Never Fear, TheraSphere is Here

Cheerio* Loyal Readers,

(* - meaning hello in the UK, not to be confused with the General Mills cereal)

Sorry about any potential confusion...Your Faithful Correspondent has just returned from a quick trip across the pond (of course, as ponds go, it's one of the bigger ones). YFC went for a long weekend to watch some footy (YFC understands that some of his Loyal Readers might know the game as "soccer") with his mates. It was a fantastic experience.

Particularly amusing were the terrace chants which, broadly defined, are songs sung by fans who attend football games. YFC's favourite chant of the weekend (perhaps you noticed the extra "u" in favourite...well, just to be clear, it's not a mistake, it's an affectation) was sung by the Birmingham (away) supporters to a particularly robust West Ham United (home) supporter:

(try to picture 1,500 people singing this to the tune of "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain")

Have you ever seen a salad in your life?
Have you ever seen a salad in your life?
Have you ever seen a salad,
Ever seen a salad,
Ever seen a salad in your life?

It was all very good fun and a much needed vacation. But enough about YFC, it's time to talk about Mom. So take out your FoMmie notebooks and start jotting down some notes...

Tomorrow at 7:00 a.m., YFC will be accompanying Mom to Northwestern for the first phase in her TheraSpehere treatment. As you recall, ThereSphere is the name of the treatment whereby radioactive beads are inserted to kill off the liver tumor. Here's the explanation from the ThereSphere website:

To direct TheraSphere® treatment at tumors in the liver, a physician first makes a small incision in the patient's leg and places a long, flexible plastic tube called a catheter, into the femoral artery, which is the major blood vessel in the leg. Guided by fluoroscopy (an X-ray imaging technique that projects views of the inside of the body onto a screen) the physician then moves the catheter up through the blood vessels to the hepatic artery, which is one of two blood vessels that feeds the liver. The physician guides the catheter into the branch of the hepatic artery that feeds the cancerous tumor in the liver and infuses the TheraSphere® beads through the catheter into the blood that supplies the tumor. This is usually performed in a hospital's radiology suite and patients remain conscious throughout the procedure.

Remember how YFC told you to take notes? Well, hopefully you listened 'cause there's gonna be a quiz. And if you didn't listen...well, maybe you'll realize that when YFC tells you to do something it's really not a suggestion, it's an order (for your own good of course, after all YFC may be a dictator, but he's a benevolent dictator).

Right. Moving on, so tomorrow is not the actual procedure, it's more of a training run. So, Mom won't actually get the radioactive beads, the doctors do a test to make sure they know how everything flows so that they get it right (after all, you don't want any surprises when dealing with radioactive material). Anyhow, it's sort of a long day for Mom -- about 8 hours or so, most of which will be spent in "twilight" -- so keep her in your thoughts and prayers, k?

(Ok, you how how YFC just told you that when he tells you things, it's not a suggestion, it's for your own good? Well trust him...a little prayer is good for the soul)

Loyal Readers will get a full report of tomorrow's events so be on the lookout.

Wishing you all a Tu-rrific Tuesday.

Faithfully,
Corey