Future plans

Hi Friends and Family--

Hope all is well with everyone.

I don't usually like to send group email... but I know a lot of you are waiting for some news about my mom....and I have not had a chance to call or email most of you in last few weeks, so i am doing impersonal group email!!

We have good news...we are moving in the right direction...no cancer spread outside her liver...she is still candidate for a transplant (we met w/ transplant surgeon --Dr Hart--and o, so many other docs-- in last 2 weeks). Her tumors have shrunk way down, and or been killed off completely. The chemo has worked on tumors from the inside out (due to chemo being injected in from her treatments), so she has a couple tumors that docs described as dead in the center with edges that have some cancer cell viability.
She is now scheduled for surgery ---RF ablation via laparoscopy--on Sept 3rd --where they will stick rods in through skin directly into liver and microwave edge of a couple tumors. Dr Hart will do this. She will be in hospital about 3-4 days then.
Dr Hart, who i love, says this is another step toward a transplant for her...he feels she is on that road still and feels pretty confident she will get there.
So, again, good news...scary stuff on the horizon still of course...no guarantees of anything, but taking it day by day...glad she is with us now, and happy about the most recent news. And she feels good now, but still a bit more tired than "the old" grandma joanne.

take care

Love,
Tracy

great news!

Joanne had a CT scan of chest, bloodwork and MRI all this week (8/1)

So far, docs have told us that the bloodwork and the CT scan look good (with no cancer in chest, lungs, lymph nodes---basically area above her liver).

We will get definitive news about the liver MRI next Tues the 12th when she has more appointments with transplant surgeon and interventional radiology.