Progress

Andy and Laurie have been in San Francisco since Sunday as required for a series of activities required to be completed prior to the start of chemo. We also have been waiting for insurance approval on the treatment plan which has delayed chemo. Good news yesterday is some progress on the insurance approval. The PET scan is now scheduled but chemo may not start until next week. We are looking for places near by San Francisco to stay when needed for appointments and are trying to keep costs down. If anyone has ideas on inexpensive rooms to rent, that could be helpful.

Delays?

The clinic called today and said they are waiting for Medical to approve the treatment. Since they have not authorized, the clinic doesn't want to schedule for Monday. Laurie has a call into the doctor , via his nurse, to try to get things moving. Andy really needs to get the treatments started ASAP as we have been told by all doctors for the last three weeks! Let's all pray we get this approval in ASAP!

First treatment

Andrews first treatment will be either This coming Monday or Tuesday. We will be heading back down to SF this Sunday so he can be there for another PET scan on Monday morning. Andrew decided to sign up for a study that involves doing two months of the regular chemotherapy regimen and if the cancer isn't responding bumping the chemicals up and proceeding with the German method Jeanne wrote about, this is why he needs to have another scan done. Andrew is really scared about starting the chemo and fears he is going to be miserable throughout the entire time. The doctor did mention that he has patients that find the chemo gives them relief from the uncomfortable symptoms they had been experiencing from the cancer, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that these reliefs will override the negative effects of the treatments. Scarlet will be staying with my mom again next week while I go back to SF with Andrew she is doing well and enjoying the time with Grammy I think. The hospital is going to hook us up with a social worker to help us with lodging at a discounted rate. I think this concludes pretty much everything I have for tonight. I feel like I'm forgetting something so I might be adding to this tomorrow sometime. We want to thank everyone for there love and support.

First clinic appt today

They just left the first outpatient appointment and things are moving quickly. The bone marrow results are back and it's good news--- no sign of cancer there so we are a Stage 3. The doctors hope for the first chemo this week and believe he may get some relief from his symptoms following the first treatment. They will do the four part chemo we were told about twice and then redo the PET to see how the cancer is responding. If not responding as hoped, they would move to the German chemo that could have more side effects but also kill the bugger cancer cells. The docs don't think travel to and from San Francisco is going to work as chemo progresses, so we may need a back up place to stay near SFO. Time will tell. We are all anxious and nervous for chemo to start, but need to push through to get to the final treatment and be cured.

Saturday March 17

Andy is happy to be home and is hoping to catch up on his rest. He feels really tired as you could expect. He expressed his thanks for all the good wishes and prayers. He is eating well and his body is tolerating the current medications just fine. He has the appt Tuesday at the clinic, so we may know more after that about the treatment frequency and the like.

Andrew wanted to share this

Hodgkins Lymphoma Video

I thought everyone might like to see this informational video that I came across. I found it to be interesting.

Hodgkins Lymphoma