2013, Friday, October 18th. Another bend in the Road?

We are back from the clinic again.  It was a beautiful drive up and back, and we had a good book to read which makes the time go more quickly; The Forgotten 500. A riveting story detailing the bold and daring rescue of over 500 Allied Airmen shot down over Yugoslavia  during WWII and cared for by the Serbs right under the German's noses. Another piece of history of which we were unaware.

Leland's blood work looks great, he needs to increase his vitamin D3 as it is  low, and he is trying some Wisconsin Gensing on Dr. Sweet's suggestion to see if it helps his energy levels. I love the way she really pays attention to these matters, and always has good suggestions for solving problems we run into.

As I said on the last post, the bone scan is mostly good, however, there are two new metastatic bone lesions and while his PSA is down to 4.19, lower than it has been since this began, it is still high.  I have been in e-mail contact with another cancer survivor who volunteers with PCAI, a Pca List-Serve I joined, and from which we have learned much more that one can ever find out in a doctor's office.  Chuck is a volunteer, and a real researcher who loves sharing his knowlege.  He pointed out a couple of things we need to check into, and when I asked Dr. Chen about it, he was not knowlegeable about it at all.  Chuck then sent info about an Oncologist specializing in Pca who practices at OSHU at the Knight Cancer Center, and on the website they were discussing the very problem which Leland may have-adaptive pathways which allow Pca  to grow in spite of hormone treatment. So on Monday I will make an appointment there for Leland, if they are accepting new patients. 

We found out today that the Chronic Disease Fund will be unable to assist us with co-pays in 2014 due to lack of funding, but they suggested another place, which I called and applied to  this morning.  We will hear from them this next week, and find out for sure and what the amount of the grant will be. We will be very grateful for whatever they can help us with.

Earlier in the summer I went to have a small lump on the side of my nose near my eye evaluated. Three doctors and one CT scan later, it was determined it should come off, and was most likely benign. The pathology report came back malignant to everyone's surprise, a rare cancer called a Micro Cystic Adnexal Carcinoma.  In 25 years of looking at all kinds of cancer I had never heard of this one;  I am pretty sure the pathologist had his books off the shelf researching this one before settling on the diagnosis. It arises in sweat glands mid face usually, primarily on women and there are only 300 per year world wide. They spread locally, but are rarely metastatic. Now I have to go back and have the incision removed, the bone scraped, and all tissue surrounding it cut away until the margins are clear. There is no way to know how extensive it will have to be until they actually do it, but hopefully it will be fairly small.  My surgeon is also trained in plastic surgery, so the scars should not be too noticeable after it all heals up. The surgery will be Monday the 28th, and we will be glad to have it resolved.

I will post again after my surgery and let you all know how it came out and how large the excision had to be.
In the meantime, we are really enjoying the beautiful fall weather and gorgeous colors, and thankful for all the blessing we enjoy.