Today we met with "Dr. B" at UCSF, an excellent neuro oncologist (and, according to my mom, pretty attractive as well). He described to us in mostly understandable detail all of the approaches to the treatment that he generally offers his patients, and also some of the approaches currently being presented in clinical trials. (Warning for my co-worker physicists: apparently word about our job gets out to our doctors and so they often say "you probably understand how this blah-de-blah works cause...well...you're a physicist." Well it ain't always true!)
One of the main questions I had for him was whether I should try adding Avastin to my chemo to improve my odds. The conversation with "Dr. B" essentially reinforced the"no Avastin" plan set up by my Kaiser doctor, with the knowledge that if this treatment isn't successful, I can always try Avastin later.
One of the other questions was whether or not I should return to surgery to have more tumor removed. "Dr. B" is planning to show my MRI results to the top UCSF surgeon tomorrow and get his opinion, but his initial instinct was that additional surgery was probably not necessary and starting my treatment earlier is likely more important. Of course, if additional surgery is recommended by the UCSF surgeon, it could be a slight challenge to get Kaiser to agree and pay for it....
Tomorrow I will be meeting with the Kaiser radiation oncologist to talk about his part of the plan. The radiation ultimately is what's going to kill most of the rest of my tumor, but maybe I'll take advantage of this chance and bring some vegetables along too.
um, i may be responsible for the leaking of your job... sorry....
ReplyDeleteWell, if you're gonna bring some veggies with you for the purpose of sanitizing them, you might as well bring Frodo along too...
ReplyDelete(wink wink as someone with Kaiser health record access, let me know what you would like your chart to say.) On a serious note, a friend of mine just finished up with their treatment and all along went for second opinions down at Stanford. The consistent feedback from Stanford was the KP docs were right on track. And my friend is doing great. You will soon be too!
ReplyDeleteIt's great to know that Dr. B is a well qualified oncologist, but somehow, knowing that he's also a hottie....well, I guess that doesn't change anything. It's good to hear you in command of all your options.
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