Cleveland Clinic

A few  months ago, shortly after Joe was initially diagnosed, he went to the Cleveland Clinic for a consultation on a procedure that is pretty aggressive and fairly controversial in the medical world. This procedure is called HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy). Basically, this is heated chemotherapy that is delivered directly to the abdominal cavity. Before HIPEC is done, a surgeon goes in and removes all visible tumors (this is known as cytoreductive surgery).

From what we have been told, this is a pretty rough surgery with a long recovery period, and is only available for very select patients as the cancer has to be contained to the abdominal cavity. During the initial consultation, Joe met with a surgeon and a medical oncologist. The surgeon was adamant that Joe was a great candidate, and this should be done 6 weeks following the completion of the radiation. The medical oncologist wasn't so certain that Joe was a good candidate, and thought it would be best for Joe to complete the multi-agent chemotherapy first. Ughhh.... why can't anything be easy or straight forward!

The differing opinions between the surgeon and medical oncologist is what brought us back to Cleveland this past Friday for a follow up meeting. Joe was a dreading the onslaught of questions regarding his diagnosis and symptoms. The night before we left he was already putting together snarky responses for the typical first question that a doctor asks: "What brings you in today," or "What can I do for you?" Luckily, the surgical oncologist we met with asked neither of these questions, and as a result, she quickly won Joe over. Dr. Wey was very nice, and spent a long time reviewing Joe's case and discussing the facts with us. Ultimately she decided that she thinks it is best to wait a while until we can see how Joe progresses on the current chemotherapy regimen. While it is nice to have the option available to have this HIPEC treatment, it is a pretty big deal, and we aren't sure we were ready to take that risk yet, especially since Joe has been feeling much better.

All in all the trip to Cleveland went very well and we were happy to have went. We tried to find cool things to take pictures of on our drive there and back, but were completely unsuccessful. There was lots of farm land for the majority of the ride, and then some nice Cleveland ghettos closer to the hospital.

I was really wishing we could turn towards Chicago instead of Cleveland :(

Close to the hospital was a pink and blue house, turned BBQ restaurant, with a drive through window called Hot Sauce Williams. It was so completely ghetto, and Joe SO wanted to stop. Luckily I was driving, and my stomach was safe! I wish I had mastered the art of driving and picture taking, so that I could have gotten a picture of the house as well. 

- Jess