karenulijohn

I would like to start off by telling you of a short conversation that took place this morning at the gym.  I promise that it does relate to our issue, so please bear with me.  I was telling two of my friends about Harvey’s recent diagnosis and a third party, who had been listening, spoke up and said that her husband had the same thing and that he had had surgery with no radiation or chemo follow-up, and five months later, he had passed away.  Though stunningly insensitive, her comments did have an impact on my reaction to the Doctor’s recommendations.

Upon checking in to Dr. Graves office, we were first introduced to Dr. Kevin Izquierdo, (Kevin) a senior resident at UC Davis who works directly on Dr. Graves team.  He was very personable and kind, but told us that they needed a few more tests in order to get as much information as possible about the tumor, its position, depth, stage, and whether there was node involvement.  This can be done with an endoscopic ultrasound.  Also, the PET scan showed a non-specific spot in the colon.  Therefore, they want Harvey to have a colonoscopy.  Both of these tests will need to be completed before treatment can begin.  Kevin told us at this point that they recommend chemotherapy and radiation first in preparation for surgery later.  He assured us that recent studies show that this protocol results in lower recurrence and a good outcome longterm.

We then met Dr. Gregory Graves, a very relaxed and sincerely empathic gentleman, who reiterated what we had learned from Kevin.  His questions centered more on how Harvey was coping with eating, had he lost weight, and how much over what period.  In preparation for the chemo, he suggested that Harvey have a port placed.  Wow!   Did that get a negative reaction!  So, he will go with veins as long as he can.  Dr. Graves will also have a dietician consult with us.  Basically though, the treatment is as we had been told by Dr. Suhag: 25 radiation treatments over 5 weeks and chemotherapy for 6 weeks.

I asked what are the chances of this cancer spreading during the time it takes to get all of these tests and results completed.  He assured us that it is unlikely to spread since it has probably been growing there for a long time already.

As we left the office and were walking back to the car,  we talked about our disappointment at not being able to go with Option 1.  I decided to tell Harvey why I was depressed this morning after my visit to the gym.  In an odd way, telling him what the woman said reinforced our belief that Dr. Graves was recommending the best treatment, the one that would give the best outcome.