The C Word ~ and S for Surgery

The short story is it’s very serious and Steve will be having surgery in the near future. A more detailed version is that …………

Today at the first appointment with the oncological surgeon, we got a bigger picture of just what this looks like. It’s very, very serious. The very rare cancer which began in the appendix, leaks large amounts of fluid into the abdomen, and the entire abdomen is being bathed in cancer cells which cause tumors. However, As I understand it, they do not go into the blood or the lymph system. hooray.

A very few years ago there was nothing they could do. Today, however, there is a VERY extensive, radical surgery that lasts anywhere from 8-15 hours where they go in and systematically clean every single sign of cancer that they can see. This is followed by a lengthy ‘bath’ of heated chemo in case there’s anything left they can’t see, followed by a specific chemo afterwards. Regular chemo isn’t effective with this. One patient who had this surgery called it the MOAS surgery (Mother Of All Surgeries).

Because the surgery is so very specialized and requires extensive, sophisticated, high tech, expensive equipment, and highly trained physicians with extensive experience in this surgery, there are only a few places in the country that do this and we are fortunate to have access to one of the premier centers through the Kaiser facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is widely recognized as one of the best places on the West Coast and we are confident Steve will receive the best of treatment there.

So, at this point, the referral to the San Francisco treatment center is beginning. There are a couple more scans and tests that will be completed by Thursday, Jan 26th, and at that point Steve will be scheduled for surgery in San Francisco.

Over the next few days I’ll be matching the medical terms with what I’ve just told you, but at this point I can’t process them so I’ll have to get back with you on those so you can look things up if you want to.

We’re all finding this a huge amount to process in one day. While, on one hand we basically knew the facts from the other doctor, today, hearing it put all together and said out loud was difficult. It made it real.

We have many questions yet to be answered, as I’m sure you do. We’re keeping question lists and plan to have frequent conversations with the oncologist in Anaheim who encourages that.

Please feel free to email or call, we treasure each of you …. I just wanted to put all info on this blog to keep everyone informed on a timely basis.

We thank you all for your love, support, good wishes, and prayers. I’m so glad for all those verses and songs I learned as a child about leaning on the everlasting arms, and about Jesus being our anchor that holds through the storms of life. and what a storm this is. How wonderful that God loves us and keeps his promises. always. ~ Keren