We are at chemo today and Jon is feeling better than he has all week. I've always said that he just does this for attention! When I walked in with his lunch he was surrounded by a cluster of nurses attempting to repair the IV that just exploded another vein. The guy will go to any lengths to get people to wait on him!

In all seriousness, he is looking much better. It always seems to take a few sessions to get the side effects of a new chemotherapy under control. Jon has FINALLY learned his lesson that he does have to take the medications to control his side effects if he wants to survive. We are hoping with the new meds he will fare better through the weekend.

I just talked to Stanford Medical Center after reviewing Jon's scans. At this point the large tumor in his liver is still too large for the cyberknife. It would have to shrink approximately 4cm for the procedure to be viable. Since Stanford has a more aggressive approach I am expecting to hear the same response from the University of Washington. There always remains the possibility of doing the cyberknife after more chemotherapy.

Stanford's next recommendation was the Selective Internal Radiation Therapy that we have already been researching. My dad has some connections at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center who currently utilizes this procedure and I received a telephone call and a contact address today to send Jon's scans and records. When I spoke to the nurse coordinator she informed me that they had not specifically used this procedure for metastatic pancreatic cancer but had treated both metastatic colon cancer and primary liver cancer at their center. She is consulting the radiation oncologist this afternoon and should call me back by tomorrow. There are seven other cancer centers in the United States who use this approach so we have several other options. We picked UPMC first because my family is there.