Friday, June 28, 2013

50%...

is the reduction in the tumor and 2 of the 3 lymph nodes; the 3rd showed no change. The doctor was delighted and said that this is "proof of concept" and said we'll do 6 more rounds of Alimta, then another PET scan to see where things are at. (That scan will show what is still actively cancerous.)

The report also said the fibrosis is unchanged, which doesn't help explain my increased oxygen consumption, but perhaps the cold I've been fighting this week might. Dottie fought it for 3 weeks before it finally got the better of her and she was dizzy when she tried to get up on Monday. I started coughing stuff up that night. We're both on antibiotics and hoping this clears quickly! Pulmonologist appointment on the 10th, so we'll see how she reads that CT, and what the function test she's ordered for that morning shows.

Got a lovely text photo from my son yesterday-seems my grandson hit the cast iron sewer clean out with the lawnmower, and besides possibly totaling the lawn mower, cut the top off the steel cap and knocked half the threading from the pipe as well. I offered up my SawzAll and some blades so he could cut it off, sleeve it and replace it with plastic; sure glad it wasn't mine! (Added one here several years ago and made sure it was flush with the ground as I could see that coming!)

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and that life is kind to each of you!

alan


Friday, June 21, 2013

I had my morning IV...

radioactive of course, and a CT scan for a chaser. Follow up with the oncologist is Monday...

I hadn't planned to go quite so long between updates, but there were some complications following my 6th round of chemo, most of which have resolved, but whatever the bug was that got ahold of me, my lung capacity is down some; I'll know more after the 10th of next month. Until then I'm doing my best to keep on keepin' on!

Dottie is at the Humane Society now with a kitten that adopted the vacant house next door when it was abandoned. After having it hang around over there and around our driveway a few days, we got a good enough look at it to see it most likely has mange and has been mauled by someone's dog as well. No way we can take it in with Bill's two cats boarding here, or afford the "save" it, so the Humane Society was the only option. On the phone they said they couldn't take it in right now, but if she would bring it in they would look at it...Dottie went out at 2AM this morning to chase away a dog that had cornered it by our house and it was just sitting there meowing, so she's not happy about having to bring it back home and leave it outside.

Tuesday I'm hoping to feel up to visiting the Airline Museum at the old downtown airport-they have a Lockheed Constellation they've restored to TWA colors and flying status. Later this summer they plan to re-create Howard Hughes original coast-to-coast record breaking flight from 1944. It took that record from 14 down to 7 hours!

We're also beginning to plan another Vermont trip as we've been invited to our niece's wedding. I'm compiling lists of bookstores and places I'd like to see, and perhaps, for the first time ever, we'll stop at Niagara Falls after driving past it for 35 years. If I can time it right, "Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome" is a bit south of Albany, New York and if I can get there on a weekend, they fly WWI vintage aircraft or replicas every weekend in the summer, and on a calm day they even break out a 1910 Bleriot monoplane! I actually saw it on TV some years ago when they let Neil Armstrong fly it on a PBS series "First Flights" he had several years ago. (I also watched him bring that Constellation I spoke of into our downtown airport over the I-70 viaduct that lies just off the end of the runway and explain it was the steepest approach he'd ever seen, and was why with the advent of the jet age the airport had to move to its current location at KCI.)

I finished "All Quiet on the Western Front" and wish I'd managed to check out the sequel when I got it, as it's out of print and I'd really like to read it now. Instead I'm reading some Irene Nemirovsky short stories...

May life be kind to each of you!

alan