On Monday Tracey and I met with Dr. L. To discuss the options for the oozy tumour. Which does sound like a good band name btw.
Even though I’ve had surgery by an Interventional Radiologist before I was kinda curious to understand how they got such a cool handle. Google said : Interventional radiology is a medical sub-specialty of radiology utilizing minimally-invasive image-guided procedures to diagnose and treat diseases in nearly every organ system.
Basically these are the smart video game playing guys. The ones that are great working the screen and their hands at the same time. Mucho respect. Same respect I have for the endoscopists that have done my many stents without incident..
Today Tracey and I met with Dr. R. to follow up on the possible surgical procedure as suggested by Dr. L. and we have decided to move forward as soon as possible.
The conversations were not completely straight forward so quite a few questions were asked, strategies discussed and now a plan in place.
This is the surgery where they snake through my arteries and arrive above the tumour. Once there they study blood flow to confirm direction and then drop in little beads that travel towards (fingers crossed) the artery feeding the tumour and block the tumour’s blood supply. Simple right?!
But this was the question that needed to be answered today by the Oncologist - if we stop the blood supply to the tumour how does the chemotherapy reach the tumour as well? And if it blocks access do I start chemo and wait a bit so I can at least get something happening at that site? Or is the risk of a catastrophic bleed by waiting more of an issue?
The answer lay in the fact that the chemo treatment travels through the smallest of capillaries so we still feel the treatment will be effective, that and there is a concern that one of the known side effects of this treatment is the internal bleeding. Best to go in to this next phase as healthy as possible.
Gotta say I was super impressed with both Doctors and their abilities to explain complex situations in a respectful and digestible manner. I learned a lot and feel comfortable with the procedure even though the whole thing is kinda a crap shoot.
Risk aside, and there are risks, this feels like the best plan we could have asked for.
Oh and special bonus, there is a theory that blocking blood supply to the tumour can actually causes the tumour to recede.
Bonus with purchase indeed.