No Treatment Yet!

I know that many of you know, and many of you don't know that Monday, Oct 6th, Alan was told to come to Little Rock and he would be starting radiation. This would be 5 days a week for the next 3-8 weeks. We did not find this information out until Monday morning, so I worked most of the day to get caught up on some things, we get the kids situated and off we go to LR for what we think will be a weeks stay and radiation therapy.

We met with Dr. Ross this morning (Radiation Oncologist). This was a very interesting visit with her. She had a lot to tell us and I'm sure Alan and I looked like a deer in headlights after she was through talking. Basically, the Radiation Oncologist, Urologist, and Oncologist all believe that this spot growing back could be just scar tissue (which we all hope), but the Radiologist that read the scans and did the report believes that it is the tumor growing back. There is no way to be 100% sure w/o doing a biopsy. They do not want to do a biopsy b/c it is so deep inside of Alan and there is the risk for it to spread if it is a cancerous tumor growing back. Before we met with Dr. Ross this morning, the three Doctors had a "Pow Wow" about Alan's case, which was nice to know that they are all working together to do what is best for Alan. Basically what Dr. Ross told us was she wants to take Alan's case to a council of Drs. and get some more opinions, which we think is a great idea. She went through the possible side effects and apparently b/c of where the radiation will be directly pointed, there are possible side effects with many of Alan's organs, again, just go with me here b/c it has been a long day and I hope I'm explaining everything correctly. Anyway, they don't want to do radiation if they do not have to, but they want to make sure that they kill it if it is cancer. Also, she said that if it is scar tissue it will start to shrink, but if it is a tumor, it will continue to grow. They are going to do another scan in about a month and see if it is growing or shrinking. What we are not sure of is if they are going to start the radiation before the scans. One point Dr. Ross did make, in a quick way, was if it is a tumor, then it is growing too fast for the radiation to have any effect on it....again, hopefully it is not a tumor. We go back Thursday, October 16th to meet with Dr. Ross (Radiation Oncologist) and Dr. Beck (Oncologist) and after that visit, we should know more about Alan's treatment plan.

WOW, that was alot!!

SO, that's basically it for now! That was alot and I'm not even sure if I mentioned everything. Are you wondering if Alan will be doing radiation after all of that information...more than likely yes, he will still do it. After Dr. Ross's long spill, that was pretty much her recommendation at the end even though they can't tell for sure if it is tumor or scar tissue. Yep, you would think after so much research that they would be able to tell.

If anyone has any knowledge about situations similar to this, please fill us in on what you know. We would really like to hear your story!

Thanks to all and we love you!!