Follow-up Consult with my local Oncologist

Well, I had my follow-up consult with my local oncologist and he seemed a bit ‘put out’ with me. Almost like he was mad that I got a second opinion with the Cleveland Clinic.

He was telling me things much different than what Cleveland told me. He said that the first thing I need to do is to repeat the bone marrow taps to make sure that it is not went to my bones. If it did, I may not even be a candidate for SCT. He said the second go around (this time) with chemo, there is a higher risk that the cancer I have might not respond to chemo, if so, than I would not be a candidate for SCT. “We would hope that it would respond” he said.

SO, my hopes for getting a game plan in place today is still up in the air. He says that I need to go back to Cleveland and see what they want to do. It was almost like he couldn’t do anything else for me, which really upset me. I’ve been a month and a half without any treatment since my cancer has returned and it’s going to be a couple of more weeks before I can get back to Cleveland. (11/21) appointment.

Dr. Chowhan thought that I needed to do two cycles of chemo, draw my stem cells off and keep moving forward with the SCT process, which is not what I wanted to do. I asked Cleveland if they thought I could do just Chemo and Radiation with the hope that it would not return by checking it every three months or so with a PET and they said no problem. BUT, I knew that if it would return a third time that my only out would be SCT. They acted like I still would have a 90% chance of full remission after the SCT. Dr. Chowhan disagreed. The likely hood of the chemo responding the third go around is like 20% and that would give me a 20% to survive this cancer.

I’ve prayed over all this and I think that I just have to stick with Cleveland. Chowhan can’t do the SCT anyway but he did say he could do the chemo down here for me. I guess I will head back up to Cleveland and see if I can’t get me a game plan, which I was hoping would have been in place today. FUSTRATING!