Biopsy

Sorry I didn't write last night. it was a long day and I was exhausted by the time we got settled back at home. We went in for Brian's tonsillectomy/endoscopy/biopsy yesterday morning at City of Hope. His surgery was scheduled at 9:00 but they ended up not taking him into the O.R. until 10:00. It took about 2 hours. Dr. Penn came out and talked to me around noon while Brian was in recovery.

Dr. Penn said he did great in surgery and they, in fact, did not need to remove his tonsils. Once she got inside and got a good look there didn't appear to be any signs of cancer in his tonsil area. They were able to take biopsies and flash freeze them and test them on the spot. In 10 minutes they can tell if the biopsy they just took tests positive or not. It's amazing! She said that they started taking biopsies from the back of his tongue (toward the top of his throat/tonsil area) and it came back negative. They ended up probing deeper and found his primary at the base of his tongue.

We are very happy that we have now identified a primary and can move forward with treatment. We are not sure what this exactly means yet or what kind of treatment is in store. We have an appointment with Dr. Penn on Thursday to go over our options and talk in more detail about the findings once the official pathology report comes back from staining the biopsies.

We have had several doctors and nurses tell us what a great team he has treating him. Dr. Penn seems to be highly esteemed by her colleagues. They have all said that she is the best so we feel very fortunate and that we are in the right place.

Now he is home resting. He is not supposed to talk and only eat soft foods for 5 days - much better than the 2 weeks it would have been had his tonsils been removed. You all know Brian is is ornery and stubborn so he isn't doing a great job keeping quiet! Ana made him soup last night and brought dinner over for the rest of us - a God send.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. Love you all.