Update October 28,2008

Hi all,

We are in a hotel room in Temple, Texas across the street from Scott
and White Hospital and Clinics. John's son, Charles came from Austin
to accompany us to the consultation with the surgeon. He was a sight
for sore eyes, when he walked through the door. I think all three of
us has made up our minds before the consult was over, though we did
talk about it afterward.

This doctor by far has the most experience of the 3 surgeons that we
have seen. I think he has more experience that the Mayo doctor and
the Dallas doctor combined. He is very cordial and was extremely
good natured about all of my questions, which there are plenty. We
were happy to hear that he wanted to do surgery within the window of
time that all of the information sites suggest. There are no
hospitalists at Scott and White and he is going to be in town. He
said that he does rounds 7 days per week. The hospital is small in a
small town, quiet. We stopped by the floor where John would stay
after surgery. It is certainly not the most comfortable I have seen
for visitors or family but, I can work with it. We ate in the
cafeteria and the food was very good.

So, we have a plan. We will return to Temple on November 11 and John
will have surgery on the 12th. There are many variables that I will
go into later but, I will say that like Fig, this doctor thinks the
primary could be in the stomach and moved to the esophagus. If this
is the case, John's stomach will be removed. There are many ways this
could go and the decision can only be made once an incision is made
and the doctor can see what is there. He was quite impressed with the
tumor being invisible with chemo only and has not seen that before.
We are expecting a 6 hour surgery.

This is the nutshell of our visit. We fly home tomorrow to start
making arrangements to come back to Temple in two weeks. Do any of
you know anyone in the area? We are 30 minutes from Waco and a little
over an hour from Austin. With my huge genetic gene pool, am I
missing any cousins that live in the area? Or Mastiff people? Just
curious.

We have been told to expect a 2 to 3 week stay. This has been the
shortest prediction from anyone. There won't be the comfort of Pat's
home or Claudette's or the running in and out of Nikki. We probably
won't need to go to David Burings though he has graciously offered his
home to us after surgery. Stephanie has also made a wonderful offer
for a place to stay afterwards. I guess we will stay in a hotel a
couple of days before we drive back to Lubbock. I think Charles is
going to work it out so he can drive us home after surgery. I really
don't want to do that drive alone in case we get into any problems.

We have one huge issue to work on and that is a tag team to help with
the dogs. Allison, of course, has stepped up to be in charge of that
but, she is in the final throws of her RN training and won't have much
time. If any of the Lubbock people can step up and let us know if you
can help us with a schedule to get the dogs in and out of the house
during the days we're gone, it would be very helpful. I would like to
spread out that duty since it could be up to 3 weeks. If you can't,
don't feel guilty. We will work it out. Is anyone planning to
vacation in Lubbock in early November that needs a place to stay? :-)

We will be home tomorrow afternoon. We see Fig on Thursday and the
Cardiologist on Friday. The surgeon here was insistent that we get a
release from the heart doctor that John can withstand the surgery.

Any questions are welcome. We feel very comfortable and are very
grateful that Dr. Bill Williams continued to push us to come to
Temple. Just like when we knew Fig was our oncologist, we know this
is our surgeon.

Love,
Shere