My oncologist ordered a PET scan in early January 2023, which revealed five new LMS tumors, and was able to refer me to a sarcoma specialist at Indiana University cancer center. Sarcoma specialists are exceedingly rare at cancer centers (i.e., there is a very low probability that you will have a sarcoma specialist as your oncologist), due to the low incidence rates of sarcomas in the U.S. population (i.e., only .000004% of the population in the United States have LMS), so my ability to have her added to my healthcare team is another blessing for which I am extremely grateful. She worked with my oncologist to get me started with a new chemo drug to treat LMS. Unfortunately, the new drug was not successful as we hoped, and I had to get Liver Directed Therapy (LDT) in May of 2023 to try and get rid of a mass of four tumors in my liver.
The LDT had to be done by a specialist at IU Health, where my Distal Pancreatectomy surgery was done the previous November. The doctor who would do the radiation embolization in my liver looked at the CT scan and the record of the progress of my disease and told me he was not going to do the surgery because he thought I was beyond help (i.e., at first, he was 100% against doing it). But, after being urged by my oncologist, my sarcoma specialist at IU Health, and the surgeon at IU Health who did my “birthday surgery,” he was convinced to do the procedure (“...my angel will go before you.” Exodus 32:34).
A CT scan in August of 2023 revealed that the radiation embolization Liver Directed Therapy was remarkably successful in destroying the tumors in my liver. The skeptical doctor who did the LDT read the scan and came into the room, shook his head, and said “This is amazing, but it looks like the tumors have been surgically removed. There was no evidence the tumors had ever been there.”
Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory. Psalms 73:23-24
There is 100% probability that the redeemed will spend eternity with Jesus
