Latest Update

At this point a final decision has not been made on which option I will be going with, however, after a few days of research about my condition and this RPLND procedure, it is looking very likely that I will be choosing to do the surgery. Unfortunately, there are no experts here in the state of Florida for this procedure. I am sure that are urologists that can perform the surgery, but for something like this, I think I want the best. From what I have found out there are four hospitals in the country that perform this procedure regularly and have the experts. Two of them are in the state or Oregon, one is in Indiana and the fourth is in New York City. The doctors in Indiana are the same ones that preformed Lance Armstrong's surgery, and the hospital in New York is Slone Kettering, where my brother went. After making some phone calls yesterday, I have a tentative appointment to meet with the doctor in New York next Thursday morning. I have also contacted the doctor at IU Medical Hospital to try to meet with him. Since it's now the holiday weekend, I will not find out anything new until Monday, hopefully by then, I will have decided on which hospital I will be attending. This surgery is certainly no walk in the park, hence the reason I am searching for the countries best doctor. Once I have decided which hospital I will be attending I will update this blog, until then I again thank you all for your support and prayers.

Thanks again!

Visit with Oncologist

Today I meet with the oncologist, Dr. William Grow at Florida Hospital. He explained the types of treatments that are available for me and gave his recommendation. The three options are, 1) Observation, for the 1st year I would visit the doctors office every 1-2 months to have blood work and a chest x-ray to check the enlarged lymph nodes, I would also have a CT scan every 2-3 months for the 1st year. As the years progress, as long as there is no change, I would continue to visit the doctor once every 2 months in the 2nd year, 3 months in the 3rd year and so on. 2) Surgery, a procedure called retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, where the urologist would remove the enlarged lymph nodes from my body. This is a more evasive surgery than the first one and the recovery time is longer, however, the possible infected lymph nodes would be removed and from testing the lymph nodes they would know for sure if there was cancer in the lymph nodes. 3) Chemotherapy, I would have 3 treatments of chemotherapy to try to kill the possible cancer in the lymph nodes, however, if the lymph nodes do contain a cancer tumor and that tumor is teratoma the chemotherapy would not kill the tumor and surgery would have to be done anyways. The recommendation from the oncologist was to have the surgery. This option is the only sure way to find out if the lymph nodes are affected by the cancer and if it is, most likely the surgery will remove it and I should be in the clear after that. The other two options may work if the lymph nodes do not increase in size or the chemotherapy can kill the cancer if it is cancer. So, what am I going to do. First off, I am going to meet with another oncologist at MD Anderson hospital to get a second opinion, if that doctor suggest the same thing, then most likely I will have the surgery. So after I have met with the second doctor I will post what my decision is and what is going to happen next. I have posted a website below that explains the possible surgery I may have.

Thanks again for all your support.

http://www.acor.org/TCRC/rplnd.html