Well Mayo hospital in Rochester, MN was an interesting stop. It didn’t start out too hot at all. Last Monday I went into the hospital and received my itinerary. They neglected to tell me that the specific Oncologist I requested took the week off. What pisses me off the most is that I called multiple times making sure everything was set up for Dr.Okuno to see my notes and scans then meet me. He went over all of my old notes and scans (what was actually sent to them which is another issue entirely), but was gone and wasn’t around to see my current scans obviously. So his fill in explained to me his notes and detailed look at the scans. The last scans they actually got were from April. It turns out that the scans at Mayo are far more indepth than at UW and Mercy. The scan slides at Mayo compared to the others are 3:1 SO they are much more detailed. With that said, it was apparent that only one tumor truly grew from that time until present. The tumor growing is fairly isolated on its own in my lower left lung. The good news about its isolation is at Mayo they have a type of radiation that pinpoints the tumor and blasts it at multiple angle without destroying a bunch of random tissue around the area. Although with that treatment it will severely restrict my breathing even more. Especially since I already have heavy scarring and a radiation cloud in my upper lung that is actually shrinking because thats what it does over time. Regardless, I am still in a bad spot but there is no doubt I am doing a really good job staying alive. SO since nothing much has changed over my time off it was actually suggested by both U of M and Mayo clinic that I take off another 2 months and go in in December for a scan. There wasn’t much different suggested from my final stop at U of M. Not that I really expected there to be one. Surgery will never be an option. This type of Radiation is expensive but will extend my life and wasn’t refuted at either location. The radiation is called Stereotactic Radiosurgery. Anyways at this point it is wait and see with not doing chemotherapy until my body shows signs of growth. If 6-8 months down the road I show continued growth in the one tumor then we talk about the SR radiation. Also suggested for possibly a year out with minimal growth is doing a full genetic panel and trying to come up with chemos and drugs that could be used to help fight against my bodies natural genetic mutations. All in all I found it to be a worthwhile trip. Despite not learning much new I did find options to life extension. How could one argue with that?
Adventures of dead guy 