Karen's doing better. The malaise from the shingles has cleared up. Tomorrow (Friday) is colonoscopy day which makes today prep day, not fun. Karen's 4th colonoscopy in 2 years.
Sydney turned 5 today also and she is just a doll. No other word for it. We'll go out to dinner as a family after K's procedure and Sydney gets to pick the place.
Sunday is Syd's party which makes Saturday cake baking day.
Monday is Chamberlain and pre-admin testing all day at St. Barnabus.
Life is good.
Showing posts with label colonoscopy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colonoscopy. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
2nd Colonoscopy Results
Karen's recovering from her colonoscopy today. This is Karen's 2nd colonoscopy and was performed once again by Doctor Lipsky. Sarah babysat so I was able to take K to the surgery center myself. Thanks Sav.
Dr. Lipksy is a gastro specialist and was one of the first doctors we met with when Karen was first diagnosed. The procedure took a while but once completed I was able to review the results with the doctor whilst Karen came-to in recovery.
The results were terrific. Karen's colon is in great shape. Lipsky was visibly excited and I could tell the news was good before he called me in. The primary tumor which was about the size of a golf ball before the summer has disappeared! Gone. Expired. In his words "this was the best possible outcome".
When the first colonoscopy was performed, the area of the tumor was marked with a special dye which doesn't "wash off". That dye helped Lipsky determine this time around where the tumor should have been. Of course only a small amount of dye remained today and the tumor is no more. This type of result is rare and means the chemo has been highly highly effective.
The lack of polyps in Karen's colon may indicate that she is genetically predisposed to getting cancer. This will be further investigated over the coming months and the appropriate action taken. Lipsky also took lots of biopsies of the area where the tumor was for further analysis.
Karen still needs a colon resection but it may be smaller piece taken out now. She also still needs liver surgery and a bunch of other things so no change there.
We are making progress but we are not done yet! Karen has done an amazing job and displayed incredible heart and endurance to get this far. I am so proud of her. That hard work is being rewarded.
We remain confident that this is the best approach to treating Karen's cancer.
Dr. Lipksy is a gastro specialist and was one of the first doctors we met with when Karen was first diagnosed. The procedure took a while but once completed I was able to review the results with the doctor whilst Karen came-to in recovery.
The results were terrific. Karen's colon is in great shape. Lipsky was visibly excited and I could tell the news was good before he called me in. The primary tumor which was about the size of a golf ball before the summer has disappeared! Gone. Expired. In his words "this was the best possible outcome".
When the first colonoscopy was performed, the area of the tumor was marked with a special dye which doesn't "wash off". That dye helped Lipsky determine this time around where the tumor should have been. Of course only a small amount of dye remained today and the tumor is no more. This type of result is rare and means the chemo has been highly highly effective.
The lack of polyps in Karen's colon may indicate that she is genetically predisposed to getting cancer. This will be further investigated over the coming months and the appropriate action taken. Lipsky also took lots of biopsies of the area where the tumor was for further analysis.
Karen still needs a colon resection but it may be smaller piece taken out now. She also still needs liver surgery and a bunch of other things so no change there.
We are making progress but we are not done yet! Karen has done an amazing job and displayed incredible heart and endurance to get this far. I am so proud of her. That hard work is being rewarded.
We remain confident that this is the best approach to treating Karen's cancer.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Good News with a Bombshell
Karen's doing well. Really the title of this post should be "potential" good news with a "potential" bombshell.
The good news is we have a tentative date of November 26th for surgery at LIJ. We are "penciled" in for that day. This is further out than we had hoped but we'll take it. My parents have rescheduled their flights to better coincide with the surgery.
The bad news or potential bad news came this evening when I called our insurance company. Long story short it came to light that whilst LIJ hospital is in network, Doctor Ravikumar is not.
This news came despite me checking and double-checking BEFORE our first consultation. After a few phone calls our insurance company located the record of when I spoke to them on August 27th and luckily it contains documentation of the call where I was explicitly told that both LIJ AND Doctor Ravi are IN network. So this proves they screwed up.
Thoughts of switching Doctors at this point are not really an option. We're out of runway and committed to this team. The situation has been escalated to a supervisor and we will hear in a few days whether they're going to cover it. Trust me I will be all over this one.
Obviously the money is not the issue here, we will find it somewhere. Cancer is stressful enough on a family. Despite all precautions on our part, can nothing in this ordeal be simple?
Karen has her 2nd colonoscopy tomorrow to check the status of her primary tumor. Tonight she must drink a full four litres of let's just call it "fluid".
The good news is we have a tentative date of November 26th for surgery at LIJ. We are "penciled" in for that day. This is further out than we had hoped but we'll take it. My parents have rescheduled their flights to better coincide with the surgery.
The bad news or potential bad news came this evening when I called our insurance company. Long story short it came to light that whilst LIJ hospital is in network, Doctor Ravikumar is not.
This news came despite me checking and double-checking BEFORE our first consultation. After a few phone calls our insurance company located the record of when I spoke to them on August 27th and luckily it contains documentation of the call where I was explicitly told that both LIJ AND Doctor Ravi are IN network. So this proves they screwed up.
Thoughts of switching Doctors at this point are not really an option. We're out of runway and committed to this team. The situation has been escalated to a supervisor and we will hear in a few days whether they're going to cover it. Trust me I will be all over this one.
Obviously the money is not the issue here, we will find it somewhere. Cancer is stressful enough on a family. Despite all precautions on our part, can nothing in this ordeal be simple?
Karen has her 2nd colonoscopy tomorrow to check the status of her primary tumor. Tonight she must drink a full four litres of let's just call it "fluid".
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