In March of this year, our now 23 yo son was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes, lungs and liver. He was one sick young man in March due to a large blood clot that was caused by the cancer load. Only through the grace of God and many prayers being said for Austin, did he live those first 48 hrs in ICU. Our God is so good. Austin's first words when we were told of the cancer were: What ever happens I am ok with as long as God is glorified through this. And he has lived up to his word. He went through 12 weeks of intense chemotherapy and never complained at all. Last week he had the CT scans repeated ...and we found out there is still cancer in his lymph nodes in his lower abdomen/back, liver and lungs. The doctor said 85% was gone but he still has a good bit left. He will be having RPLND surgery~ August 24th. He has appointment with the vascular surgeon this Friday to discuss the plan for the removing the largest tumor that is still in the liver. We are praying he will be able to ablate percutaneously (through the skin) instead of surgically. We are not sure when we will see the pulmonary doctor about the tumors in his lungs. Austin is doing great. He still tires very easily but is much better than when he was getting the chemo and much better than he was in Feb and March! Please continue to pray for my sweet son. He has been such a blessing to me through this. Always so positive! His goald is to be well and be able to go to Romania to work in the orphanages again next summer. Love you all and thank you again for your prayers
Friday, July 27th update that I sent to family and close friend and to our church prayer lists:
I thought I would write y'all to tell you what I understood from today's visit with the vascular surgeon. It looks like Austin will have at least one more if not 2 more surgeries after the one of the 24th of August. The tumors in the lungs and liver all need to be removed. The surgeon said he is going to consider doing the liver resections at the same time as the RPLND on the 24th BUT the liver resection itself will take more than 4 hours and have a lot of bleeding. He will be helping with the RPLND since it is so invasive and there will be vascular difficulties because of the effect of the clot on the blood vessels. So if it is possible, he will do it at the same time. If not, Austin will recover from the RPLND and then have the liver resection. It also sounded like he will have to have another surgery to remove the tumors from the lungs. The three surgeons~ the GU surgeon, the vascular surgeon, and the thoracic surgeon~ are meeting this week to make a final plan. He also spoke of more chemo as well. I am a little over whelmed and a lot confused. But I know they are all working together at this point to do what is best for Austin. The oncologist that is caring for Austin will be informed of all of these plans and follow up as needed. Austin is doing remarkably well and still has a peace that can only come from God. I am working to get there :)
When I hear the final plan next week I will let you all know!
