This has been a fairly rough time for us. It looks like Tim won’t qualify for the chemo trial because the location of his tumor prevents getting a large biopsy that’s needed for the study. They can only do a small needle biopsy, and that’s not good enough to qualify for the study. The only remaining option is to start on an older chemo which has significant side effects and not much chance of success. The other option is to stay off chemo and let the cancer progress. Tim had wanted to wait to meet with his Oncologist until after all Paul’s stem cell harvesting and related procedures at Stanford were done.

Meanwhile, all of the plans for Paul's stem cell harvesting have been cancelled as of today. We were getting ready to drive off to Stanford this morning when the Stanford Oncologist called. The Stanford Oncologist explained that Paul's recent test results weren’t as good as the Kaiser team thought they were. Basically, Paul's cancer is more active and precludes doing a stem cell harvesting at this time. Stanford is recommending that Paul switch to a new chemo regime and, after 4-6 months, have a stem cell transplant rather than just harvest them for a later transplant. A transplant means roughly 2 months of being at Stanford (or nearby) and pretty much being in isolation initially, then being at risk for infection for the next couple months. All of that is hard to picture with Tim already not doing so well. Paul could also complain about all the lab tests, scans, procedures and biopsy he's already had over the past two weeks in preparation for the harvesting that now isn’t going to happen. On the other hand, those test results showed what was really going on with the cancer that the Kaiser docs didn’t catch.

*Desert Sunflower (Geraea canescens), from Death Valley National Park.