Sunday, July 12, 2009

Some Follow Up

Hello Hello!



Sorry for the length of time between posts but there really hasn't been much to report. NOW there is though. We have a couple of updates and stories to share- so it's finally time for this follow up!



We'll start with the fun story:

Mom has a friend from high school who comes from a Family FULL of DOCTORS and she also happens to write for a medical journal. Wanting to make sure we had taken the best course of action and made the right decisions we asked Judy to tap into her resources and see what they would recommend. They all said "she should see Dr. John Chan at UCSF!" And guess what - that's who MOM sees!!!! So that made us feel really good about mom's doctors and the care she's been receiving.



Now for the updates:

On Friday, Mom had a visit with Dr. Chan (her oncology surgeon). This was a follow up appointment from her Surgery on December 18. The update is that Mom looks good! Her most recent CT Scans were CLEAN. Dr Chan was happy with the results and said that she should stay on the AVASTIN as maintenance treatment.



Mom had chosen to stop chemo therapy (since she made it through the prescribed course of treatment) and is just having AVASTIN infusions every 21 days (as long as the insurance will allow it). There really isn't an ANSWER GUIDE to tell us if this is the RIGHT or WRONG decision but after letting Dr. Chan know about what she is doing and discussing her options - he AGREED and said this is the best course of action at this time.



Then we had some Questions for Dr Chan:

One of the Questions that we had was "does this mean she's Cancer Free?" Dr. Chan's response was "No, Not yet." He explained that she had cancer and underwent treatment and that now she is in the maintenance phase. In this phase all we can do is continue with the maintenance drugs and wait....Wait for the Cancer to reoccur OR not. If after two years without any signs of cancer then that is GOOD news.



Another Question that we asked was about Nutrition "What should mom eat to boost her immune system?" And then we talked about whether certain foods feed cancer or not. He said that there really wasn't anything she could eat to boost her immune system and just told her to eat a well balanced diet. OVARIAN CANCER cannot be brought on by DIET, EXERCISE or LIFESTYLE so she can eat sugar, chocolate, whatever!!! Just needs to maintain a normal healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables.



Then since we all have this DANG Summer Cold AND since Mom is traveling next month we asked him about AIRBORNE!!! (te hee, yes we wasted his time asking him what he thought about Airborne). His response included a smile and smirk (that he did not present at any other time during the appointment) and said, "well, my wife swears by it but I don't use it" and that was all he said!!!



WHEW this has been long...but in closing:

We can't say she's in the clear.

We can say that she feels good, her hair is starting to grow back, and her results so far are GREAT.

Life is Good.

3 comments:

  1. YAY!!! SOOOOOOOOO glad to hear all of that! Thanks for the update, Kara! Can't wait to see you all in Vegas! (Kara...are you guys going to be able to make it to that?) I hope everyone has safe travels! Miss and love you all!

    Brandy.

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  2. Hi Barb:
    That is the best news blog we have had in a long time. So glad to hear that you are feeling better and trying to get back to normal (whatever that is). Keep up the good work and thanks Kara for the update.
    Love & Prayers,
    Janet & Paul

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