FathersStory's Blog

(To give you a time frame reference, this is about two weeks before Christmas.)

 

The day before we began our doctor odyssey, our son performed in his school’s Madrigal dinner.  Two shows that day, less than two weeks after his surgery.  It was a long day for him but an enjoyable one.  He did well, as did the entire ensemble.  Just seeing him up there knowing what he went through already and what still awaits him was remarkable.

 

The next day, Monday, he had to undergo one more test.  This was to check his lung function, to make sure he could handle chemotherapy.   He sat in a glass booth and just blew into a tube as hard as he could.  And that was it.  He did fine.

 

That afternoon, we got the first of our second opinions from oncologists.  We saw Dr. Daniel Shevrin at Glenbrook Hospital.   This was a doctor recommended to us by another doctor, who was recommended to us by one of the neighbors.  But I also did some independent checking, and everything I heard was favorable.

 

It turns out he knew Dr. Grad.  As a matter of fact, they were in the same practice together for a time.  Dr. Shevrin basically told us the same thing Dr. Grad told us, but he went into a bit more detail as to how our son would be feeling during the chemo.  For the first week of his five-day a week treatments he would feel okay the first few days, but then may start to feel queasy by the end of the week.  The second week (a one-day treatment), he would start to feel fatigued.  Then by the third week (also a one-day treatment), he would start to feel better, until the cycle started again.

 

The visit was reassuring for us.  Dr. Shevrin expressed a lot of support for Dr. Grad and was willing to help in any way.  He also realized that it would be problematic for us to do the chemo with him, because of the increased travel.   But at least we knew we were on the right track.

 

I took off work this day to go with our son for the lung test in the morning and for the visit to Dr. Shevrin in the afternoon.  That night I ran an errand to a Wal-Mart just around the corner from us.  And I happen to run into one of the neighbors.  He said hello, then realizing I work nights, he asked why I wasn’t at work.  I just said I took the day off and did not offer an explanation.

 

Still, at this point, only three of the neighbors knew.  And it was still awkward for us to bring it up.  It’s not something that normally is done in the normal course of conversation.

 

The next day, I went to work, but intended to meet my wife and our son at the University of Chicago Hospital for a consultation with Dr. Walter Stadler.  This was a doctor recommended by a colleague of mine at work, who got a name of a doctor at U of C from a former colleague of his.  I called this doctor, and he told me I didn’t want to see him, but rather, Dr. Stadler, who was considered an expert in this field, a fact that would be verified later that day.

 

We got down there, were registered right away, then waited.  And waited.  For three hours.  We really couldn’t complain, because Dr. Stadler was fitting us into what I’m sure was a very busy schedule.  We did see a doctor during that wait time, who asked our son some questions and did a preliminary examination. 

 

When we registered, we also handed in some slides taken from a biopsy of the tumor that was removed.  We picked them up earlier that day from the hospital, where our son also had a blood test… his first since before the surgery.

 

Dr. Stadler finally saw us and was very gracious in the time he spent with us.  Like Dr. Shevrin, he basically told us what we already knew and what we could expect in terms of side effects and the likelihood of being cured.  But he threw in a wrinkle, one that Dr. Grad first alerted us about in treating this type of cancer.  Dr. Stadler was an advocate of four cycles of treatment with etopicide and cysplatin, and not using bleomycin, because of potential side-effects.

 

He also knew Dr. Grad and expressed confidence in him.  He noted the distance from our house to the U of C, and  the difficulty of the commute should we decide to go with him.  But he also gave us one insight, about AFP, the tumor marker in the blood tests.  He said the tumor marker has a half-life of about five to seven days.  Meaning, that every five to seven days the tumor marker should drop by a half.  If it doesn’t, that could be an indicator that cancer is still present.

 

I went back to work, but during the time we were waiting, I called our hospital to see if Stephen’s blood test results from earlier that day were ready.  They were, and I had them faxed to my office.  They were waiting for me when I got back   In an earlier posting on this blog, I told the results of the blood test taken when we saw a second doctor the day before our son’s surgery, which showed an AFP of about 230-240.  I didn’t tell the result of the first blood test that was done the first day of all this.  That reading was 204.

 

So, given Dr. Stadler’s guide of the half-life of this tumor marker, this latest blood test should show an AFP somewhere between 50 and 60.  The result from this latest test showed an AFP of 37.  So that was dropping faster than expected, a good thing.  It gave us encouragement as we were to see Dr. Einhorn the next day in Indianapolis.

 

Oh, the expertise of Dr. Stadler:  It was verified in the latest edition of Chicago Magazine.  I saw it when I got back to the office.  The cover story was about the best doctors in the Chicago area.  Dr. Stadler was among those listed for oncology.  So after seeing three doctors, we were feeling pretty good about all of them.

 

Next, a road trip.