A Date for Surgery at last

CT Scan / radiation results in St Louis:
We headed to St Louis on 5/31, Dad had a CT scan on 6/1, then an appointment with Dr Parikh (radiation oncologist) and they also scheduled dad for minor surgery the next morning to replace his stint, which they did with a metal stint this time rather than plastic. Then they squeezed him in Dr Linehan's schedule (surgeon) to discuss options.  We were first very concerned because Dr Parikh said the tumor did not appear to have shrunk much from the radiation; however, Dr Linehan said it appeared to have moved away from the veins (which was his ultimate goal to make the surgery safer). Dr Linehan wanted to move ahead immediately with the surgery to remove the tumor. 

This is fantastic news as it is curative (ie., successful surgery means no more treatments, cancer is gone and dad would just need regular careful monitoring to make sure nothing returns).

***  The BIG surgery is scheduled for June 15.  ***
Please everyone say a prayer and send good vibes our way! 
It is a major procedure called the whipple, where they remove most of the pancreas, and several other partial organs in the vicinity, and basically re-plumb your digestive track.  It is huge - and success is mostly dependent on the skills / experience of the surgeon and his team. Linehan is highly reputed, as are several surgeons at Barnes Jewish, which is why we wanted to be there - surgeons in smaller hospitals and towns just are not exposed to this surgery enough to have the skill to complete it successfully. Barnes Jewish specializes in this surgery; Linehan does several per week and has been doing so for 17 + years.  We have very high hopes for success!

A Scare and everything's okay
We did have a little complication the evening we arrived home from St Louis; Dad got sick (fever spiked to 103), we paged the surgeon who'd put in the stint, and their oncall surgeon of course said to take him to the emergency room, which we did. We were ushered into a private room (so dad's not exposed to germs); his fever was down to 99 and he was feeling MUCH better, so they simply ran blood tests, etc. to make sure he doesn't have an infection; fever is not unusual in cancer patients and does not necessarily mean there's an infection. No signs of infection except for elevated white count (which he has had throughout most of the chemo treatments); they gave him very strong antibiotics as a precaution.  This took about 7 hours (as expected, on a Friday night, at an emergency room which is now the ONLY one in town, since the tornado took out St Johns). We got home about 1:30 am.  Long Day.

Visit from Steve
My brother Steve is now in town for a visit (SURPRISE!) for the next week; mom and dad are both enjoying his visit and we are very very happy he could get away from his busy schedule to take this trip.  :-)
Wish he could stay longer though.  He leaves on Sunday, and then we head back to St Louis Tuesday. Timing worked out perfectly!