Scan Day

Today was relatively uneventful.  We had to be at MD Anderson at 7:40am which meant we had to leave the house at 7:00am.  First on Steve's schedule was a CT of his abdominal area.  With this scan, he can not eat for 3 hours prior.  So, we just skipped breakfast altogether. After the CT scan, we caught the tram over to The Rotary House to have breakfast at The Oaks.  Luckily, the buffet was still going because we only had about 30 minutes until we had to be back over to the Mays Clinic for his MRI.  The buffet was not very good.  Most of the food was cold, hard, had been sitting, etc.  Then I about choked when I found out the buffet was $16 per person!!  You've got to be kidding me?!?!?!  I did manage to find a hot Texas shaped waffle and Steve got a nice, fresh omlet.  I don't like eggs, so that wasn't an option for me.  I loaded up on fresh fruit for the most part.  After breakfast, we headed back over to The Mays Clinic for Steve's MRI.  This took a lot longer than I remember.  He does not get an MRI with every set of scans, but it had been a while, so Dr. Kim decided to take a look this time around.  After the MRI, we headed home to watch some football!  We have to be back at MD Anderson tomorrow at 9am.  Steve will have a CT scan of his neck, a dermatology appointment and an appointment to go over the results of his scans.

I will post results tomorrow......

Steve waiting patiently for his CT scan.

AIM at Melanoma poster for this weekends walk. If you would like to sponsor us, you can do so at http://www.aimatmelanoma.org/en/aim-for-action/1158/1159/houston-2013/6567.html#

We'll take it!

Today Steve had a head and neck CT scan at 8:30 am.  In order for us to get to MD Anderson by 8:30 am, we had to have the kids to daycare by 7:30 am.  So, needless to say, our morning started very early.  The CT scan went relatively smoothly with not too much of a wait. 

After the CT scan, we grabbed a quick snack to hold us over until lunch.  Steve can not eat before his CT scans, so he is usually starving by the time they are finished.  His appointment with Dr. Kim to go over results was scheduled for 11:15.  When we arrived to the clinic area, the status board showed that Dr. Kim was running 30-60 minutes late.  This is not unusual.  Dr. Kim is amazing and spends lots of quality time with his patients, so we never mind the wait.  I was very sleepy and actually fell asleep in the waiting room for about 30 minutes or so.  I never do that!!!  (Hope I wasn't snoring!!)  We finally got into a room about 1:15.  Steve's nurse came in and told us that the reports had not been written up yet so she was not sure of results yet.  After a little more waiting, Urvi, the PA came in and told us that everything looked great.  The official CT reports were not in yet but she listened to the dictation and Dr. Kim looked at the scans and A) they didn't see anything new and B) the lymph node and lung nodule had both shrank a little more.  This is great news!  While Steve is still not NED (No Evidence of Disease), it seems that the Yervoy (Ipilimumab) is still doing it's job.  Dr. Kim says that about 10% of Yervoy patients have a long durable response.  Maybe Steve will be in this category?!

Urvi taking a listen to Steve's heart and lungs.

After speaking with Dr. Kim, we left the hospital around 2:30 pm.  We grabbed a quick lunch at Ruggles Green.  I have been trying to eat gluten free and they have an amazing gluten free menu!  By about 3:30 we were on our way to pick up the kids.  Steve fell asleep in the car.  I had a few errands to run and he slept through all of them.  When we got home, he went straight to bed and slept till a little after 7:00pm.  Scan days/result days are always long and exhausting.  Add in the fact that we have been moving for a week straight and you have a couple of very exhausted people! 

Yummy gluten free pizza and the manager came over and gave us a free gluten free brownie with ice cream....yum!!

 

 

 

Dr. Kim is scheduling Steve to come back in 3 months for scans again.  The next set of scans will also include an MRI of the brain.  Melanoma is sneaky and likes to travel to the brain, so we have to be sure to stay on top of that as well.  Ironically, Steve does not see a dermatologist.  Steve has an "unknown" primary meaning he basically just woke up one day with Stage 4 melanoma.  They have never been able to find a mole that they think the melanoma originated from.  On his next visit, he will also start seeing a dermatologist.  Hopefully the dermatologist with map his moles so we can keep a good eye on them.  He has wayyyyy too many for me to keep up with (although I try!).

I hope to not have anything to update the blog with regarding Steve's treatments/scans/etc for the next few months.  However, I will try to post some news articles, advocacy information, etc. 

Thank you to everyone for your love and support!