Happy beautiful Sunday afternoon,

It is a gorgeous day here in Seattle!

We are very optimistic about our treatment plan for these little cancer spots. Here is the long story…

On a Thursday or Friday in the very near future (this week, next week or the following) I will go in for a procedure to “map” the blood flow in my liver to see if I am a candidate for Y90 radiation. All of the visible tumors are small and in the right side of my liver. This cancer is fed by blood. They will put a catheter into the artery in my groin and follow it into the hepatic artery in my liver. They will use some kind of dye rather than the radiation to follow the blood flow into my liver to see which branches of the artery are feeding the tumors and to make sure little to no radiation leeches out of my liver. After that procedure I’ll need to stay still and lie flat for 6 hours to make sure bleeding from the point of the catheter has stopped. I’ll need to miss a day of work at most, at that point. There are a couple of scenarios that would make me ineligible for this radiation (for example, if too much dye leeches out of the liver or if the tumors are being fed by every branch of the hepatic artery), but, most likely we’ll be able to proceed.

In that case, it will take 2 weeks for them to create and cook up my own special batch of radiation. When that is ready I will have the same procedure, this time with the radiation. Again, I’ll need to lie flat and still for 6 hours. The PA we talked to on Friday said that 25% of people have zero side effects. He said most likely I’ll have fatigue and some mild pain. My hope would be to have the procedure on a Friday and take the next week off. Hopefully that would be all I would need. Of course there is the other 25% that need more time; but we’ll cross that bridge at the end of the first week!

During the mapping procedure, if they find that the tumors are being fed by 2 branches of the artery, they would repeat this procedure one month later. With the location of my tumors, it looks like I’ll only need one procedure, but he could not say for sure. That will be determined in the mapping procedure.

At that point there is really nothing more to do for the next 3 months. They have found that they really need to wait 3 months after this procedure before they can get a clear scan. In a way, that seems to be a long time, but this seems to be slow growing cancer, so it should be just fine in my case.

Dr. Kaplan thinks this is the best treatment for me at this point and he does not want to do any chemotherapy in conjunction with it…well neither do I! So, if I do get the radiation, that means no chemo!! 

That suits me just fine!

The PA said he would start the paper work for approval from insurance and tomorrow morning I will call and make my appointment. I’ll let you know about my appointments when I find out for sure.

This past week at school has been so emotional. People are so very lovely. A number of my peers went right to David, our principal to ask about donating leave to me (which I will need). I received a most beautiful bouquet of flowers from the special ed department, arranged by my teacher friend Janelle, gorgeous! I have been hugged and hugged by parents, teachers and kids alike! We have such a great community at Pathfinder!

The kids are amazing! I’ve had groups of kids show up with cards made by themselves and their classmates, it’s just been so very sweet! 

But first graders…they take the cake! I let them know last Tuesday morning that my cancer was back, I was going to have to be out, I didn’t know when or for how long, but I would find them an excellent teacher. I debated about telling them so soon, knowing there were so many unknowns. But, they are perceptive and as soon as word started getting out, they would pick up on it. Also, at the time, I thought I was in for chemotherapy and would be out, perhaps for the rest of the year. So, I told them. We had this great conversation, they were sad and worried and very dear. We talked about people they know who have been sick or who died. I let the conversation go on for a while, so we could all process and then I knew when I could stop. If you have ever been a teacher of young children, you know this is a fact…every single conversation, if you let it go long enough, has the potential to end up in the same place…and when our conversation got to this point, I knew I could wrap it up. This topic is dead pets. And not just their pets, pets of their neighbors, pets that are part of their families history; the cat their grandma had when she was a little girl, the dog their daddy grew up with. They are so terribly sad this pet is gone and even more sad that they never knew it. So as soon as we started talking about dead cats, I knew I could stop the conversation for that day!

The next day…in comes Quinn, such a card, he stops in his tracks, looks at me, and says, Hey, I thought you’d be gone with cancer!  And next over Aiden J…remember that bad news? My bad news, I ask. Yea he says. Yea, I remember. It almost made me sad. Then…It almost made me cry.

They are too cute and funny and I’m lucky to spend my days with them and so hopeful that I won’t need tons of time off!

I will keep you posted. Thank you for the prayers, hugs, and good wishes. We are feeling great about this treatment plan and feeling healthy and positive.

Love to you all

Janet