Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tumor Removal


I met with a new doctor who told me that chemo is not a solution for the kind of cancer I have. He said with sarcomas you have to cut them out. I told him that no one wanted to do the surgery because it was so complex and it wouldn't help my mobility issues because I would lose my vena cava and a kidney. He recommended an end all surgeon.
I met with the surgeon today. To my amazement he thought he could remove my tumor, patch my vena cava (with a crygenically frozen one from a cadaver), and save my kidney by attaching it to a lower point down in my gut somewhere. All the things that the doctors at Huntsman said were impossible. In fact on my way to the appointment Huntsman called and said they would like to try radiation to see if they could shrink the tumor before surgery. I asked this doctor about it and he said we used to do that 20 years ago. That's a disproven method. Huntsman is not where you should be. He said we've done more complex surgeries here than Huntsman ever dreamed of. I begin a new series of tests at St. Marks.