MRI results and surgery...

Finally a little bit of good news. Today we meet with the Thoracic Surgeon and he had received the results from the MRI which clarified that there are actually NO abnormalities with Steve's T6 vertebrae. (Sigh of relief) Next we need to have a biopsy performed on the tumor in his chest still to make sure we are still dealing with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and nothing more. Most of you probably have the same questions we had so here are some answers....

Did Steve not have Hodgkin’s? Yes Steve has/had Hodgkin’s

So why do we need to biopsy if we know he has Hodgkin’s? More than likely this is still Hodgkin’s but there is a small chance Steve could have developed another condition or has had another condition on top of Hodgkin’s. Although that is rare it can happen and before we pump more chemotherapy drugs and radiation into him we need to know exactly what is going on and what we are dealing with.

Why is this being questioned that it might not be Hodgkin’s? Back in October when Steve had his 2nd PET scan it was clean - no cancer. Then in December at his 3rd PET scan before radiation there was an increase in metabolic activity and Steve was symptomatic again so he started treatment again. Then even though Steve has been receiving chemotherapy the cancer has increased. So we need to determine if his body is just no longer responding to ABVD chemotherapy and switch to a different chemotherapy treatment or most importantly if it is something other than Hodgkin’s the doctors address it and cure him. We definitely don't want to pump any unnecessary drugs into him!

So tomorrow (Friday) Steve will be admitted into IMC to have the biopsy completed. Since this tumor is in his chest very close to his heart and lungs it will be a pretty invasive procedure so he will be in the hospital for approx. 4 days. I will try to update the blog each night on how he is doing. Then we should have the biopsy sometime middle to end of next week.

Thanks for all the prayers, kind words and offers to assist with the kids we greatly appreciate it.

Angie