Here is what we learned today

Brad here.

Our visit with Dr. Raut just completed. We wanted to pass on what we learned ASAP. So, before leaving this doctor's office with free Internet we write this post.

Dr. Raut was an impressive person. My overall impression is that he "knows" his stuff. I also got the since that he was "happy" to have someone like Jordan walk into his office (someone who had pediatric onset of GIST).

Alright, enough with the descriptives and now on to the facts. The primary thing we learned today is that if surgery is ever going to occur...it will occur in a few months (3 or so). The reason I say this is Dr. Raut said that he and the many other physicians all over the world who are working on GIST have all agreed that if someone who has a GIST isn't responding to either Gleevec or Sutent (the second line therapy for those who failed gleevec), then surgery would actually exacerbate the problem further and tumors would re-occur faster. Therefore, surgery is only recommended if the medicinal theraphy is working (i.e., the tumors are not growing or they are shrinking).

So, Dr. Raut stated that he would study Jordan's films and compare them against one another this evening and he will be talking with the oncologist we meet with tomorrow. He believes at first glance that the tumor near Jordan's vena cava in her liver indeed has shrunk in size but he wants to study them further. If so, then he said we would continue to take Gleevec for about three more months, have another scan, and if the tumors have shrunk or are the same then do surgery.

So, overall we have hope! This is what we wanting and needing and the fact that the CT scans indicate Jordan's tumor(s) were shrinking (per Drs. Smith and Johnson in Amarillo), we may just have received the best news possible. So, we are cautiously optimistic at this point. So, time to go eat sea food at one of our favorite restaurants -- Legal Sea Food.

Our specific prayer requests would be these: that the tumors respond well to Gleevec, that surgery would be a viable option in the future, and that the tumors do not rupture and start to bleed and require an emergency surgery.