the typical 5FU chemo treatment plus radiation that was offered in our first opinion because it's adding a 2 month round of gemcitabine (gemzar) chemo before and after a 5 week 5FU plus radiation cycle. A difference in option 3 and the M.D. Anderson study is that Gary's cancer is more advanced than the participants of their study. Do we want to go through the unknowns and the possible extra pain with option 3 which is a new procedure that has slightly higher chance of shrinking the tumor, or go with option 2 that has proven itself before and may be a little easier on Gary? Although not easy by any means. Please pray for guidance. Something good that came out of the second opinion was that the oncologist we spoke with today will start spending 1 day a week at Southeast Hospital in Cape starting 2 weeks from now. Which works out perfect. Gary was wanting to stay close to home. He said something about chunks costing too much in St. Louis. Gary is staying strong. He's currently on the way back home. He's getting around pretty good considering what he's been through the last few days. The recovery from the surgery is expected to take up to 3 weeks. He'll have to take another MRI over the next couple of weeks to see if the cancer has spread. If it spreads we will default to treatment option 2. We feel we're on the right track and appreciate the support from all our family and friends. We'll keep you posted.
Later
