Today has been a busy day.....many appointments. First appointment was Dad's with Dr. Williams (Cardiologist). Dad has not had any further chest pain or noticeable symptoms since the instance at Mayo. Therefore, Dr. Williams did not see any need for him to wear an event monitor. The purpose of the event monitor is for him to press a button any time he notices symptoms while wearing the monitor. It then records information. However, if he's not having any symptoms, there will be no need to push the button.....therefore, no need for the monitor. Dr. Williams agrees that this was an incidental finding about the "dead spot" in his kidney. However, he thinks there is no need for concern. Dad's EKG's from Mayo were fine. They did another EKG today, and it was also fine. Dr. Williams also said that if the problem at Mayo were due to atrial fibrilation, it would have shown up on some of the tests they did while he was having the pain. We were very pleased with Dr. Williams. We are not planning to pursue this any further unless additional symptoms arise. When Dad saw Dr. Broder (Nephrologist) earlier this month, he said that all dad's kidney functions looked good. Next appointment was with Dr. Ensminger (Pulmonologist). He said that Dad has a cluster of lymph nodes on the right side. Apparantly, everyone has this cluster of lymph nodes. However, Dad's cluster is larger than considered normal. This could be a result of exposure to some type of fungus, and it could also be cancer. It is located between blood vessels and in a difficult place to biopsy. If a biopsy becomes necessary, it would probably require surgery to do the biopsy. He is going to schedule a PET Scan to be done in the near future (probably by next week). If the PET Scan is negative, then he will probably just want to do another CT Scan in about 3 months. If the PET Scan is positive, then he will probably schedule Dad for some lab work to look for antibodies to the fungus that could be causing this. If the labs show these antibodies, then he will also want to wait about 3 months and do another CT Scan. However, if the PET Scan is positive and the labs don't confirm the fungus antibodies, then the next step will probably be biopsy. So we are basically still in "wait and see mode" until after getting the PET Scan results. There are lots of "what if's" at this point, but I just wanted to let you know where we stand right now. Next appointment was for Mom to have her Zometa treatment (bone hardener) at the Cancer Center. She will have to have this treatment every 28 days. The treatment today went fine. April also told us that the labs they did Friday all looked good. Mom was no longer anemic! Final appointment for the day was for Mom to have Patient Education for the new oral chemo she's about to start taking (Revlimid). This was more a matter of procedure due to the nature of this drug. The nurse discussed the possible side effects. However, this medicine is supposed to have far less side effects than the Thalidomide that she has been taking. The Revlimid can cause blood clots, decrease platelet counts, and decrease blood cell counts. Therefore, Mom will have to go to the Cancer Center for labs every week for the next 8 weeks in order for them to keep a check on her CBC. She is supposed to start taking this new medicine tomorrow. Mom is also still contemplating the idea of having the transplant. There are just so many things to consider and factor into the decision!!! Please keep praying!
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