Is it Thursday already!?  Monday the port was implanted and the bone marrow biopsies taken which started a week packed full of hospital visits, tests, consultations and confusion.  We have not started chemo yet and it may not even start for a few more weeks.  Faye's oncologists are reviewing her scans again with two more surgeons this morning to see if we can possibly get a viable biopsy of the tumor itself.  The tumor is in a very tricky location and the chances of reaching it surgically are very low, the first surgeon said that the less invasive, or 'guided', surgery is not an option.  The point of the biopsy is to try to confirm what we think we already know from the PET; that the tumor is cancer.  In other words, the results of the biopsy are only dependable if it comes back positive, positive means the tumor definitely is cancer.  If the result comes back negative it probably only means that they did not get a viable tissue sample from the tumor itself.  Ugh.

We are very fortunate to have several friends and Doctors advocating for us; doing research, giving referrals and great advice. Steve has also spent many hours on the internet investigating options as well.  As a result we have been consulting with some of the best lymphoma experts around, and we are applying for two clinical trials (City of Hope in CA and Sloan-Kettering in NY).  It is not likely that Faye will qualify for either of the trials but apparently it is well worth the effort, these trials include a chemo antibody or MAB that would significantly reduce regular chemo side-effects for these first two 'salvage' rounds of chemo.  Which ever path we take, in the end we will go through the 'Autologous Stem Cell Transplant' followed by more radiation.  Ugh, again.

So this morning we wait to hear what's next as though we are on 'stand by' for marching orders.  If you are not as confused as I am at this point, this may help:  possible 'next step' options include: tumor biopsy/surgery, clinical trial, immediate 'salvage' chemo, or wait 4 weeks and re-scan. Since biopsy/surgery seems to be the consensus recommendation from the experts our hope is that surgery will be our next step.  And, if surgery does turn out to be our next step it could be scheduled as early as tomorrow.

On a brighter note it looks like we will have a beautiful evening for the DAM CANCER run and a fantastic turn out!  If we are not eligible for the surgery Faye and I may even be able to stagger the DAM road ourselves. Sadly, I hope we won't be there - because it would mean that we are in the hospital, busy with that crazy biopsy stuff.

~Lolly