Meeting with my oncologist

 May 3, 2018

So today I had a consult with my Oncologist Dr. Kaufman from Dartmouth Hitchcock in Lebanon. It is a massive hospital. You walk in and its like you entered the Taj Mahal. It has its very own FOOD COURT! I mean what else could you possibly want or need?! LOL on a serious note Kelly… 

It was the first time I met Dr. Kaufman and at first I got this socially awkward vibe from him but as time went on I realized this man is BRILLIANT! He started off by asking if I had symptoms. I told him nausea and headaches here and there. Due to this he said you need to have an MRI of the brain to make sure the cancer hasn’t traveled to the central nervous system. I thought to myself “noooooo!! didn’t we just rule out that it hasn’t spread anywhere else in my body??” He did reassure me that he was like 99.9% sure it hasn’t traveled but we still need to rule it out. Also, he mentioned its very possible that there are micro cancer cells traveling throughout my body that they just can’t see on imaging. Fred, you better not be having micro babies on me lol! I will be having an echocardiogram of the heart which is standard protocol to make sure it is strong enough for chemo. I will also be meeting with his nurse practitioner in regards to chemo details. Lastly, I gave consent to be apart of a research study! Super excited about this. 10 centers are involved including Dartmouth. Without using too much medical terminology.. its a new type of imaging that will hopefully be able to measure the tumor using infrared light! Pretty cool stuff! Not sure if it will help my case or not but totally on board to help advance imaging studies! 😀 I find myself super anxious to start chemo. The fact Fred is just hanging out and I haven’t started treatment yet is freaking me out! Dr. Kaufmen reassured me that my prognosis will not change whether I start chemo tomorrow or two months from now. He said if he were to guess I have had this tumor for approximately 2-3 years! Crazy…

Alright time to go to bed! (I find the only time I can reflect and write on my blog is when my 3 kids are snoozing). Yup I consider my husband one of them hahah! 😂 

P.S. Thank you for the continuous love and support that pours in every-single-day!!