January 05, 2004
Fourth E-Mail
Hello everyone,
Happy and healthy new year to everyone.
Joe's 4th cycle of chemo is (thankfully) behind us and his surgery is in front of us. He was in from 12/26 - 1/31/03 and got discharged just in time to spend a nice New Year's Eve at home with us and his Britton grandparents. His five day chemo stay included an MRI under general anesthesia. The combination caused enough nausea that he stayed an extra day in the hospital, but has otherwise felt fine since then.
According to the MRI from 12/29/03, the tumor has shrunk approximately 40%! Joe will have testing done this week (bone scan, chest CT, x-rays) to continue to check for any metastases. Assuming there is none, Joe's surgery is currently scheduled for 1/16/04.The short explanation of the surgery is that we will say good riddance to the tumor, gently say good-bye to the radial bone in his forearm and welcome a bone graft where his radius used to be.
The longer explanation of his surgery is the majority of his left radius bone in his forearm will be removed to excise the primary cancer site. That bone will be extensively examined and a pathology report will indicate an approximation of how many (if any) viable cancer cells remained in the bone. That pathology report will take anywhere from one to three weeks. At that same time of surgery, a bone graft will be implanted to take the place of the radial bone. Joe's forearm will be in a splint for an extended period of time after surgery to optimize the bond of the graft.
[Joe's bone graft will actually come from a bone bank. I would like to take a moment to make a general plug for organ and tissue donation. For those of you who live in Iowa, do you know that just marking "yes" on your driver's license is not enough? You have to register at www.IowaDonorRegistry.org. I will confess that Tom & I have only just now registered while writing this e-mail.]
We met today with Dr. Buckwalter, head of orthopedics, who will perform Joe's surgery. (bio) The chemo will resume after his forearm is sufficiently healed, probably in early February.
Our prayers and wishes list feels long right now. We want Joe's tests to again all come back clear, we are hoping that Joe's tumor is 95%-100% nacrotic (not viable), we don't want to see any other cancer cells in the bone tissue from his arm or at the margins of the graft, we want the bone graft to solidly bond and we want his white blood count to stay high throughout. We are also hoping that no nerve damage will occur during the bone removal. There is a relatively good possibility that there will be some damage to the radial nerve in Joe's left hand, but it is not a certainty.
Joe is nervous about the surgery - and Tom & I are feeling optimistic but a little overloaded. In the meantime, before the 16th, we will enjoy our time at home. We will celebrate Seth's 12th birthday tomorrow (he was born at 12 noon). For those who like sending e-mail, you can say happy birthday to Seth at s.saeugling@mchsi.com. If you would like to send Joe an e-mail greeting while he is in-patient for his surgery, you can do so through the hospital's patient e-mail greeting service here. [Remember, he won't be there until 1/16/04.]
And, just to make sure everyone's included, this time the picture includes our dog, Happy.
Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. We really appreciate them.
Jenny, Tom, Seth, Joe and Happy