Recovery Day 35

Sorry we haven't updated since last week! Caregiver duties, Mom duties, Work duties - it just didn't happen. 

Last week was good. Progress is slow. We both just have to keep that in mind. Today is 5 weeks post op!

Friday, we met with Dr. Dude! Reminder, Dr. Morris has been Alan's oncologist since February 2017. He has walked this whole journey with us. He is like family at this point. I mentioned in the last post we were excited to see how excited he was for us!

He did not disappoint! Jocelyn, our PA, did not disappoint! We are all just overjoyed that the cancer was removed!

Majority of our time with Dr. Dude was spent talking about the clinical trial. That morning they took his blood for the CTDNA test. Dr. Dude took us through the next steps and what everything means. The CTDNA test stands for Circulating Tumor DNA test. They take his tumor that was removed and isolate the mutations within in. Then they see if his blood has those mutations in it. Because this is so specialized and new technology, the first time for this test takes a long time to get results. Any future results will be faster since the tumor analysis will only need to be done the first time. 

The current plan is 3 month scans and blood work. Dr. Fournier will be reviewing all scans because regular radiologists will see the way his insides look and assume he is eaten up with cancer! So grateful for the entire team approach to my special unicorn!

Our hope and prayer is that this blood test is negative - meaning there is no microscopic cancer present anywhere in his body! IF that's is the case, NED (no evidence of disease) is really, really real! Absolutely the best possible outcome from this surgery. If that's not the case and the test is positive, they will start developing the therapeutic vaccine. 

They will continue to test him every 3 months if he is negative for when it starts to come back. This test is sooo highly specialized that it can detect the presence of cancer 8 months before a tumor shows on a scan! Absolutely incredible! Love our God given technology! 

Today we met with Dr. Good Hair to look over his incision. He also looked at the drain site. He was super pleased! It was brief, but he went over that Alan still has restrictions of lifting for several more weeks. We will see him again in 6-8 weeks!

Next up was a different Wound nurse that before to look at his bed sore. She was pleased that it was a little better but didn't feel like it had made enough progress. We revised how to dress it to get it to heal better! It was a really good visit. 

Both days resulted in an Alan nap when we got home. Everyone is agreement that if he didn't have this dang bed sore, his progress would be even better! So we are praying this heals soon. 

So much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! Praying each of you have a joyous Thanksgiving with your families!