Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Dan was with his doctor at UT Hospital today to review the entire record of information including the MRI, PET and endoscopic biopsy from last week. As Dan, in his usual inquisitive way, asked his list of questions, the doc finally stopped and asked - what is your profession? Of course, she could have guessed he is an engineer, but not just any engineer - an engineer with a long history of asking questions to understand what is necessary to know.
Well, the surprise today was that the biopsy taken from two places within the tumor showed no cancer cells! Praise the Lord! This means that any radiation or chemotherapy will have to be put off until their is a positive indication from a biopsy. Dan will get another biopsy next week because the doctor said that the other two scans (MRI and PET) indicated a malignant tumor - so there is a bit of confusion.
Dan also visited with a Dr. Deets (sp?) at Provectus, a company in Knoxville that is developing a cancer drug that is showing promise in trials in Australia. Looks like this approach is not yet approved for use in the US and that they have not developed specific procedures for pancreatic cancer. Thanks to Doug Yoakley for making the contact and all information is valuable. Dan has also contacted Vanderbilt as a potential location for treatment if they are needed (closer to home and world reknown experts).
In the mean time, we have been looking into nutritional approaches to create an environment within Dan’s body that is not conducive to growing cancer cells (no sugar - anaerobic, alkaline instead of acidic, clean out toxins). Dan got his first taste of fresh squeezed carrot juice today! Not too bad?!??!? You can squeeze a lot of things like celery, apples, parsley and it provides nutrients and enzymes that help the immune system greatly.
Please continue your prayers:
1) Give thanks for the recent biopsy results that did not show cancer cells.
2) Ask that further biopsies show the same thing - no cancer.
3) Ask that Dan and Jan continue to experience Your peace in this challenging time.
Thank you so much for your continued faithfulness in praying and encouraging Dan. Below are a few more pictures from our fun on Tuesday ion the zip lines.