Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Surgery Update

Yesterday, Steve's doctor, Dr. Kim was scheduled to meet with the surgery team and a few other melanoma doctors to decide if removing the adrenal tumor from Steve would be an option.  This is something I have personally been wanting since the day we found out it was there!  Unfortunately, Stage IV melanoma patients are generally refused surgery.  Usually the cancer is so aggressive that having surgery is a bigger risk versus reward.  So, we have always been told it was not an option.  After Steve's last CAT scans showed that the melanoma has not spread a bit and has had a small bit of shrinkage, Dr. Kim agreed that surgery may be an option for Steve.  So, I called this morning and was able to talk to Urvi, Dr. Kims PA.  (Dr. Kim is out of the office on Tuesday's).  She said that the team met yesterday and they all agreed that it would be ok to move forward with surgery!  We do not know much more than that at this time.  Urvi said that someone would be contacting us soon to schedule a consultation and then we will go from there.  I am thinking we will get that call sometime this week and Steve could be having surgery as early as next week!  Once the adrenal tumor is gone,  Steve will only have melanoma present in his right clavicular lymph node, a very small spot on his lung, and a few small nodules in his abdominal cavity.  While this may seem like a lot (any cancer is too much!!), it is actually very minimal for a stage IV melanoma patient.  After the adrenal gland tumor is gone, he will start a new treatment (not sure which one yet) to try and get rid of the remaining melanomas and/or shrink them (most importantly prevent the melanoma from spreading!!).

I will update as soon as I know about the surgery!  Thank you to everyone for your continued support!


Thank you to 'Texas Hills Insurance Agency' - My mom is a commercial insurance underwriter and 'Texas Hills Insurance Agency' is one of her assigned agencies.  The agency participated and raised money for 'Relay for Life' and did so in honor of Steve.  This is the photo they sent my mom.  Thank you!!!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jennifer, my name is Lucy Richardson and I work in the communications office at MD Anderson. I've been following your blog for some time now but was waiting for the right opportunity to reach out to you. After you posted on our Facebook wall I took it as a sign to make the jump. I'd love to discuss collaborating with you on blog posts. If you're interested, please email me at lrichardson1@mdanderson.org. Thanks and keep up the great writing!

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