Learning to be (a) patient

My visit Monday with my Oncologist was a lesson in being (a) patient! I got there at 1:50 for my 2:00 appointment, got my blood drawn (they do this every visit) at 2:10, then waited until 3:00 until they put me in the exam room. At 3:40 the doctor came in...next time maybe I should just show up at 3:30...

We talked about the last CaT scan and he said there is no visible sign of cancer. However, this doesn't mean there isn't microscopic cell growth somewhere in my body.

He said it is tough to tell what the next step should be because their studies don't follow the path we've chosen. People in my situation who are part of a study go for surgery. Since we didn't follow the "normal protocol" the statistical numbers are fuzzier.

He said had I gone for surgery, he would suggest doing a 4-month round of Chemo where I go for Chemo for 2 days every 2 weeks for 8 cycles. He said that usually gives a 30-40% better chance of non-recurrence.

He said he doesn't know how he would work with Dr. Dramov (my Naturopathic doctor) because there just aren't the studies available in that genre of medicine (because the FDA doesn't back it and neither does Big Pharma).

Anyway, we will schedule another PET/CT scan in the next few weeks and then see Dr. Chang again the end of Septemeber. We need to make a decision whether to go through more Chemo or just to monitor at this point. Basically, if I decide to do more Chemo, I need to start sometime in October.

We will be researching the effects of the particular Chemo he suggests using and see if it sounds like a good idea at this point. Right now, I'm kinda 50/50 because I know some of the potential effects from reading before, but I didn't have any besides fatigue and diarhea before.

Please pray for us that we will have wisdom in this tough decision.