Dr. Kuhn - The Hands of Christ in Action

Okay, so we waited for over three hours to see Dr. Kuhn today ... and it was worth it. What a wonderful doctor! He is a precious believer who happens to be an incredibly gifted and brilliant surgeon. When we expressed our appreciation for even considering to perform an extremely difficult operation, he said he would use his God given gifts to the best of his ability, and God would take it from there. What a blessing to be in hands so anointed and rare humility of spirit. He gave us new meaning for "being the hands and feet of Christ". Pray for him that he would be abundantly blessed ... and that he would have eyes to see a path through the cancer that others cannot.

The nuts and bolts are that the CT did not show him what he needed, so we wait yet again for the endoscopic ultrasound. He said he hoped have Dr. Millat perform it before Monday. There are two things that need clarification before he will proceed. 1) There appears to be either a clot or cancerous tissue growing in the spleenic vein. If it is a clot, no biggie, we can proceed. If it is cancerous tissue, they need to see if the vein below it is clear. If it is, they can bypass it using a vascular surgeon, but they would need to have one in the operating room at the ready. 2) Ensure that the artery leading from the large intestine to the heart is clear enough to either remove whatever cancer may remain or bypass it also. The last endoscopic ultrasound showed that this vein was cancerous and too close to the upper limit in size for Dr. Kuhn to be comfortable removing. With the amount of shrinkage Dad has experienced, we are hopeful that this will not be a problem. If there is any cancerous tissue they cannot get, they are considering the alcohol ablation (or the other techniques detailed in yesterday's blog).