Wednesday, Dec 17th

Yesterday we heard from Steve's doctor, Dr. Grist. He took Steve's CT Scan results to his weekly tumor conference. After conferring with his peers, he called to let us know the plan. Steve will do chemo before his surgery. 

There is cancer in Steve's jaw bone. They will need to remove that and do some reconstructive surgery. This means Dr. Grist needs to put together a team of doctors for the surgery. So, surgery will have to wait until sometime in January. In the meantime, they want Steve to do chemo as a precaution. While we have always been told this would be a "last resort" type of thing (there is about an 8% chance that it will help with this type of cancer), the chemo will attack anything in Steve's body that could be in there that they have not discovered and hopefully keep the cancer he does have at bay until surgery. 

Steve is starting chemo today. We will be here at Emory all day (from 7:30am til about 6 or 7 tonight!). Then Steve will come back tomorrow and Friday for shorter days. On Saturday we come back for an injection and blood work. Then in 3 weeks we will return and do another 4 days of chemo (I believe we are scheduled for January 6th - 9th). After that he will have a new CT Scan and surgery will be scheduled. 

They say that Steve will feel okay for a while. His lowest point will be 7 - 10 days after the chemo treatments. I am thankful that I have 2 weeks off and will be home to help him through this first round. 

As always, Steve is joking with the doctors and nurses. He wants to know if he will lose his hair! One doctor replied, "You don't have any hair to lose!" I know that he is scared and tired of being brave. We will just be taking one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Thank you for your continued prayers!