April Fool Month

Well my post titled *Beware the Ides of March* was overly optimistic.  Everything has been shifting around all month so there were way to many questions so I did not post updates. I think we are more organised now.   Basically April was spent trying to find out what was going on with Dave's belly.   Now after CT scans, blood tests, and seeing various doctors the picture is starting to take shape. A group of doctors meet on Wednesdays to discuss cases. Dave's case was presented last week and and the team developed an action plan. Doctors were concerned that the tumor had already caused the bile duct to clog once and could again.   Additionally, we were told that the tumor is very close to a major artery, making surgery a very risky endeavor.   They would like to try and shrink the tumor prior to surgery, but the oncologist was not happy with the inability to collect enough material for a the biopsy.  That is the one doctor we want to be happy. 

The first step will happen on Thursday May 3rd for another endoscopy.  It is hard to wait, but that is the earliest the various doctors could get together. This time they will use a bigger needle and have a pathologist standing by to decide if the samples have enough material to analyse.  From that point on there are several paths depending on the results.  Assuming they are able to get the samples they want, we then see the oncologist on May 8th.  So until then we only know possible paths.   At least now we have an idea of what these paths might be.   And even better we know the docs are talking to each other.  

On Friday we enjoyed the benefit of these conversation . The surgeon called to cancel the Friday appointment because the oncologist had covered everything on Thursday.  This gave us time to go to see plays put on by Sam's first grade class, along with the other first grade class.  Both classes had 10 minute plays that all the kids were in.  Many of the kids had speaking parts and included group singing. One of the parents led the kids last year and had so much fun that she did it with this years first graders too . There is a growing group of parents working very hard to provide music and art to the students.