What a day this has been..an emotional roller coaster to say the least. The bottom line is Bob feels VERY well taken care of by Dr. Harrisons staff...I also feel very taken care of by the staff.....AMAZING is my explanation of the whole "operation". Everything is in one building and they all work together very well. Louise his secretary is an angel. SHE helps in making this unfortunate process bearable.
Bob's tumor is at Stage 4 BUT it is VERY treatable with chemo and radiation. Dr. Harrison said DO NOT think about the stage 4 part...MANY/MOST patients with this particular cancer arrive in his office at Stage 4 and he has MUCH experience in treating this. Surgical removal of tumor will not be done since it would be very disfiguring and the results with surgery vs. chemo/radiation are about the same. At one point we had 5 doctors in the exam room at the same time and no one balked at this diagnosis...Dr. Harrison is VERY optimistic and positive that they will conquer it. ....though there is a process to this success.
Bob and I are staying in NY again tonight so he can have a bunch of testing tomorrow and I can meet with a social worker about telling the girls and also a nutritionist. It turns out that Dr. Harrison leaves in about a week and will be gone nearly 2 weeks on vacation yet ANOTHER reason todays appt was a blessing. Thank you Julianne, Thank you LOUISE, Thank you GOD,
After the meeting with Dr. Harrison and team Bob met with Dr. Verona who will be the dentist overseeing his dental needs before and for some time after treatments are complete. He did impressions of Bob's mouth to make trays for Bob to give himself fluoride treatments every night before bed. As you can imagine radiation affects the teeth, muscle and bone so they take preventative measures to limit this. Bob also has jaw exercises to do daily.
He will have several tests tomorrow including PET scan and "simulation" which takes about an hour. The simulation is an intregal part of the treatment planning by Dr. Harrison. Usually all these pre treatment appointments take approx, 2 weeks however they are doing their best to get them all in today and tomorrow and maybe one other day this week so Dr. Harrison can plan his treatment before he leaves on vacation... Bob will be doing all treatments in NYC Monday - Friday and home on weekends. He will investigate working out of the NY office until he feels he can't due to trauma to his throat.
After leaving the hospital today around 2 we went to Hope Lodge to see where it was.
This is going to be quite grueling for him and stressful for the family but we have great optimism that we will have a good outcome.
Thanks for all support. I will be working on a special website for future updates which will make writing updates and friends and family can check when they want to. I'll let you know when it's up and running.
Please keep praying.
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