First Visit to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital

Today, Aimee and I went over to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at 10:30am to meet with a number of doctors to discuss her situation.

11:30am- We met with Dr. Koon first, the oncologist. We spoke briefly with him, but he couldn't say much until they had given a full review of Aimee's CAT scans and xrays. The doctors held a conference during lunch to discuss Aimee's situation (apparently they do this everyday for new patients).

1:30pm-- We met the surgeon, Dr. Tawa. He told us that it is still difficult to determine the stage of the cancer and that Aimee would need to undergo a PET scan early next week so that they could find out the extent of the cancer. Best case scenario seems to be that the cancer is limited to 5 or 6 lymph nodes and hasn't spread anywhere else. If that's the case, then the course of action would be surgery to remove them, followed by a course of treatment such as local radiation and immunotherapy (interferon) to take care of microscopic remnants.

If, however, the cancer has gone beyond the lymph nodes and crossed into the blood stream or other tissue, then the surgeon thought that such a surgery would not be the best option. A more systemic treatment would have to be used that could treat her whole body. He mentioned Interleukin II as the possible medicine. He also mentioned the possibility of experimental treatments that they had as well, if it came to that.

So a lot will depend on what the PET scan reveals. The doctors are NOT worried specifically about the liver, though (The CAT scan had shown signs of something irregular in the liver). They think that it is probably safe. But they are worried that it has in one way or another metastasized beyond the lymph nodes. The PET scan should give them a much better picture than the CAT scan could provide.

After we talked with the surgeon, we met briefly with Dr. Atkins, who is the senior oncologist at Beth Israel and will probably be working closer with Aimee as the treatment progresses.

3:30pm-- We met with the Dermatologist to try to find the original source of the melanoma. She checked all of Aimee's moles, removed three of them for biopsy, but said that none of them showed any definite sign of melanoma. She'll run an analysis on them and get back to us as soon as possible.

4:30pm-- Aimee went in for some blood work-- just to run one more test that the oncologist wanted.

So-- Here's where things stand now. We're still in a wait and see period. Aimee will have the PET scan instead of the MRI next week, as the PET scan is more thorough. From there, the doctors will inform us what they think the best course of action is based on the results.

In the meantime, I will be trying to gather information and resources from the internet and posting them here in the sidebar. If you have any suggestions, comments, questions, or anything you want to say, please leave a comment below. I'm sure it will make Aimee happy to hear from all of you.

Please keep her in your prayers. We will keep you updated.