The Doctor's Appointment

We got home about 4:00 and Bob was exhausted. He had gone all afternoon without pain meds but did not seem to be any worse the wear over it. We waited in the examaning room for a half hour before the doctor's PA came in to take a health history and examined him. It was after 2:00 when the doctor finally came in. He examined Bob too and he will have a PET scan done on Friday. They discovered through manipulation that the cancer had spread up around the neck area, to the other arm and in the entire chest area. It is apparent on the skin as a bad rash in the right chest area. I thought that was what it was but our doctor had said nothing about it Monday.

The doctor suspects lung cancer but will not know for sure until the PET scan. He said this type of cancer usually comes from the lung. but there was no evidence of it in his December CT scan or x-rays. They are also having the biopsy from Bartlesville sent to California for some special more extensive cell testing.

We finally got into Dr. Powell's office thirty minutes late. Dr. Powell remembered Bob from 1998 when he had eleven radiation treatments on his head. He took a complete history too. Then he said he would give him eleven radiation treatments to alleviate the pain in his left arm. He was also going to irradiate the neck glands and part of the chest. He wanted to avoid damaging the lung. We have an appointment five days a week at 10:30 for eleven treatments. It will be two weeks before we see the results of the cell biopsy tests from California.

If it is in the lung, Bob will have to decide if he wants to take the chemotherapy.