[nfb-talk] Asking for prayers

[qubit]

Hope it goes well Joseph.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
To: "NFB of Oregon mailing list" <nfb-or at nfbnet.org>; <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 4:00 AM
Subject: [nfb-talk] Asking for prayers


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


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