Next we headed to the Cancer Clinic. The official name of the cancer is Hepatocellular carcinoma. It is deadly. There is no cure. Without treatment the survival rate is less than one year. With treatment survival is longer. How much longer we will just have to see.
The treatment is very new. It is called Therasphere's. It is a type of radiation. They inject microscopic radioactive glass beads right into the tumor through a catheter in the thigh. These beads are short acting. They only kill the cells that they are in contact with. The injection is an out patient procedure. Earl does not have to be in isolation. To prepare for this, Earl had to have a catheterization done last week. The radiologist put the catheter in his leg and up to his liver. He checked for veins that were going out of his liver to other areas of the body in the region of the tumor. There were three. These had to be plugged with something they called coils. We are now ready for the treatment. We believe that the first one will happen on the 15th.
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