Big Wave Dave

The whole family went to the Oncology meet and greet today, fortunately we all didn't have to sit on the butcher paper, but those rooms are so small and we were packed in there like bacon on top of each other. Cozy, as you can imagine. We all behaved though. The oncologist was a great fit for dad, they could both look each other in both eyes at the same time. They let the wandering ones, wander together and then actually use the other eyes to look at each other. Dr. Shohara broke down the cancer again for us, said they were zombies and that the zombies were right there at the esophagus and stomach. Stepping back to Monday, Dad had a quick biopsy done, that according to him was his "most" fun surgery so far, and he's serious, ask him he'll tell you as many times as you want to hear. "I was there I got carted in, put on the table, watched the midget doctor, then a cocktail of syringes with drugs, and BOOM! back in the other room. Dont remember nothing else! I w

Wow! So thrilled at seeing the thoughts, concerns and well wishes, that folks are posting. And how about these Clark kids, Spencer & Madison are our Crown Jewels. We love all of you!  Please know you’re welcome to call and or text any of us, any time. Feeling the love and support however we can get it works for us!! How are we doing??  If not for the medical tests indicating there’s a monster lurking beneath the surface, and the speedy loss of weight, we’d be none the wiser. David isn’t in any physical pain at all and our spirts are determined to knock this shit out of the park! My husband is a warrior and is preparing for battle. We’re calling all his soldiers to the field - you all will have a role to play.  What can you do??  Down the road we’re going to need folks to be his chemo buddy, prepare for endless story telling. Grabbing a chocolate shake with DC  (the idea that he doesn’t have to count calories is really pissing me off) or humming a few bars of Brick Ho

Been a long day for the Clark Clan. Mom, Kitten and I have had our fair of Spanish coffees this evening. It's 11pm. Bear with me. Dad, Mom and Joan (long time family friend) checked in this morning for Dad's scheduled laparoscopic surgery at Kaiser. Dad's anesthesiology team happened to be some old familiar faces from OHSU's GI procedure unit where Mom worked years ago. Knowing we were in good hands, and after some debate over what "moderate exercise" really means - Dad went back with Dr. P under full anesthesia. As Spencer broke down in his previous post, "Treatment Plan with Dr. P," we were inevitably headed down 1 of 3 different paths. Today the surgery unfortunately showed the latter of the 3. We are now at stage 4 and the cancer has metastasized   outside of Dad's stomach. Whether it came from inside the stomach and then out or outside the stomach and in, we do not know. However we do know that removing the stomach is no longer on th

I realized after my third " how'd the test go " text, that Spencer and I were unintentionally leaving you all in suspense. The PET scan went great; A.K.A. they did not see anything "new" goin' on. So that's a W. Next up (tomorrow, 2/8) is a little laparoscopic surgery to view the stomach from the outside. In hopes that we again do not find anything new that we do not already know about. Again - thank you all so much for your continued support, kind words, and prayers. Chat soon, Mad & Spen

Met with Dr. Papavasiliou today to go over the prognosis and the treatment plan. I think we all agreed that Dr. P is a pretty good guy and seems to be a good fit for Dad. He did a full run down of Dad’s situation for us, twice actually. Dad’s cancer is right where the esophagus and the stomach meet, so there will be some discussion between Dr. P (stomach guy) and the thoracic (chest guys) surgeons on exactly whose realm this will fall in. In the mean time there will be a PET scan tomorrow afternoon to double check that the cancer has not moved into other parts of the body. The PET scan is about 85% accurate and will be confirmed by laparoscopic surgery on Thursday.  Laparoscopic surgery is a tiny incision that they will shove a camera into and check out the exterior of the stomach and surrounding areas. Then if they see anything they will do a biopsy at the time, etc etc. So right now we are Stage 3 and working with the stomach guys, the plan would be chemo or radiation for 3i