The Beginning

For the past year, Rob has been breathing kind of weird - it sounds as though he has cellophane in his lungs.

In the beginning of December he met with his pulmonologist, Dr. Jim Pearl (extraordinare) - the doc wanted Rob to have a bronchoscopy to see what what was going on. On the 12th, he had it. The procedure showed that nothing was wrong. Dr. Pearl told Rob that he wanted him to come back and have a CT in January.

Wednesday (January 7), Rob had a CT and met with Dr. Pearl again. It was an interesting visit. First he came in:

"Hi! How are you? How are you feeling? You look great! Didn't you get a CT today?"

"Yes, we brought it in. It is on your desk."

"Oh! That is why I couldn't see it - I will be back in a few minutes." (His desk is pretty messy.)

Ten minutes later he comes back in.

(note: tone is definitely different...)

"So, how are you feeling? Do you have any pain? Are you coughing up blood?"

"No, I really don't feel any different."

"Well, it looks as though the spot that showed up in September [we were told that it was probably due to the after effects of radiation] is double the size."

Many other questions asked. Blah, blah, blah...

"We can do one of three things:

1. wait and see what happens - I don't recommend this option.

2. Get a CT-guided biopsy, or

3. Get a bronchoscopy with a biopsy."

He then told us the pros and cons of the last two. We chose another bronch. We had the biopsy done on Friday. Dr. Pearl took 31 samples and personally walked them up to pathology.

Today, we had the follow-up appointment with Dr. Pearl to learn of the results.

It turns out that Rob's cancer is back.

Today, Rob had a lung capacity test done to see whether his lungs could take another lobectomy and then he had some blood work done to see his liver function.

Tomorrow at 7 am, Rob will get a PET scan to see where the cancer is (well, we know it is in his right middle lobe, but this is to see whether it has metastisized - spread throughout his body).

We will meet with Dr. Pearl on Wednesday to find out what the prognosis and plan of treatment will be (as far as surgery).

Three and one-half years ago, when Rob was first diagnosed, I developed an ulcer in my throat from talking so much. So rather than repeating myself over and over, I thought that I would update information in one place and let people learn about Rob's health this way. Of course, we still want to talk to all of you but rather than repeat all of the news about his cancer to each of you, we can save our phone/e-mail conversations for just the everyday talk that we usually do with our friends and family that love and care about us (and we, you).