To spleen or not to spleen....

What a week.  I have not relayed any info regarding my doctor and hospital visits this week because I did not know what was going to happen.  Now I do, so here you go.  I met with the Oncologist on Wednesday for a review of my progress.  The numbers all looked good.  My liver function was still ok and my tumor marker went down again to 78.  I was pretty happy with those results.  Then came my platelet count....63.  This was the number that the doctor was waiting for and it wasn't what he wanted to see.  He explained to us that although the Erbitux was doing a good job on the tumors now, we have to be aware that the finger infections are back and the use of this drug is not a long term option.  He went on to explain that the remaining available treatment options are all platelet driven and my platelet counts are just too low to use any of them now.  The only way to increase my platelet count is to have my spleen removed.  So, he called the surgeon and set up an appointment for us to meet with him for a consultation.  That consult took place on Friday afternoon.  Not to get ahead of myself, I still had chemo treatment on Thursday.  Our plan is to continue with the weekly Erbitux infusions as long as we can.  We will stop when the finger infections get to the point of being dangerous.  Our best estimate is 2 to 4 more weeks.  Now, back to Friday.  We met with the surgeon in the afternoon.  The good news is that the surgeon is the same one that did my first surgery and we really like him.  He looked at the scans and immediately agreed that my spleen is very large and needs to come out.  He feels there is a 60% chance that this will work in getting my platelet count up.  My surgery is scheduled for Thursday at 3:30pm.  The good news is that I will be able to watch some good March Madness basketball while I'm recuperating. So I got that going for me!  I'm going to take a rest now.  Keep praying.