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met with the surgeon today

We had a meeting with the surgeon today, and the news is both good and .. average, I suppose, not bad.

The main tumor has shrunk from 11 cm when we first found it to only 5 cm now. This is VERY good! It is located on his kidney, and while it’s wrapped around the kidney blood vessels, it’s no longer near the aorta – which is very good. Removing this is still a delicate procedure due to the involvement of the kidney vessels, but is worlds easier than it would have been if the aorta was still an issue. IF this was the only remaining tumor, we’d be able to schedule the surgery immediately and move forward with treatment as planned.

However, there are also 3 remaining tumors in the liver which were there when he was diagnosed as well. They are considerably smaller now, but still there. This means the chemo is working, but has not killed them off yet. Because of this, the surgeon and Ezra’s oncologists need to sit and chat over the next course of action. The liver is on the other side of his body, so all the tumors could not be removed with one surgery. Also, they are in both sides of the liver – one is accessed near the middle of the body, the other the left side. In other words, removing all 4 tumors requires careful attention – and surgery may not even be the best option for all 4. Our surgeon is also talking to some other oncologists who have a method of “freezing” the liver tumors so they no longer are active. A 6th round of chemo BEFORE the surgery is also not off the table – the surgeon wants to go over the pros and c ons of that with Ezra’s oncologists as well to see if that would have a large affect on the liver tumors.

To sum it all up – everything is still looking good, and responding well. The liver tumors are a bump in the road which require careful consideration and some attention in how best to deal with. Dr Kayton (the surgeon)’s words were “this isn’t a text book case… we need to tailor something specifically for Ezra” – which is a good thing. No one is worried, and the treatment is all affecting him positively. Dr Kayton will be getting back to us within a week or so with answers/options on what we do next.

Whew!

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