Mayo, take two

Hello, all. We journeyed back to Rochester last week to meet Dr. R. She is one of the top thoracic and pulmonary surgeons in the world. Ravi had scans done of his chest which show he still has a number of lung nodules that have remained stable since his last scan in May. This doctor proposed a three-prong approach to getting rid of the nodules. She wants to use surgery, ablation, and radiation. The surgery will be minimally invasive and done robotically. Often, the patient can return home the next day. Ravi will have this done on both sides, with recovery time in between. This sounds so much better than what the local surgeon had proposed. He was only going to do surgery and thought that Ravi would need a week of recovery time in the hospital for each side. Going home the same day, or the day after sounds much less traumatic.

This week we have a round of chemo and will be in the hospital for 5 or 6 days. Ravi will be home for two weeks and then get one more round of chemo, and then hopefully, fingers crossed, be done with chemo. After he recovers from chemo we will have more scans done and plan for pulmonary surgery. We are also meeting with an oncologist at Mayo in September to see how she wants to proceed with the end of his treatments.

I was very impressed with Dr. R. She was competent and empathetic. She clearly had a plan worked out in her mind. She wants to preserve as much of Ravi’s lungs as possible. She said she was looking 15 or 20 years down the line. Osteosarcoma is an aggressive cancer, and her optimism really surprised me, but also gave us hope.

So, we will be at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis all this week. Please wear yellow for #TeamRavi, and continue to send us your prayers and good energy. You have no idea how much this helps. Since he has not had chemo in a month, Ravi’s hair and eyebrows have grown back in. It is a small thing, but it makes me very happy. He had very expressive eyebrows and right now looks much more like his usual healthy self. The hair may fall out again with these two cycles of chemo, but at least we know that it can come back again. Ravi is not at all stuck on his hair. He just pulls on a favorite hat and calls it a day. Be well. Be good humans, and we will be in touch.