Monday, October 20, 2008

Radiation Oncologist

Today I went to see Dr. Christopher Leagre, a radiation oncologist. He was recommended my Dr. Pike, my urologist. The purpose of the visit was to set up radiation treatments for me following my orchiectomy. Dr. Leagre said I had a “pure seminoma,” which was good, because that meant it was a very well-known, predictable type of cancer.

If I do nothing, there’s an 85% chance I will be just fine. However, with the kind of seminoma I had, its size, and the speed in which it developed, there is a 15% chance the cancer will spread to my abdominal lymph nodes. If I zap them with radiation, that chance drop down to 1-3% (and Dr. Leagre said in his 20 years of doctoring, he’s never actually personally seen it return post-radiation).

Dr. Leagre said that they use a much lower dose of radiation now than they used to, with much lower chance for bad side effects. Basically I’ll just have to deal with nausea, and they’ll give me anti-nausea medicine and Xanax to combat that. There’s going to scan me and make a 3D model of my abdomen so they can zap my lymph nodes without accidently zapping anything important like my kidneys.

The appointments will be every weekday for three weeks (15 zaps). They’ll take place at the end of the day, so I can leave work, get zapped, and go home if I feel sick. Everything else should be fine. Dr. Leagre offered to sign the paperwork if I wanted to take the three weeks off work, but I shouldn’t need to. Tempting, though!

Since I live and work downtown, I asked if I could get my treatments closer to my home and workplace. Dr. Leagre is a St. Vincent’s guy, but he said he knows a doctor at Methodist he could recommend to me. Methodist Hospital is four minutes from my house and even closer to my work, so that should be just fine. I have another radiation oncologist appt. with Dr. Yeh at Methodist tomorrow.



“Who can deny the snazzy of that?” To Arthur: “Are you denying the snazzy of that?”
-- The Tick

2 comments:

Soul Speaker said...

Just stumbled upon your world and thought I'd say "hello". It's amazing the number of people who I find who share similar troubles. All I can recommend are positive thoughts!

Wishing you well.

Thank you for sharing your story.

BZero said...

Thanks for the well-wishes, @soul speaker!