First Oncology Appointments

On Thursday I had my first appointment with my oncologist, Dr Sabiers. He's the quarterback of the medical team, he determines the treatment strategy and coordinates the activities of the radiologist, surgeon, etc. The outcome of this meeting was a plan that includes:

• 8 weeks of radiation treatment, followed by surgery, 4 weeks to recover, then 2 months of heavy chemo to clear things up
• During the radiation treatment, starting on Nov 10, I'll be taking part in a clinical trial of a new chemo regimen that could help the radiation treatment be more effective in shrinking the tumor. This is not a blind trial, there is no downside to the trial, I'm either going to get the standard chemo, or the standard chemo plus another drug.
• The surgery is going to be sometime around the first of the year.

On Friday I had my first appointment with the radiological oncologist, Dr Hughes. It was mostly to discuss the treatment. There will be 28 radiation treatments 5 days/week starting on Nov 10. Based on that, radiation will be complete on December 19th. Surgery will happen a week or so after that. It looks like the level of radiation and chemo drugs involved won't keep my from work or anything, it may just make me a little tired.

This Wednesday, I'll be spending the morning at Dr Hughes' office getting "simulated". That means a CT scan and a couple tatoos that will be used to align the radiation equipment for my daily doses starting on the 10th.