Yesterday we had an appointment with a Radiation Oncologist. He is the guy who will be game-planning Allen's radiation treatment here (if we decide to stay in Arkansas versus being treated in Houston at MD Anderson). We cannot express how impressed we were with him, who we nicknamed, The Radiator (you know--kind've like The Terminator--eliminating the last of any microscopic CANcer "seeds" as he referred to them). The Cancer Ninja referred us to him, so we should've guessed that he would be amazing--I mean ninjas only hang out with other really cool people, right?
The Radiator took so much time with us, answering our long, long list of questions with ease, patience, and honest interest. You can tell he is someone who geniuenly loves his field and could talk about it all day. (And if you know Allen, his curiousity is very easily spiked, so those two together could probably talk for weeks and weeks! I mean we spent over five minutes talking about protons and photons!) Probably the most impressive thing about The Radiator was the way he thought about Allen's case. He wasn't quick to lump Allen into a "cookie-cutter" treatment. Instead, he discussed with us that while Allen is a Stage III Hodgkins case, he is really more of a Stage II+ because the only thing putting him into Stage III, is a very small node in his stomach. Because of that viewpoint, he is considering also radiating under Allen's arm and along his clavicle where there were a couple of involved nodes. This is a personalized approach because typically in a Stage III, doctors only radiate the chest mass because most Stage IIIs have other areas involved and you can't be radiating the entire body.
We also learned that based on what The Radiator saw in Allen's scans (from after his 4th chemo) that Allen's chest mass has shrunk so much and retreated to the middle of his chest enough that The Radiator does not believe that Allen's heart or lungs will be directly affected by the radiation! Yea! That is such fabulous news! And, of course we are hoping that with Allen's next scans (coming up in two weeks) that the mass will continue to shrink so even less area has to be radiated! The Radiator also believes that what is left of Allen's mass at the time radiaton begins will not move with breathing. This is important because a moving mass means a larger field of radiation. There are techniques that can be used to control the breathing, preventing the mass from moving if necessary, but it was great to hear that The Radiator didn't even think Allen would have to worry about movement.
The Radiator explained that Allen's dosage of radiation will be less than 1/2 of what a lung CANcer patient would receive, and that Allen's relatively short time frame of treatment (3 weeks) would probably prevent him from dealing with too many side effects from treatment. We also learned that patients who combined chemo and radiation have a 15-20% less likely chance of reoccurrence. Those were great numbers! The Radiator also reassured Allen that the radiation shouldn't interfere with his abiltiy to run and compete in triathlons, which made him very happy (and me a little terrified because somewhere along this journey Allen got me to agree to do an Ironman when he recovered)!
We certainly have A LOT to think about and discuss. Allen is hoping to have a long conversation with The Ninja soon to debrief and go over everything The Radiatior explained. But all in all we were so encouraged by what we learned! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! They are WORKING!!
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