Hard to believe . . .

. . . that it’s been almost three weeks since my previous post. Hopefully, you all have correctly interpreted my silence as an indication that my life is approximating some measure of normalcy (to the extent that is possible given the prevailing circumstances).

Round 3 of the chemo begins tomorrow (Thursday) and will conclude on Friday. Remember – this is no longer just a chimp fight – these are gorillas at war. And it really knocks me down for several days after the treatment – muscle soreness, headache, fatigue, and nausea. But we seem to be making some headway – more on that in a moment, but first some highlights and lowlights of the past three weeks.

1. Lance Armstrong and colleagues rode through my neighborhood as part of the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race. Although it was fun to see these world-class athletes in competition, watching a bike race in person is a bit like watching an apple fall from a tree. Extended periods of tedium both before and after the action, and the action itself is somehow underwhelming, uneventful, and over in the blink of an eye. But having said that, the afternoon was thoroughly enjoyable – go figure!

2. One morning about ten days ago I slipped my bare feet into a pair of Chinese shoes and began walking around the house. The toes on my right foot felt a little bunched up so I figured that either something had fallen into the shoe or that the interior was unraveling. I intentionally stubbed the toe of the shoe on the floor in an effort to clear some space for my toes, whereupon I felt a sharp pain in my big toe. It seemed as though a nail or tack had been driven into the skin (I didn’t know Chinese shoes were fabricated with such hardware). So I intentionally kicked the heel of the shoe against the floor to pull my toe away from the offending sharp pointed object. Much to my surprise, the pain worsened. So I took the shoe off, examined my foot, and discovered two red marks on the end of my big toe. I then looked in the shoe . . . and discovered a small mouse! A couple of light thwacks on the floor rendered him silly (I didn’t want to ruin the shoe by bludgeoning him to death in his Chinese condo), then transferred him to a paper bag where the distasteful but necessary deed was concluded. Great – now in addition to all the other health problems I am monitoring I have to add rabies and Hantavirus to the list! Fortunately, close inspection of my toe revealed that the skin wasn’t broken so I think the risk is nil. Nevertheless, the mouse carcass is in deep freeze in the garage fridge just in case a postmortem is required (on him, not me!).

3. A CT scan was performed last Thursday and compared with the prior scan conducted five weeks earlier (the day before the first chemo infusion). Up until this point, all scans had revealed tumor growth relative to preceding scans. Following are the comparative results in tumor sizes between this scan and the prior one:

Lungs: unchanged
Heart: unchanged
Cardiac effusion (heart fluid): unchanged
Pleural effusion (lung fluid): mildly decreased
Bowel: tumor unchanged; fluid decreased
Abdominal wall: unchanged

As previously stated, the lack of tumor growth over the past five weeks is unprecedented for me and is strongly suggestive that the sea squirt syrup has been effective. It's too early to see tumor shrinkage but hopefully that will occur at some point.

Off to see the wizard tomorrow – I don’t mind doing things that make me sick as long as they are good for me!