New Plan

Hi all,

I met with Dr. Michael J. Liptay today at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. I wanted a second opinion on whether it was possible to do the surgery minimally invasively. I picked him because he seemed to be the most experienced person doing video-assisted thoracic surgery in the city (he said he does 400 a year!) He said he starts all surgeries with the video-assisted and moves to the traditional surgery only after attempting it first. I thought that made a lot of sense. The chance of simplifying the recovery makes this slightly more attractive than Dr. DeCamp, though I have equal confidence in their ability.

The bottom line is that I am scheduled to have surgery on July 20th at Rush. I'm not doing my next chemotherapy treatment, so I have a couple weeks off before then. I am also hoping that either type of surgery may allow me to return to work on or close to the start of the school year. I would eventually resume chemo, but my oncologist wants to see how the surgery goes before setting up a plan.

Again, thank you for all your prayers and support.