'Excellent'

Well, we slid into BTHC for Wes' blood tests and his Doctor appointment. Passing a semi who had slid off the curve and two tandems in the ditch in front of the Hospital were not that encouraging, but we made it. To tell the truth the country roads were even worse than the highway, although not worse than the 428 which is the highway that we live close too, nothing is ever worse than that one. It's usually the last one on the list for salting, but either way we made it there and back safely.

After Wes' blood test we went up to the Cancer care unit and met with Dr. Woelk. He is a wonderful connection for us back home and I know that when we had our last appointment at HSC they said the same thing that Winkler had a great group of people working in the Cancer unit and the working relationship between Winkler and Winnipeg was something that HSC really appreciated. Well, they were right.

So, on with the update, Wes will begin his second dose of chemo this coming Wednesday morning, Feb. 11th. They have upped his dose by 100 grams, which they said they would do if all was going well. Dr. Woelk told us that Wes' blood levels were great and there would be no hesitation to continue. So, from Wednesday until Sunday, we will break out the smooth Kraft peanut butter so the fun can begin.

One thing that Dr. Woelk explained that I thought would be good for all of you to hear as well is how this is all working against the tumor. Ok, I hope I can make it as clear as he did.

First off, you all know that with the surgery the aim was to take out as much of the tumor as possible, which Dr. Fewer did. That was followed by chemo and radiation which was done to take out the bits of the tumor that might have been missed by the vacuum (remember the whole sound waves breaking up the tumor and then they vacuumed out the broken bits?) and it was really important for them to take every little piece out because if they don't those pieces could begin to grow again. From what we understand from Dr. Butler the radiation did exactly what it was supposed to do in cleaning up the pieces.

What I didn't always understand was what that meant for the rest of the tumor that was left. You see, there is a smaller portion that had to be left behind that is attached to the bottom part of Wes' brain and that portion needs to be, for a lack of a better word, disabled or disarmed and they can't cut it out because it's too hard to get at, plus it's attached at that point and they don't want to cut into the brain.

So, what they found out is that and I will quote one line in particular of Dr. Butler's report since Dr. Woelk was kind enough to read it again to us, in English I might add. "The tumour has responded excellently to the chemo" Now, I don't know about you but when I was in elementary school 'Excellent' was about as good as you could get for a mark! So, I'm thinking this is why Dr. Butler was so excited.

And here is the explanation of this year's worth of chemo. Are you ready? The chemo that Wes had during his radiation kicked out some of the tumor's ability to grow, another reason Dr. Butler was so excited because they weren't sure that the tumor would react to the chemo, but this one is...so then when they did the MRI at the beginning of January the doctors (remember the room full of people?) will have seen how much growth had continued or not continued since the radiation/chemo had finished. And apparently the result was worth celebrating according to Dr. Butler.

They then started Wes on another dose in January (5 days worth) and that chemo should have the ability to kick back even more growth cells. Once the growth cells have been destroyed they should not be coming back!

They know that when they stop the chemo the tumor begins to grow again and that's what they want it to do. They then kick at it again with another round of chemo hoping to knock off more growth cells and then we do it all over again in a month's time. It keeps growing, we keep hitting it hard with chemo and Dr. Woelk explained that by the look of this type of tumor there is the possibility of knocking out the potential for growth completely...yes, you heard right! This is why Dr. Butler was so happy with our results and why he felt we could cut the treatments in half.

Want to hear something funny? Though Dr. Woelk could explain the process so much clearer than Dr. Butler, he looked at the DNA (genetic testing) results and said that he could not explain what those results meant. I told him that we totally understood, and then we explained that when Dr. Butler had been reading those foot long words to us, every once in a while he would turn with a smile "That's very good!" and we had just said to Dr. Butler that as long as he was still smiling when he read them we were happy too!

Dr. Woelk smiled "Well, you probably want someone who knows what he's talking about for an oncology radiologist, rather than someone who's only got great PR skills"

Well, he is definitely right on that one. Though these specialists are a curious bunch, we sure appreciate that they are passionate about their work...we may not understand the words coming out of their mouths, but the smile on their face is worth a million bucks!

It brings a whole new meaning to the word 'Excellent' doesn't it?

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8