From:  "farrand_je" <farrand_je@y...>
Date:  Sat Jul 27, 2002  10:08 am
Subject:  Another Belle Update!

 


Friday, UofI surgeons removed three ribs and that outrageous tumor.
This morning (Sat.) they removed her chest tube = good news, no
fluid build up. She ate, has been outside at least twice (once with
Dad!) and is passing fluids okay. She favors the right side alot,
from where they removed the tumor. But one of the many doctors
working with her says that's to be expected and will go away as the
healing progresses.

The good news is that despite the highly aggressive nature of her
tumor, it has not metatastized, yet. The bad news is that the thing
had grown so large (larger than a grapefruit) that there was not
enough margin of clean tissue surrounding it to give us a cushion.
So Belle will need radiation therapy in addition to chemo. UofI's
preference would be a Linear Accelerator with electrons but those
are few and far between, the closest to us being Univ. of Auburn or
Univ. of Missourri. UofI does think they can do "tangential"
beeming using their Cobalt machine with minimal impact to Belle.

But first, there will need to be a three week healing period.

She looks soooo much better without that horrible, bulge.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts and thank God for the
miracles so far.

Joel

 

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