Arles (cont.)

I'm not sure when we will get on the internet again, so I will update our stay in Arles. It rained during the night and after we had supper tonight. It was nice for our walking tour around town this morning. A local lady led us. Afterwards we all got museum passes to use on our own. We went to an interesting archeological museum with lots of Roman artifacts (statues, mosaic floors, scale models of the old Roman structures, etc.) found in Arles (just recently they found an old head of Julius Caeser from a statue in the Rhone River here), an old Roman ampitheater, and a coliseum that they are restoring. In fact our hotel is right between these Roman structures. We had to park our bus and wheel our suitcases for about 5 minutes to our hotel last night. Curt helped some of the women (including me) carry there suitcases up some stairs. On our walking tour we saw some of the places that Van Gogh painted here. This is the city where he cut off part of his ear. We also did a little shopping. Tomorrow we will stop at another Provence town (Les Baux) on our way to Roussillon for one night. After that we end our tour in Nice for 2 nights.

Arles

We arrived in Arles tonight. It rained some this morning, but stopped this afternoon. We visited a local winery at noon today and learned how they make. We tasted 3 wines and the owner made us a good lunch. We then saw the Pont du Gard (an old Roman aqueduct) before coming here. We had delicious group meal tonight and got back to our hotel after 10. Tomorrow we have a walking tour of Arles and are on own. We are in Provence with lots of Roman ruins around here. Hope the rains are gone now.

Carcassonne

We have internet access here tonight, so we thought we write another quick message. We had about a 4 or 5 hour bus trip from Sarlat to Carcassonne today. We stopped for a picnic lunch on a "barge" on the Canal du Midi south of Toulouse (I´m not sure I am spelling these places correctly without our maps, etc.). After we got to Carcassonne, our guide took us on a walking tour of the fortress. It started to rain and rained a lot until after we finished supper about 9 tonight. We are learning a lot about French history and France. In Chinon we learned about Joan of Arc. Tomorrow we have wine tasting, another picnic at a Chateau, will see the Pont de Gard (old) and arrive in Arles for a couple nights. We will finally be in Provence then, but have enjoyed the other parts of France too. Curt could not have the local dish here (casserlout (sp.) - beans, duck and sausage) because of his celiac. Our guide wrote a note about this in French which we show whenever we eat out (which is quite often). When we have group dinners, our guide has already taken care of this. We hope we don´t have any more rain now!

France #2

Our last day in Paris, we walked from the Louvre along the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomph and went to the top of that. We took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower, but did not go up.
We went to Chinon the next 2 nights and saw inside 2 Chàteaux (castles) and the gardens of another. This will be our third night in Sarlat tonight. On the way here we stopped at Oradour-sur-Glane (?). This is a small village where the Nazis massacred the 642 villagers (including 193 children) on June 10, 1944 and burned the entire village. They left the ruins as a memorial. Yesterday we visited a cave with prehistoric etchins and drawings of animals in the morning. In the afternoon we paddled a canoe 10 K down the Dordogne River. Today is a free day. It is also market day and quite rainy. We were able to have a big load of laundry done for us for 15 Euro. One night we had duck gizzards on our salad. Curt is managing the eating. He has had Cornflakes every morning, plus yogurt, etc. Tomorrow we head for Medieval Carcassonne for one night and then to Arles. The time is going quickly.

Paris

We had a good flight over and met the Beckers at the Charles de Gaulle airport and took the shuttle to our hotel. We met Reistads there and walked about 5 miles around the 11th District (where we are staying) and the 3rd District nearby. On Friday we took the Metro and train to Giverny (Monets garden). Saturday we went with Reistads to Versailles and came back to meet up with our Rick Steves tour at 5. We ate dinner together that night. Yesterday our group went to Sainte Chappelle (beautiful stained glass), Paris underground museum and Notre Dame. We ate lunch in the Latin Quarter and then went to the Orsay Museum and barely Orangerie (Monet) Museum, and Place de Concorde. Today we are off to the Louvre and on our own. Had some rain. Curt is holding up as well as the rest of us ( we all get tired). Gotta go now.

Travel

It has been a hectic day today. We finally got packed for our trip to France and Germany tomorrow (May 14). We return on June 4. We also scheduled a trip to UCSF for a second opinion from Dr. Steven Wang on June 9 at 2:45 PM. We will fly down to San Francisco that morning and spend the night. On the next day (June 10) we will fly directly from San Francisco to Chicago. We plan on watching our grandsons play a lot of baseball and soccer while there. We will return to Oregon on June 21. The next Monday (June 23) Curt has an appointment with Dr. Chui at OHSU at 10:30 AM and might start chemotherapy soon after that.

