We just returned from our appointment with Dr. Chue and he gave us his blessing on discontinuing this round of chemo and moving forward with the liver resection surgery. He was very pleased with our choice of surgeons and we have an appointment with Dr. Michael Hart on Thursday the 28th, and Dr. Andrew Precht on Thursday, March 6. Although this is a fairly common procedure with other forms of cancer it has never been done on a pancreatic cancer patient. The trick now will be to get one of the two top liver surgeons in Seattle to agree to perform the procedure. After repeated CT scans, Dr. Precht does finally believe that the cancer is gone from Jon's pancreas but we need a good PET scan to move forward. We will wait to order the next PET scan until we have the initial consultation with both surgeons. Doxil continues to work in your body for 30 days after your last chemotherapy so waiting a few weeks should show an even better result.

We did talk to Dr. Chue about the possibility of doing the surgery laproscopically but he thought it was not the best choice under the circumstances as the surgeon needs to be able to see any possible malignancies. They will also remove the couple of lymph nodes that were also affected by the original cancer.

Jon seems a little better today, or at least he's still awake at 2pm with only an hour nap this morning. I laughed today when he told me feeling like crap wasn't so bad because he doesn't go anywhere or spend any money :) His hands and feet look like lizard skin and he says they feel like you just picked up a hot kettle, but at least he can walk around a bit. No more heart of back spasms since the weekend.

Dr. Chue is already brewing up a fresh cocktail for the last chemo which will take place after surgery. He's given me a new list of drugs to research and I am armed with syringes for more interferon and lukeine.

Everybody pray for a good PET scan this month!