phone call from urologist

[mstlyn]

Dorrie (she schedules surgeries) from the urologist office called us to let us know they called the oncologist to make sure everything was faxed over to them; and told us to make sure we get hold of them after Anthony has his CT scan in 3 weeks.

Dr. Bauer (urologist) said if Anthony needs to have RPLND done, he will be sending him to U M. He said that he has only done 2 RPLND's on patients that have had chemo.

He said that if the mass would have been smaller when they found it, he would have done the surgery himself from the beginning.

The call is making the possibility of RPLND seem more real to me now. I know that he may not have to have it, but the feeling is that now we will be facing all of those unknowns that we have spent so much time talking about for the past several months.

Well, Robert, I think it was you that mentioned a really good doctor at U of M that can do RPLND. If you know his/her name, please let me know because my homework is about to become more thourough.

Tammy

[mstlyn]

I dont understand that, unless they are doing that for a " just in case" or are being prepared by already forwarding it to U.M to have someone look at it now, again, just in case. What information would he have that you dont have ? He did say '" IF ", and maybe with the insurance and such, they are just looking ahead. That would be a good thing in this instance as if he does have to have a RPLND, you dont want to go thru what you did to just get him diagnosed properly.

He hasnt had a scan lately has he? I can think of nothing I have heard of to assume that he is now going to have an RPLND at this point. Did he have teratoma? If I remember correctly he did not.

One good thing at least he admits he isn't experienced enough to do it. Give him a Gold star for that ! he is following up on his patient, thats another Gold star. He may be just very interested in this case, from a academic standpoint, and is following it thru. he is a Uologist, who has done 2 post chemo operations. They learn by studying cases, he may be just taking a deeper interest

Did you ask them why they said that? it sounds to me like it was a just in case thing and he wanted to be prepared.

Remember Dr O already said " he is probably cured already after 3 cycles. " ( love that statement , right) so i dont see anything, or new information to make them believe that the situation has changed.

I would ask about it, but wouldn't worry about it.

If we need a Dr in Michigan, we will find one. but lets cross that IF and when it comes up, if it does at all.

remember , the chances are very very good with the chemo

Yes, they are saying "IF" he ends up needing surgery. They want to make sure they have everything from the oncologist, because they said the oncologist was not sending them the dictation or anything all this time.
She said they want to have all of the information they have, and they want us to let them know about the CT scan in 3 weeks so they can begin getting him set up with someone at U of M ahead of time so there wont be any waiting around.
To my knowledge there was no teratoma, but since so many other things have been "iffy" I wonder about the path report too!
Hopefully the chemo took care of everything, but I was happy to see that they are still on this.
They remember more about Anthony than the oncologist does

[mercyriver]

Hopefully there will be no need for the RPLND.

I know our urologist was pushing for the RPLND to be pre-chemo, he said that it was messy post chemo. Everything bleeds easier.

Interesting though, no one has really spoken to us about after. We have our PET/CT on the 6th and then the 10th we will know what is what and where to go from there.

I hope everything goes well for your son on his final week of chemo.

Becki

[Marge Pugh]

Hi Tammy,
Chris and I got our second opinion at U of M with a Dr. Smith Oncologist/Urologist who was brillant. Although we did not choose his strong opinion to surveil he did give us a name of a Dr. Wolf at U of M who performs an RPLND via laproscope since we were leaning that way. We chose to go to Cleveland Clinic instead on our own just because we are more familiar with the area and found someone just as qualified. Fact is Dr. Smith was very knowledgeable of TC and is in routine contact with Indiania University experts. I agree that it does not seem like surgery is indicated without teratoma issues when the chemo is curing your son. We had three different opinions for treatment from three qualified docs. Dr. Smith said it best...when you have a hammer, everything is a nail!