Confusion...

Today at City of Hope was strange. The people there were very nice. The doctor was friendly and so was all of the staff. That being said we left the hospital way more scared and confused than before. Vanessa had pretty much accepted the fact that she will need chemo and that the mediport she had placed in her chest will be the site of that application. Dr. Chow, however, does not feel that chemo is necessary. Good... Right? Seems good, but he thinks she will need another surgery to take out more of her wrist and possibly an amputation of her arm depending on how much tissue there is to work with without damaging vital nerves. After that she would need just six weeks of radiation to treat the cancer. We have another MRI scheduled for Tuesday at 6am and that will let us know much more about the extent of surgery she needs. We met the surgeon today and he also seemed very knowledgable and competent.

About the Chemo...

City of Hope uses "Evidence Based Medicine" in their practices which means that all of their physicians must be up to date with current studies and literature. With that in mind studies up to 2007 showed that patients responded very well to chemo therapy, but in more recent studies it is shown that patients without metastatic disease (spread) have a 4% higher survival rate with radiation alone and the same rate of reoccurrence locally. Because of these results Dr. Chow does not recommend chemo and that is awesome! The worrisome part is the amputation and surgery. Vanessa is obviously scared of losing her arm, but we do have faith that with all of your prayers and all of our prayers that she will not lose it. So I ask you all to keep praying and lift Vanessa up to God! Pray that she doesn't need an amputation.

Thank you all!

Nathan