Little Victories for Andy 20FEB2010

Hi all, wanted to give an update on Andy. On Wednesday the diagnosis was finalized from the lung biopsy as stage IV nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) adenocarcinoma. Given that he is young & a nonsmoker this is pretty shocking. Its stage IV as it has metasticized (spread) to his liver and also one rib bone. There is a 5.5+ cm tumor on his left side, in a region on his left lower lung lobe (the left lung has two). This diagnosis is considered 'incurable' (more about that later though).

I flew out on Wednesday night for ~2 weeks. Andy is on pain medication as he has pain associated with a partially collapsed lung, as well as a suspected fractured rib and muscle strains/spasms in his lower back. He has lost some weight but as he says, he had a bit to lose anyways (his wife thinks I may have found it ;).

His friends out here, as well as all over, have been great. The cast & crew on his show took a collection that he's going to use to get some additional supplements and help cover copays for diagnostics and treatments.

Andy is remaining positive, his wife Jen is a rock and extremely loving, and little Nicholas keeps trying to give him a 'cars' bandaid for his back pain :). He's adopted 'die another day' by Madonna as his anthem. (And let me tell you, 'two Boston brothers in tight slacks' cranking madonna in a mini cooper on the way to medical appointments is very entertaining).

So! Its all about Little Victories now; yesterday's victory is getting all the approvals to have a full body bone scan, spinal xray and brain mri completed, just as precautions & to rule other sites out. We're 'manning the phones' (the secretaries @ the drs office, insurance, diagnostic already recognize their and my phone numbers :) to push thru the approvals to start chemo early next week, ideally Monday or Tuesday. Andy will get a regimen of 2 chemo drugs & a bone medication every 3 weeks, for a total of 6 doses. The goal is to shrink the tumor & halt the spread of the cancer, then take it from there. As it has spread they don't typically do surgery but anything is possible, and as a few friends have said, those swan boys are fighters, and he & our family & friends (Team Andy!) WILL fight this & BEAT IT. Every day is a little victory, and we're gonna add them up to a full long lifetime of fun, family & love. Incurable just means we're gonna have to manage it & keep fighting it into remission. Patients can live long, quality lives managing the disease, and that's our goal with Andy.

For now he will start treatment out here. We're going to get additional opinions of course, I hope to get his records into dana farber for review. As it proceeds he may end up on the east coast if he & Jen feel they can get additional care / services there.Andy and I are going to try to build a website so we can post updates & you can post notes, thoughts, stories of survival, old embarrassing pictures. We'll send out the link when we get time to do it. Its amazing, the amount of compassion and care and love that is being expressed, really a testament to who he is and what he means to us all. We love hearing from you and want you to know that things are crazy right now, and we haven't been able to return all the calls, texts and messages but every one is well received and helps Team Andy keep fighting. Every message is appreciated.

For now please keep him & the family in your thoughts and prayers. I'll try to get more updates out soon.

Tim