This will be a quick update, as it is late (i.e just watched Letterman's Top Ten List ... Tiger Woods Pet Peeves), but I wanted to to touch base with y'all --as we say here in Texas. I hope you have noticed the new pages I have added including 'words to live by', 'jokes' and a link to the video that Dave Sweet took during my chemo treatment.
First of all, I am doing pretty well, all things considered. Nausea has been very limited. Pain has been kept under control. Main effort has been to keep hydrated and try to reawaken my shocked digestive/bowell system. They do blood tests every morning around 6AM and then adjust meds (e.g. magnesium, potassium, phosphate, etc.) during the day to keep me balanced. Dr. Mavligits is watching my white blood cell count closely, as it has dropped from normal over 200k to around 35k. This was expected; one of my 'release conditions' is a certainty that it has stabilized and is out of danger of falling drastically for some reason. This does not seem to be a big concern at this point. I am close to meeting Mavligit's inspection terms for discharge, but I have to be able eat and drink adn 'process' on my own.
Basically, every morning they weigh me and I have been weighing in at 207 pounds (I entered hospital right at 200 ... thank you Martin and James for noticing this in the Lake Powell picture), thanks to fluid retention. I eat a small breakfast and by noon I am bursting, then they give an I.V. of Lasix, which sucks excess fluid out via urination and I lose about 10 pounds in a couple hours ... and so it goes. Today, I stopped the pain medication (Dalaudid .. mostly for gastritus ... note: a lot of the chemo went to the stomach due to my specific artery architecture) to help get things moving and there was some improvement.
We got the results of the baseline ct scan they did Friday night and as expected the main tumor had continued to grow and is now / was 6 cm (was 4cm a month ago ... 1.5cm 5 months ago and 8 months ago and 10 months ago -- remember, old scans showed light density spot before I did McClay's biochemotherapy, earlier this year). An accurate baseline is important in future decisions relating to the effectiveness of this treatment; Mavligit is also reserving judgement on future treatment options for later review of scans in a month.
That's enough medical crap for now. Liz seems to be holding up remarkably well and her parents' support has been amazing. Who else can just fly across the country and hang out in a hospital all day, waitng for the chance to track down all available patient resources. We were commenting on how each of our lives seems to have proceeded along a path that has enabled us to best deal with this trial. I hope the same is true with each of you (with regards to me, but also to your own trials).
We do miss the kids terribly though, but we know they are in good hands with friends and family and we have been talking with them alot. I can't believe I missed the first day of Cameron's hell week practice ... the smell of fresh cut grass, the sun beating down, the coaches' whistles, the players puking after two-a-days and conditioning ... ahhhh, the good old days. And we also missed Kyle winning his first (this season) over the line tournament.
I must admit that I watched almost the entire PGA tournament ...sort of. It was on about six hours a day and I just sort of zoned in and out of it ... maybe I subliminally picked up some golf skills (although to this date, I still have never lost to Phil Huffman). Great finish to the tourney ... say what you will about golf, but you have to admire performance under unbelievable pressure .... which I must say is becoming very important to me these days.
Thank you to everyone, who in some way or another has helped our family through lifting us up in prayer (I've lost track of how many prayer chains we are on throughout the country), or doing cameron's laundry, or watching the boys, or helping with the house/yard, etc. And thank you for all your incredible emails, upon which we have drawn much inspiration. I have to admit I feel a little bit like Tom Sawyer (or was it Huck Finn?) who faked his death to avoid Injun Joe's vengeance and listened in on the nice things that people said about him at his 'funeral'. Anyway, thanks.