Dr. Gross Phone Call

We were surprised that Dr. Gross called late this afternoon. He wanted to make sure we knew about the Tumor Board meeting. In a way, he said this is a "second opinion" because a couple other doctors (including an oncologist besides Dr. Chui) had their input. Without a biopsy (which would be very invasive), they cannot say 100% that this growth (which could be residuals from radiation) is cancer, but they all strongly think it is. Dr. Gross knows the doctor at Sloan-Kettering (by first name) and said he (Dr. Gross) is a "product" from there. He thinks they would do the same things he has done. He also reiterated that there is no chemotherapy recipe for this rare cancer (i.e. in this area). It is hard to say whether to start the treatment while Curt does not have any symptoms, because the treatment will probably make him feel worse. That is why he does not have to start the treatment right away. The cancer could just "smolder" there awhile too. Dr. Gross thought it is worth getting another opinion from UCSF. We called UCSF today. They said Curt's information had been forwarded to a Dr. Wong (sp.) there. We left a message at his office that we would like to hear from him before we leave next Wednesday.
When Curt told Dr. Gross to have a nice Mother's Day, we didn't know his wife is expecting their second child that day. We are going to spend Mother's Day (going up there Saturday night) with Angie's family in Lake Oswego and then Curt has a coed softball game in Corvallis later that afternoon.

Dr. Chui Followup

We finally talked to Dr. Chui again today. After the Tumor Board meeting on Monday, the doctors still agreed that the only thing they can do now is the chemotherapy. It would be up to Curt to decide how active he wants to remain during the therapy. Dr. Chui said the tumor is still very small, and he can probably wait 4 to 6 weeks before deciding. He could set up the treatment in 24 hours. It would take 2 to 3 months or more to see how affective the chemo would be and how tolerant Curt would be of the treatment. He encouraged us to get a second opinion. We have spent a couple hours trying to set something set up. When we called Sloan-Kettering in New York, they said their doctors do not have time to give second opinions to anyone outside their surrounding district. However, our doctor could call one of their doctors to discuss the case on the phone. Dr. Chui did not think this was a good idea. He thinks we need someone to look at the "raw data" of the case and give an opinion. Curt's doctor would be interpreting the information he discussed with another doctor. So Dr. Chui recommended contacting the University of California at San Francisco. We called UCSF and they asked for our doctor to Fax them the information and they would then contact us. So we cancelled the appointment with Dr. Chui on Monday and will wait to hear from UCSF now.
I forgot to mention that Curt is a little shorter than he thought. At his meeting with Dr. Chui on Monday they had him remove his shoes for his weight (156 lbs.) and height (5 ft. 9 in.).

Dr. Chui

Well, we are still waiting, but it doesn't look good. We picked up Angie at work and took her with us to see Dr. Chui. He was not able to attend the meeting at OHSU last Monday, but plans to attend a meeting at 5 today. He had called Dr. Gross with some questions about radiation and Dr. Gross returned the call while we were there. I guess they had radiated some in the area of the new tumor, so that rules out any radiation. The tumor (or possibly 2 spots) are in a very bad spot - at the base of the skull where the brain stem attaches. This would make operating very risky too. He said there could be cancer in other places that haven't shown up yet and that the cancer returned rather quickly after the radiation. He didn't know we were going to France on May 14, but thought we should go (and get medical evacuation insurance). At this point all they can do is chemotherapy to slow or stabilize the growth. The amount (if any) that they do will depend on what Curt wants to do. The more chem the more it will impact what he will able to do. Chemo is essentially poison. If they gave him enough chemo to kill the cancer, it would kill Curt too. The chemo will also cause nausea, etc. They have some drugs to help with the nausea. The treatment he is considering would be weekly for a half day, and Dr. Chui would like to have it done at OHSU. We can set the schedule. He said that waiting 4 to 6 weeks (after our trip to France) should not make a difference. We asked about a second opinion, and he recommended it. He said Sloan-Kettering in New York is the best in the world (Dr. Gross spent 2 1/2 years there a Senior Fellow). We will wait to hear from OHSU tomorrow before making out next decision. Right now we have another appointment with Dr. Chui next Monday (May 12) at 8:30 AM.