Update from the August 6 Dr’s Appt

** Got the last paperwork to the Financial Aid office, only to find out we don’t qualify for any aid there. We have too many assets (cars without notes) and his pay is not quite low enough. So we will have to shoulder all of the costs.
** We will be getting an idea of the real costs of all the options hopefully today, to go in with our eyes open.
** Assuming we are going ahead with the radiation treatment (Brachiotherapy), the eye surgeon will now call the radiation physicists and have them begin work on the gold plaque (with the radiation seeds in it to sew onto the eye), and the implant should happen in 3-4 weeks. Surgery day is Wednesday, just don’t know which one yet!!
** The surgery is outpatient, and then the plaque will be removed after 3-5 days
** They will check him at 6 months, and then a year to see the status of the tumor. They do not expect to see any significant effects until then.
** After that time, growth should be completely halted and we may even see some shrinkage, but the tumor will remain in his eye, kinda like a scar, and will be monitored every few months from here on out to make sure nothing has started growing again.
** The radiation treatment should not have any side effects that you would normally hear about with radiation treatments, like sickness etc. We are told there will just be the pain management from putting in the plaque.
** And while Bill has the radiation plaque, we have to stay away from his ‘beam’- talk about getting the evil eye!! He will have a lead eye patch to help with this and keep us safe from him.
** I am thinking that they should let us ‘recycle’ the gold plaque by selling the gold to pay for the treatment!!!
Debbie