UCLA

We had a great experience at UCLA today! After stopping in Santa Monica to pick up Michael's sister and have some breakfast, we headed over to UCLA to meet with Dr. P. He took Michael's health history and we gave him all the pertinent medical records. The only thing we hadn't taken with us were the biopsy specimens, but we stopped by Cedars-Sinai later in the day and brought them back to UCLA.

Anyway, Dr. P. thinks the first step is to surgically remove the cancerous kidney. Once they have done so, they will have more material to analyze, and therefore will hopefully be able to determine the cell type. Then again, Dr. P. is having his pathology department look at Michael's previous biopsies, and they may be able to tell more than the other pathology departments have already.

So, we expect to hear back from Dr. P. late this week or early next week with the findings from his pathology department. Then, he will try to get Blue Cross to approve a surgical date for Michael, and he said that shouldn't be anymore than a few weeks from now. After that, once Michael has recovered from surgery, then he would begin medical treatment for the cancer. We really like Dr. P., and we feel that his approach is right for us based on the research we've done about kidney cancer and the various ways it is treated.

We seem to have made some progress with the insurance situation, too. My school district requested that Blue Cross make an exception for us and let us change Michael's medical group prior to open enrollment. Today we received two phone calls from Blue Cross letting us know that our request has been sent to their expedited grievance department, and that they are obligated by law to let us know their decision in 72 hours. So, we will hear back from them on Thursday. Please pray that our request is granted.

Having faith that our request will find favor, we can then focus our efforts on preparing for the surgery and medical treatments to come.