Yesterday was the big appointment with Mom's doctor. She had her PET scan last Wednesday and we had to wait until Monday to get the results. The point of the test was to tell us if the cancer was contained to her liver or if it had spread further. The results were the best case scenerio.
The scan showed that the cancer is only in the lower lobe of the liver. Since that is that case, now we can move forward. She has the have three rounds of chemo, each five weeks long. Each round includes coming in on Wednesday once a week for treatment (generally about three hours long) for three weeks and then taking two weeks off until the next round. Doing the chemo before surgery does two things: 1) the tumor acts as a gage to see how effective the chemo is against the cancer. As long as the tumor is shrinking, we will know that any remaining seeds of cancer are also being destroyed and 2) the smaller the tumor gets, the easier time the surgeon will have removing it. So, after 15 weeks of chemo, and then a surgery, Mom should be cancer-free. What wonderful news.
The scan showed that the cancer is only in the lower lobe of the liver. Since that is that case, now we can move forward. She has the have three rounds of chemo, each five weeks long. Each round includes coming in on Wednesday once a week for treatment (generally about three hours long) for three weeks and then taking two weeks off until the next round. Doing the chemo before surgery does two things: 1) the tumor acts as a gage to see how effective the chemo is against the cancer. As long as the tumor is shrinking, we will know that any remaining seeds of cancer are also being destroyed and 2) the smaller the tumor gets, the easier time the surgeon will have removing it. So, after 15 weeks of chemo, and then a surgery, Mom should be cancer-free. What wonderful news.
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