Important Visit to Johns Hopkins on Thursday

Dear Friends, this is George Sr. on Thursday evening.

Today Janet and I met Dr. Ettinger, the senior lung cancer oncologist specialist at Johns Hopkins, for over 1 hour. Dr. Ettinger reviewed her case carefully and he talked directly with her for a long time. He quickly got into some technical details. Since we had read about the treatments beforehand, we understood what he was talking about. Our son GW was very helpful in helping us research the chemo options. Surgery and radiation treatments are not possible for Janet due to the spread of the cancer. Also, since there being a blood clot in Janet’s non cancerous lung, one key chemical and treatment path using the drug Avastin is closed to her. They also did not have a clinical trial that was suitable for Janet.
The best option is to go with a standard first line chemo treatment, but with Tarceva as an extra element. Tarceva has been shown to be very effective with nonsmokers who have the type of cancer that Janet has. We could get that treatment at Hopkins, but he felt that we could do just as well getting it locally at a Kaiser clinic. He then called the chief Kaiser oncologist for our area, who is one of his former students, and talked directly on the phone with him about this. Dr. Ettinger the said that he wanted to continue to monitor and consult on Janet’s case. It was a pleasure for us to meet Dr. Ettinger, who is very experienced, candid, and helpful.
So on the one hand, Janet is not suitable for an advanced clinical trial, but even these are pot luck and are risky. She had apprehensions about such. We had hoped that Hopkins might take her into their bosom, but he saw no special advantage in doing that. So what we got today was an excellent second opinion, a clear treatment path that we understand and agree with, and oversight by one of the world’s foremost authorities on lung cancer treatment. Hopefully Kaiser will follow through. Knowing we have a leading authority backing us up gives us peace of mind.
So Janet is resting well. We had a scare last night since she was short of breath and had some coughing most of the night. That could have been a very bad sign of her lung refilling with fluid, but Dr. Ettinger listened to her lung with the stethoscope and assured us that that was not the case. I think Janet simply was in a stuffy room where we didn’t have enough ventilation. So this is a period of recovery and strength building as we prepare her for chemo therapy. We hope to hear tomorrow about an appointment with the Kaiser oncologist to start the next phase.
Special thanks again to Joan Chouili for helping us get fast tracked to Dr. Ettinger at Hopkins. We also thank Maura Burke Vanderzon (a friend of Amanda Forster at NIST) who also encouraged us to contact him, Naomi Eidelman at Paffenbarger Research center at NIST, and Nabila who all encouraged us to contact him. Others of you encouraged us to get up to Hopkins too, and we will thank all of you in turn.
I’m glad our son George Walter (GW) made the blog entry for last night. He writes well.
Love and prayers are still welcome!
Goodnight all, George Senior 10:35 pm Thursday