Decisions, Decisions

John is still weighing the pros and cons between the laparoscopic surgery to remove his right kidney, and the chevron incision to sample the swollen lymph nodes as well as remove the kidney.

We were hoping that this decision would become clearer after meeting with his urologist yesterday.  Instead, John is still up in the air about his best course of action.  The chevron incision is more risky because the swollen lymph nodes are close to a large artery, and recovery is longer because muscles must be cut through.  But, this surgery is the only way to know if the cancer has metastasized to the lymph nodes.  The laparoscopy is less risky with a shorter recovery period.


Regardless of which surgery John selects, he wants to enroll in a clinical trial.  New immunotherapy drugs show promise at shrinking metastasized tumors, and perhaps preventing the spread of kidney cancer.  Most of these drug trials require metastasis of the cancer.  So, if John choses the safer laparoscopic procedure, we won't know if the cancer has spread and, thus, he won't qualify for most of the clinical trials.



Anniversary flowers for Suanne ...
John is such a romantic,  but he thinks he's
girly for liking flowers so much ... LOL

Yesterday and today I've been searching the clinical trials and their inclusion requirements.  I'm also trying to figure out if it makes sense for us to keep or change our current medical insurance so that John has access to as many immunotherapy drug trials as possible.  Open enrollment ends on the 30th, the same day as John's surgery; so, time is short.



Both John's urologist and the urologist that gave a 2nd opinion say that either surgery is a reasonable choice, they just tend toward a different first choice.  Stay tuned ... John must decide soon ...

On a lighter note, John and I had a fun time for our anniversary.  We both played the slots a bit, John coming out ahead, and I with a loss.  The seafood buffet was good, too!