[nfb-talk] Asking for prayers

[David Andrews]

Good luck!!! My thoughts are with you -- and if I were a praying 
sort, I would certainly be doing that too!

Dave

At 04:00 AM 6/30/2010, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>Word's already circulating to some extent, but I wanted to wait 
>until they had done some tests so we know what we're dealing with.
>
>I won't be attending national convention this year, because I found 
>out on 6/21 that I have an unusual cancer called a sarcoma.  Being 
>me, it would figure that this particular cancer is quite rare, even 
>among other sarcomas.  The good news is that there is no metastasis 
>(spreading to other organs) which is one of those things that cause 
>them to start giving you survival statistics.
>
>The other bit of good news is that being the rare sort of cancer 
>that it is, it's located in fat tissue.  Even though it's a 7 cm 
>tumor of what they call intermediate grade, because it hasn't spread 
>it's not the kind of thing that would become life-threatening with 
>modern cancer treatment.
>
>Being in fat tissue, obviously there will be surgery to remove the 
>tumor and some surrounding healthy fat tissue.  There will probably 
>be radiation and a pretty good chance of chemotherapy as well.
>People react to these differently, but aside from my weight I'm 
>actually very healthy, which works in my favor.  (I did of course 
>suggest that the doctors could remove extra fat tissue during the 
>surgery, you know, just to make sure they got it all!)
>
>The question remaining is what order do we do the things that we are 
>likely to do?  Emerging research says that chemo before surgery 
>might give me a lower chance of recurrence in the future, but the 
>chance might already be so low that giving me some relief might be in order.
>
>I see a medical oncologist tomorrow after OHSU's sarcoma conference 
>meets to discuss cases like mine.  My surgical oncologist has 
>already consulted at least one other sarcoma specialist from 
>Baltimore.  So really, I have a team of experts in this kind of 
>cancer treating me, and they are consulting with other teams.
>
>Even so, this is pretty serious, so I welcome your prayers.  I'll 
>miss you guys (and the wardrobe update of blindness-related T-shirts 
>of course! *grin*
>
>Joseph

                         David Andrews:  dandrews at visi.com
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