Yesterday's doctor appointment went good-Ryan's staples came out with no problem, and we received copies of both the doctor's surgical report and the pathology report. I have a million questions, and while he tried his best, Dr. Mitchell just didn't have any answers for us. He was able to give us a little more detail about the stuff we already know, but that just has me googling and stressing all the more so I'm not sure that was a positive!

I know I've tried to explain it all the best I can, but I'll summarize again based on what we talked about yesterday with the doctor. The tumor was removed as completely as possible, but the pathology showed that the fat pad area removed with it was riddled with other small tumors. This further confirms that the cancer was spreading, and we won't know how far/how much until Ryan can have a PET scan done. The HIPEC treatment that CTCA said might be a possibility, Dr. Mitchell said he isn't sure it will be. Because most GIST tumors occur inside the gastrointestinal tract somewhere: stomach, colon, intestines, etc., the HIPEC treatment is localized to the area where the tumor originated. Ryan's however, occurred just out in the open, right in the middle of his abdomen, and Dr. Mitchell explained that it might not be possible to basically just flood the entire abdomen with the HIPEC. Something else we won't know until we get to CTCA.

Speaking of which, we have our first appointment scheduled beginning May 9th. They have to wait a month from surgery to allow healing to complete. They can't get an accurate PET scan while he is still healing, and without that they cannot decide on the necessary treatment plan. Additionally, we learned today that once he starts any form of chemo his body will be unable to continue healing. So full recuperation from the surgery has to take place before treatment can begin. Logically I get it and that makes perfect sense. Emotionally I want to scream. How can you say he has cancer and then just leave us to sit and wait for a month while it continues to attack him?!?! This entire process sucks so far. I don't really imagine it will ever do anything but.