Update

Dear Family and Friends: Camping out worked. He is in getting his first chemo and radiation treatment this morning as we speak. This hospital just doesn't have it together. We were there until after 5 last night getting the appointments set etc. Just before we left chuck happened to ask the Dr as she passed through if he could drive after given the nausea medication they give after the end of the treatment. She said oh no you have to have a driver. Little detail that is good to know. He was going to drive himself. Then when he got there at 10:00 they said he should have been there at 9:00 for blood work. No one told us that last night. Then the radiation people came over and said they could have had him at 9:00 but no one told them he was coming. The 2 doctors talked but evidently didn't let anybody else know. He will be done about 2:00 or so now. I guess I should cut them some slack since it was not really in the plans. The Dr. here asked again if we were really sure that is what we wanted to do. She also wanted to know who or what this Dr was that made the recommendation. We told her medical oncologist specializing in GI. She just said Okay. I was looking at the paper that the Dr at Huntsman gave us with the treatment plan on it and it was dated in 05. As I was looking closer it looks like it is from a trial done in 05 with 4 different options for this type of cancer. I believe his treatment is based on the success of a trial that was going on in 05. Sounds good to me. I hope that he is not too nauseated from this treatment. We have medication for it if he does. He will only do this infusion once a week that will take about 3 hours. The radiation will only take 15 minutes. It sounds like the side effects from this chemo shouldn't be too bad and the radiation will be miserable. He is sure he will get really burned because he says his rear has never seen daylight. I guess we will see. We had Virgil give him another blessing last night. It was very reassuring. Jennifer stayed with him at the hospital this morning for a while to keep him company. I know it helped because he was nervous. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow. Love to all. Jolene