The First Oncologist

We met with our first oncologist, Doctor Dan Moriarity today in Summit Overlook hospital. They are pretty good reputation-wise and closer than Robert Wood. We'll use RW for a second opinion but we were encouraged by the consultation this afternoon. It's about 20mins from our house if you race. 30mins if you take it easy. He's a nice guy, soft spoken but calm with easy demeanour.

Basically he's scheduling a PET scan for sometime soon but starting treatment in the mean-time.
A port will be inserted next Tuesday the 8th of May. This is a rubber-plug designed to make the drugs easier on your veins. It sits under the skin near your collar bone.

Then starting 2 months of chemo, with Avastin and 5-FU administered with a take-home pump. Chemo will be every two weeks starting on the 14th of May.

After a bunch of research on the web I have learned this is the standard chemo protocol for colon cancer it seems regardless of the stage. I've also heard that this is an "aggressive" treatment of chemo. The Avastin alone costs $10,000 per treatment. One person has estimated a single chemo appointment to run into $14,000 and my wife will receive them for the next 2 months. Thank God for insurance.

I did record everything with my MP3 player and I'll review everything tonight. I'm also starting to believe the Chemo will be the same at Robert Wood Johnson so why go out of your way to get to a doctor that's further away??? Overlook will be far more convenient travel-wise. Let's see what the 2nd opinion reveals. Definitely if surgery is considered in a few months we'll go to RobertWood as I think they have the best surgeons.

After two months they will re-scan and expect everything to shrink and shrivel away into nothing. That's what I'm visualizing in my spare moments.