Bob Dorman Bob Dorman LBS

Welcome to our CaringBridge website.  We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place.  Your support and words of hope and encouragement mean the world to us.  
I'm Lauren, Bob's wife.  So many of you have reached out to lend your support and ask how Bob is doing, and I'm finding that managing communication with everyone dear to us is becoming another full-time job, on top of the new full-time job of managing Bob's medical care.  This tech solution will help me keep you all informed of Bob's progress and answer the other question so many of you have posed: how can we help?
But first, how did we get here?  In our final weeks in Florida during the winter of 2017, Bob developed a nagging cough, which was thought to be pneumonia. The "pneumonia" turned into pleural effusion (fluid in the membrane around the lungs) and a collapsed lung, which required a four-day hospitalization to resolve.  At least we thought it was resolved when Bob was discharged from the hospital.
It quickly became obvious that Bob's lung fluid issue wasn't resolved at all, and over a tense two week period, we struggled to stabilize Bob's breathing enough to permit travel back to Illinois for the summer.  Dear friends (hello Anne and John and your adorable pups) offered transportation since flying wasn't an option, and family, neighbors and friends all pitched in to help Bob return safely to Illinois so we could begin the process of finding out exactly what we're dealing with.  
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of doctor appointments, hospitalizations and medical procedures, but we finally have a diagnosis:  Bob has Stage 4 lung cancer, with metastasis to his  brain and several lymph nodes.  With the help of Bob's excellent primary care physician, we've assembled Bob's crackerjack medical team, and both radiation and chemotherapy are in Bob's future. 
Our spirits are good, considering this unhappy news, and we are optimistic that with the rapid advances being made in managing this type of cancer, the treatments will cause the cancer to go into remission and Bob can get back to his favorite activities of fishing, billiards and woodworking.  However, there's a lot of ground to cover before we can count on that.