The scavenger hunt continues...

Here's the latest. Prayer requests are in bold...including thank you's. ;)

Dr. Hays, the radiologist from Little Rock, called today. He does not think he can get to Mom's tumor without damaging something else. The procedure would involve sticking needles through her back and he would likely puncture something that doesn't need to punctured. Thus, he is referring Mom to Dr. Martin, a surgeon in Louisville, Kentucky. He hopes that surgery with nanoknife will be an option. In surgery, Dr. Martin could see exactly what he's working on (as opposed to being guided by CT scan) and possibly move important structures out of the way. So Dr. Hays in Little Rock has overnighted Mom's scans to Dr. Martin. 

Mom actually called and talked to Dr. Martin's assistant on Friday and has already received some information from them. We probably would've sent her scans there for a second (or fourth...whatever) opinion regardless of what we heard from Little Rock. We've really been struggling with this Little Rock vs. Louisville decision. We've been praying God would give us a clear answer and are thankful that He has. Now we're praying that Dr. Martin will give us a YES!

In the meantime . . . Mom is having the nerve block done tomorrow! Her pain is being much better controlled than it was a couple weeks ago, but she's tired of constantly feeling groggy from pain medicine. We hope and pray the nerve block will help with her pain so she can start to feel normal again. This is a pretty routine procedure; Mom should only be at the clinic a couple hours.  

She'll also be starting chemo (a drug called Folfirinox) on Wednesday. We already know that Dr. Martin recommends chemo before surgery for all of this patients, and Dr. Tauer is more comfortable with that anyway. The chemo regimen would be the same whether Mom is able to have nanoknife done or not, so there's really no reason not to start right away. We're just ready to do something!

I feel like we're on a scavenger hunt. Only we've found no fun prizes; we just keep getting clues at each stop with the hope of a prize at the next stop.

Praying God will reveal His glory to us this week and let us find our prize in Louisville!