Looking Up

We left this morning around 6:45 for the scan.  Immediately after I sat in the car I thought I was going to throw up.  Shortly afterward Trent DID throw up.  What a pair we were!  Just a great big ball of nerves!  Trent had his scan at 8:00 and then we waited.  I was pretty calm by then but Trent has been pretty nervous for the last few days.  We finally met with the doctors at 11:45.  Grace came in not showing the thumbs up sign-not good.  She sat down to pull up the scan and started explaining that the larger tumor had shrunk.  I wonder why she referred to it as "the larger tumor".  We only knew about one tumor.  Again, not good.  We learned today that the tumor that was about 6.5 cm x 5.2 cm had shrunk to 3.8 cm x 3.8 cm.  Great news!  We also learned there are three other tumors.  More of the 'not good' news.  Apparently those tumors were on the last scan but were either not seen or never mentioned to us.  Two of the three tumors have more than doubled in size, however, they are very small, only about 5mm. 

So the plan is to continue with two more rounds of chemotherapy and then scan again.  The scan from today will be sent to Dr. Karwande, the surgeon, so he will be kept abreast of the situation.  The thought is to continue to shrink the larger tumor as much as we can to preserve as much of Trent's lung as possible.  The smaller tumors are not a problem surgically and can be easily removed.  The problem is that they are obviously not responding to the chemotherapy.  Hopefully that problem will be solved with some radiation after surgery. 

The feeling we were getting from the docs was really neutral-neither good nor bad.  I finally said, "Hey, this is a positive thing right?!"  We HAVE to keep up the positive attitude!  It is a minor setback but it does not change our outcome.  We have to fight so hard for every small victory.  Thankfully Trent has A LOT of FIGHT!  He has been feeling amazing and his labs prove it.  When I looked at his lab results today they looked better than most healthy people's labs would be!  Katie even said that they would not draw labs during the course of the next two rounds because the labs have been rock solid.  That has to be good! 

We ran into Shea, a friend who also has cancer, and she is doing great!  She looked so good and her attitude is amazing.  That was so good for me to see.  I worry so much about all the friends we have made that are fighting this ugly battle.  It seems like there is way more bad news than good news.

Overall we are encouraged by the news today.  We still have options.  Trent has lost more tumor mass than he gained.  There are people who survive cancer...and we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that Trent is one of those people!