Home sweet Home. We are finally home from our whirlwind trip yesterday. We left about 8am yesterday morning to get to the airport, which was surprisingly very easy and fast. Security was a breeze and thanks to my Dad we were in A boarding group, Whoo Hoo! The simple things in life :) We were worried that maybe Donnie would have a severe headache or his ears would not be able to pop because of the altitude and his head being so congested. But he was fine he slept the whole time and felt great! Lucky for me, I sat next to a sweet older Italian man, who kept me company with some very good conversation. He wound up being from the same Italian village that my family comes from. Very small world. We talked about everything from iPhones to Las Vegas construction. It made for a enjoyable hour flight! When we arrived at the airport, Angela met us, to take us to our appointment and she didn't disappoint. She had homemade soup, sandwiches with homemade fresh bread, and a whole cooler filled with drinks and goodies! She also had pillows and a blanket waiting for Donnie in the car, for the ride. Couldn't have asked for a better person to help us through the day!
When we arrived at the hospital we were about a hour early for our appointment so we ate some lunch and visited for a bit. We headed up to the waiting area and they got us in pretty quick, we didn't wait long at all. They took Donnie's vitals, then took us to the consultation room to wait for Dr. Morbacher. Once she got there, she went over all of Donnie's test and records with us. She showed us the images of the PET scan, and let me tell you, a PET scan in an incredible piece of technology. It's so black and white. On the scan you can see the whole body, a body that is standing facing you and the body is white. And everything that is black is Cancer, except for the Brain, Heart, and Bladder. Those all show up black as well. When we looked at the image, we could see a small black dot on his neck but nothing else. The black on his face just looked like part or his brain, until she turned the body to a side view. On the side view, it literally looked like his whole right side of his face was black. All the way from his throat to almost his brain where your forehead is. I mean, it looked very big on the MRI but the PET scan was so much more clear and detailed. He also had a little spot in his groin as well! It was just so scary and shocking to look at! The Dr. expressed major concern with how progressed it is. She definitely think it can be treated but it needs to start now. She sent him to get another biopsy of this original neck lump, just to make sure that the original diagnosis was accurate. He also had blood work done when we were there. She discussed with us whether we wanted to go less aggressive but maybe have to do something different after if it doesn't cure it. Or whether we would rather go more aggressive with more of a chance of it being cured with just that therapy. This a hard choice for us, seeing as how our main goal has always been "quality of life" but we really want to Stem Cell Transplant, because honestly I feel like he will have a better chance of getting rid of this and bouncing back from it if he does! And that is a more aggressive treatment. He will need to do the R.I.C.E. protocol, which is a combination of a few chemo drugs (R=Rituzan I=Ifosfamide C=Carboplatin E=Etoposide). He will do 3 days of that then 3 weeks off, then 3 days on then 3 weeks off and so forth for 4-6 cycles depending on how he responds. They will do a PET scan every month to make sure that he is responding well. After that they will do the Stem Cell Transplant, where he will need to spend a minimum of 3 weeks in the hospital. How Stem Cell works is they put you on like a dialysis machine and harvest your own stem cells from your blood and freeze them. Then they give you mega doses of chemo, until every last bit of everything is killed in your body. They want your white count 0, they want your red count 0, they want platelets 0... they want everything dead. Immediately after they get a count of everything 0, they put all your harvested stem cells back into you and wait to them to regrow everything. It is a very aggressive, long process. He will be very sick. But we want the best, and right now this is the best in terms of technologically advanced treatments. So like always we wait... we are waiting right now for our insurance to authorize them to start. As soon as that happens, he can begin. Hopefully, he will be able to get going next week sometime, either Wednesday of Thursday! We were at USC till almost 6, so I had to reschedule our flight to the 9pm one, which I'm thankful they let me do. which actually worked out good, because we were able to go to my Aunt LuLu's for a bit and have dinner and play cards and talk. It was nice. Thank you Aunt Lu for the hospitality :) Then back on the plane we go. It was an exhausting day, we were never so happy to have our heads hit the pillow! Also a big thank you to my mom, who has been nanny to my children, they couldn't be with anyone better. And also Poppy, for pulling my weeds and trimming my trees and replacing my light bulbs. Its nice having a man around the house again to do I'll the stuff I don't do :)
When we arrived at the hospital we were about a hour early for our appointment so we ate some lunch and visited for a bit. We headed up to the waiting area and they got us in pretty quick, we didn't wait long at all. They took Donnie's vitals, then took us to the consultation room to wait for Dr. Morbacher. Once she got there, she went over all of Donnie's test and records with us. She showed us the images of the PET scan, and let me tell you, a PET scan in an incredible piece of technology. It's so black and white. On the scan you can see the whole body, a body that is standing facing you and the body is white. And everything that is black is Cancer, except for the Brain, Heart, and Bladder. Those all show up black as well. When we looked at the image, we could see a small black dot on his neck but nothing else. The black on his face just looked like part or his brain, until she turned the body to a side view. On the side view, it literally looked like his whole right side of his face was black. All the way from his throat to almost his brain where your forehead is. I mean, it looked very big on the MRI but the PET scan was so much more clear and detailed. He also had a little spot in his groin as well! It was just so scary and shocking to look at! The Dr. expressed major concern with how progressed it is. She definitely think it can be treated but it needs to start now. She sent him to get another biopsy of this original neck lump, just to make sure that the original diagnosis was accurate. He also had blood work done when we were there. She discussed with us whether we wanted to go less aggressive but maybe have to do something different after if it doesn't cure it. Or whether we would rather go more aggressive with more of a chance of it being cured with just that therapy. This a hard choice for us, seeing as how our main goal has always been "quality of life" but we really want to Stem Cell Transplant, because honestly I feel like he will have a better chance of getting rid of this and bouncing back from it if he does! And that is a more aggressive treatment. He will need to do the R.I.C.E. protocol, which is a combination of a few chemo drugs (R=Rituzan I=Ifosfamide C=Carboplatin E=Etoposide). He will do 3 days of that then 3 weeks off, then 3 days on then 3 weeks off and so forth for 4-6 cycles depending on how he responds. They will do a PET scan every month to make sure that he is responding well. After that they will do the Stem Cell Transplant, where he will need to spend a minimum of 3 weeks in the hospital. How Stem Cell works is they put you on like a dialysis machine and harvest your own stem cells from your blood and freeze them. Then they give you mega doses of chemo, until every last bit of everything is killed in your body. They want your white count 0, they want your red count 0, they want platelets 0... they want everything dead. Immediately after they get a count of everything 0, they put all your harvested stem cells back into you and wait to them to regrow everything. It is a very aggressive, long process. He will be very sick. But we want the best, and right now this is the best in terms of technologically advanced treatments. So like always we wait... we are waiting right now for our insurance to authorize them to start. As soon as that happens, he can begin. Hopefully, he will be able to get going next week sometime, either Wednesday of Thursday! We were at USC till almost 6, so I had to reschedule our flight to the 9pm one, which I'm thankful they let me do. which actually worked out good, because we were able to go to my Aunt LuLu's for a bit and have dinner and play cards and talk. It was nice. Thank you Aunt Lu for the hospitality :) Then back on the plane we go. It was an exhausting day, we were never so happy to have our heads hit the pillow! Also a big thank you to my mom, who has been nanny to my children, they couldn't be with anyone better. And also Poppy, for pulling my weeds and trimming my trees and replacing my light bulbs. Its nice having a man around the house again to do I'll the stuff I don't do :)
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