So we spent the weekend discussing, discussing and discussing some more.  Monica and I both feel very comfortable with the idea of having the surgery in San Diego.  We both loved the team, the facility and that it’s not “too far” away.  And c’mon… It’s San Diego… isn’t everything better in San Diego? lol.  Anyway… we are so comfortable in fact we are going to try and get it scheduled as soon as they’ll allow us to.  Doctor Baumgartner’s at UCSD wants me to get a chest, abdomen and pelvic CT Scan first… and he’s ordered slides of my pathology.  We were told, while we were down there, that it would most likely be early October and I’ve decided I just don’t want to put off getting a date set any longer.  That being said, we will still be reaching out to other surgeons and HIPEC specialists just for my own piece of mind… and to gather any other information we can get.

For example… I neglected to mention during my last post that the second appointment we had on Friday brought some other interesting information to light.  I had mentioned we met with Doctor Barone and that he did agree with the surgical plan of a hemicollectomy (right colon removal) followed by exploring for other metastases (tumors that may have spread to other places).  He also agreed that any sign of tumors should be followed by the HIPEC procedure.  What he added was that, during his 30 years of specializing in these types of tumors, he had become very confident in his radiology team’s ability to monitor new growths and recurrences through MRI imaging as opposed to CT Scans.  I’ll try and get some further information on this.  But the radiologist at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego has worked very hard to make this system effective and accurate.  This was good news for me considering I’ll be very interested in the best monitoring methods available.  Here is an article I found relating to this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4754308/

He also mentioned some “solution tests” that could be performed while I was in surgery that may show indications of cancerous cells even though no tumors are visible.  If these tests come back positive, he feels I should go forward with the HIPEC procedure.  Again… this was information we hadn’t heard of, or read before and gave us more information to discuss with our surgeon about.  This appointment with Doctor Barone was enlightening and showed us that we definitely need to keep our ears open and never stop looking for further information.

We also heard back from OHSU on Friday.  They contacted us after both of our appointments and wanted to see if September 21st was good for us (yes… three  more weeks).  They actually wanted to make the appointment in October since that was when two of the doctors involved in this would be available together… But since my case was marked “urgent” they wanted to schedule me for September 21st.  *sigh… lol.  We went ahead and made the appointment… but mostly for the reasons  I stated above… Any information we can gather will be helpful.   But I have no problem stating that I’m definitely much more comfortable having the surgery done with the team down at UCSD.  

As for MD Anderson… I believe we will try and talk with someone down there.  But I think we’ve decided that traveling there might not make much sense for us.  I’m definitely interested in their opinion… but it’s a long trip and if I’m feeling comfortable with my current path… then I don’t see a need to travel there before the surgery.