Clayton Health Update - 12/18/24

From Darby: It’s been a long day. Our first appointment was at 9am for an MRI, then blood draw at 12:40, CT Scan at 2pm and finally an appointment with Clayton’s oncologist, Dr. Shalaby, at 3:40pm. The MRI was to rule out anything spreading to his brain because of the headaches Clayton has been having, and the good news is that was clear! The results from the CT scan however, were not as certain. The radiologist readings are suggesting there is some growth in Clayton’s chest and possibly spine, but Dr. Shalaby is wanting a second reading done as he is not as certain that the spots have grown enough to cause concern. They are still very small, and the spot on his spine he is not convinced is for sure cancer. So we called Clayton’s surgeon, Dr. Baucom who did his colostomy bag, during our appointment to see what she thought. She is going to have another reading done. We already had an appointment with her on Friday at 9am to hopefully have a consult for his reversal if all of his scans were clear. But because there is some discrepancy on the findings, we will meet with her to see if she thinks we can still go ahead with the reversal surgery or if she thinks we need to move forward with chemo again. We have a couple options on which chemo he could do, but we just aren’t sure yet if he will. And we aren’t sure if he will be able to have the reversal surgery just yet. We will also have another scan in about 8 weeks to really be able to determine if these spots of concern are growing or not. His CEA number did go up again, and this time it’s above the normal range. It’s not a full picture, but it’s not encouraging either. So we are praying that maybe this scan was over-read, that a second set of eyes would bring good news that these spots are nothing we need to begin chemo again for yet, and that Clayton would still be able to have the reversal surgery in January! We will update again once we know more on Friday's appointment.