March 3

Last week Thursday, Feb. 26, Becca's birthday, Rick & I drove to London where I had my PET scan. It's very similar to a CT scan. After injecting a radio active material into my arm, I had to lay still for about 1 hour. No moving, no squirming, no scratching any itches. I did good. The room was dark so I almost fell asleep a few times, just couldn't fall all the way asleep. Then I went into the room where the PET Scan was done. The machine is similar to a CT Scan machine just longer, also is open on both ends (unlike the MRI). It can also do a CT scan, which they did just before doing the PET scan. The total time for the scan was about 30-45 minutes. It's a lot slower than the CT scan. My doctor(s) should get the results in a week or so. I'm expecting good results :)

Today I had a CT Scan of the abdomen and chest. Tomorrow, Wed. March 4, I was booked to have chemoembolization ("ch.em") of the liver. This would involve sending a catheter up an artery to the tumours in the liver and injecting chemo into them. Then they would close off the blood supply to the liver which would cause the side of the liver with tumours to shrink and the "good" side to enlarge giving it a better chance for regrowth. I got a call last week Monday and was told the doctor in Radiology decided to do an RFA (Radio Frequency Ablation) instead of the "ch.em". "Ablation" means to burn. So instead of going through an artery with a catheter, it would be more like a biopsy where they freeze the abdomen area near the liver, insert a small needle then using ultrasound guiding a probe into the tumours and use radio frequency burn the tumours. I called to let my liver surgeon know and he wasn't too happy. He still wanted them to do the embolization of the good part of the liver. So he spoke with the Radiology doctor and now I'll be having the embolization (called portal vein embolization) on March 26th, (but not the chemo part) and the RFA tomorrow.

I met with the surgeon yesterday and signed the consent for surgery. The date will be April 16th. He talked about possible complications and mentioned that 3% of patients die from complications. (I will just remember that God is in control!) I asked him if there was anything that could be done to prevent possible blood clots. He mentioned that sometimes a filter is put in to keep any blood clots from traveling from the legs up to the lungs or brain. The filter is put in an artery before surgery and taken out after. He suggested I ask the internal medicine doctor what he would prefer, filter or no filter.

Many, many people have told me that they are praying for me, and their church or Bible Study is praying. So many people, so many that I don't even know. I want to thank you, all of you! Those people I know and those that I don't (yet). Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to remember myself and my family in your prayers. We appreciate it so much and could not get through this journey without you.

Have a blessed week.
Judi