Good morning Merry, et. al

A lot has happened since my last update. The head nurse at the Cancer Center called the insurance screening group and basically read them the riot act for delaying approval of Liz's palliative radiation treatment. The nurse was able to get approval over the phone last Friday and Liz went in for her "dry run" setup yesterday and received her first of 20 treatments this afternoon. She will receive direct radiation treatment to the tumor in her left lung each normal business day for the next 4 weeks. After the first 10 treatments they will rescan the tumor area and adjust the remaining treatments based on tumor size, etc. I requested and received a copy of the planning scan which shows the affected area, target area dose and potential dose due to scatter to surrounding areas. Due to the location of the tumor, Liz may receive some incidental damage to her esophagus and the nurse told me to keep an eye on this as they can prescribe liquid lidocaine to help reduce the pain, should it occur.

Liz has a fantastic handicap ramp now (built from the driveway to the house porch with a lot of help from my co-workers) and I purchased her a wheelchair to get her to and from doctor appointments.

Thanks for caring. Things are finally going the way one would expect them to......