We felt this was a way to communicate with many friends, family, and loved with updates on the new voyage for Daryl. As most of you know, Daryl was diagnosed with Stage 1 Esophageal (Throat) Cancer in October of 2016. It was recommended to “burn this thing out” with radiation due to the location and the small size of the cancer. He began the journey of 35 radiation treatments, a week before Thanksgiving thru the first week of January. Side effects were challenging, but things were slowly improving and he had a PET scan in April that came back all clear!! Great News for the Lu’s!
In late July, Daryl, things began deteriorating, he had difficulty with his swallowing to the point where an aspirin was choking. The difficult swallowing, increased secretions, increased pain and some weight loss continued. This kept progressing so he underwent swallowing studies.
Another PET scan was ordered. After diligence from his Radiation Oncologist, this was performed Wednesday August 30th. We meet with the Radiation Oncologist on Thursday August 31st, and the news was not what we had hoped. The cancer was back and larger than before. The next step is surgical intervention. This is an involved major surgery and we are thankful there are two surgeons in San Diego that perform this very specific procedure
Daryl’s goals: Pain control, nutrition and rest.
Next Steps: Waiting for appointments with both surgeons. He is having a feeding tube placed tomorrow to help with nutrition. We had previously decided this prior to the cancer returning.
Keeps us in your prayers.
Doc's Trek 