The Pre-Xmas Update

Ho ho ho! (Not just what Santa said to the three hookers). Greetings from downtown Corvallis, home of your future Emerald Bowl Champion Oregon State Beavers (and a big no-thanks to those schmucks at Boise State for screwing up all my bowl projections). I'm currently typing from a downtown Starbucks, being as they have Wi-Fi and Cheryl folks, well, don't. Updating this blog on a 28.8 modem is just a bit too slow for those of us who are members of the ADD generation.

Anywho, Cheryl is feeling fairly fine and dandy. She was only able to make it through 10 doses this time around, but isn't suffering too much from the bugaboo of side effects. Aside from a little nausea, some skin flaking on her face and a whole lot of fatigue, she's doing okay. We were able to escape the hospital fairly early Saturday afternoon, and have since been crashing at Casa Harper until the 26th, at which time we'll head for my folks in central Oregon, then home to Moscow on the 31st if all goes according to plan.

Other than that, no news to report. Thanks for everyone who stopped by to say hello in the hospital, and big thanks to Maren for putting me up and putting up with me for a couple of days. I've been told Santa is going to be very good to me, which is only fair, considering how much I've had to deal with this year :)

Today's news of note (not much, really)

Another quiet day here at the hospital. Cheryl's tired, a bit bloated and nauseous but is doing fairly well. She will skip dose #10 due to a CO2 imbalance of sorts, but seems to be on course for about 12 doses, as predicted. And, as an added plus, we finally got her moved to a private room, so we can all stretch our collective feet, as it were.

Not too much to report at this time. Cheryl will probably be dozing the rest of the day, since she didn't get too much rest last night due to her suitemate's hacking cough all last night.

One of the nurses came by to pass along the news that another IL-2 patient of theirs had stopped by to say hello, and he was in full remission since finishing treatment. So that's good.

*Yawn*

Sweet merciful God, I'm tired. Not much sleep last night plus a long drive to PDX have me very worn out. You have no idea how truly sick I am of the many long drives we've been having to take since we moved to the Palouse. Wherever we move next, it's either going to be much closer to family, or waaaay too far away to drive.

Anywho, thanks to all for stopping by today. Cheryl's doing pretty good, a perfect 7-7 on IL-2 doses, and not suffering from side effects too badly; itchy, a bit nauseous, but she's lucid and the blood pressure's stabilized around 95/60.

I'm going to catch a bit of the Blazer game on TV then head over to our friend Maren's place to crash, which I imagine I will do for around 10 or so hours, then resume the vigil here at Providence tomorrow. Yeah, I'm too tired for any pithy comments tonight.

Dave

The weather outside is frightful

It's just barely warm enough to rain here in Moscow, to which I say, bah phooey. Give me snow any day of the week (being as I am one of the 10 Finest Snow Drivers in the Free World, snow gives me no problems whatsover).

I'm currently packing clothes and trying to clean this joint up for the kittie caretakers while we're both absent during the break. When last I checked with the missus, she was a little loopy on Dilotid (sp?) to keep the nausea at bay while the IL-2 did its stuff. The side effects pretty much came on quickly, so I've revised the over/under on max doses from 12 to 11. I could be wrong. This has been a horrible football handicapping year for me.

I'll be down in Portland this time Wednesday, so anyone needing to get a hold of me can use the trusty cell option.

I'm off to Portland!

Just thought I'd post a quick blog entry. I'll be heading to Portland tomorrow in anticipation (!) of the next cycle of IL-2. Dave will be meeting me mid-week, so I'm flying out of Lewiston tomorrow morning and meeting the Parents in Portland.

Most of the blog entries next week will come from Dave. Unfortunately, my computer is having problems with the internet, so I won't be able to respond to emails. Think happy positive thoughts cuz this is the next step to get me healthy!

Again, I'd love to see anyone who's willing to show up at the hospital. Give me a call on my cell phone, and I'll pass on the room number.

Cheryl

News! News!! News!!!

So we had a checkup in Portland yesterday to go over the CT scan and blood tests from last week. Dave and I had each come up with best/worst case scenarios in our heads (not shared), and went in to the appointment nervous as hell. I was hoping that we would have no change, and no new tumors. Dave was hoping for decrease in size of tumors. Regardless, we agreed to go waste money after the appointment at the Spirit Mtn Casino to take our minds off of whatever the current prognosis was. The blinky lights are hypnotizing.

Our doctor, Dr. Todd Crocenzi, is a quiet, soft-spoken man who shows little emotion. He started the appointment just checking on how I was feeling then got to some of the basics he gleaned from my latest round of tests.

1. I am slightly anemic and have slightly elevated white blood cell count, likely as lingering side effects from the IL-2 treatment 5 weeks ago.

2. The CT scan and PET/CT scans are somewhat hard to compare, however,

He could not see any nodule or tumor in the area in my lower abdomen which was thought to be a lymph node

Soooo, did he just say what I thought he said???

He could not see the nodules in my stomach lining seen in the PET scan in August.

Is this good news? Is the doctor smiling? Oh, my, he's smiling a little bit. What this all means is that it appears that the IL-2 treatment is having some affect on my tumors. I'm not out of the woods. This is not The Cure. I'm still having stomach problems, and there are likely lesions still in my stomach lining, but they are not visible in the CT scan. Dr. Crocenzi asked, "So, do you feel up to another cycle of IL-2?" I believe my response was, "Hell yeah!" So, I go back to the hospital the week of Dec 17-22 (Cycle 3), and again Jan 7-13 (Cycle 4). I'll feel a little sick on Christmas, but I think its gonna be worth it. Four weeks after Cycle 4, we will do a PET/CT scan and have the surgeon who did the original endoscopy and found my cancer do another one to compare the results to what Dr. Stiller saw in August. If things continue to go as they are going, we may not need another series of treatments after January. Oh boy.

I waited until we left the Oregon Clinic office to cry. I made it to the car, actually. Dave and I hugged and cried in the car (well, actually, we hugged and kissed outside the doctor's office first), and kept saying, in stunned voices, "I never expected this good a' news!" We are both fully aware that this is not the end, and we have a lot to go through still before I'm healthy, but as this is the first concrete good news we've had, both of us are flying high right now.

We went to the casino. I lost my shirt. Guess I already had my good luck for the year. Maybe we should plan that trip to Vegas for next year.

BCS Follies and other news

As Foghorn Leghorn would say, "now wait just a cotton pickin' minute": How is it that the Beavers can defeat Oregon in the Civil War (in a surprisingly entertaining game, as well), finish above said Ducks in the Pac-10, but still end up going to the crappier bowl game?

Just another reason to abolish the abomination that is the BCS and institute a playoff system, if you ask me. However, it sounds more like the Beavers won by losing, because if you've ever been to El Paso...well, let's just say, Excitement Capital of the World, it is not. When the most exciting thing to do is visit the shantytown of Cuidad Juarez...

Yeah. The Emerald Bowl may not have quite the, ahem, "prestige" or "tradition" that the Sun Bowl has, but it's not in the armpit of America, either.

If you think I'm joking, go down to El Paso sometime.

Anywho, I had a grand old time watching the Civil War game (in HD, bless ESPN), as the Beavers backup QB and backup RBs ended up proving victorious over the Ducks 5th string QB, 3rd string RB and soon-to-be-canned special teams coach, who cost the lightning-yellow and thunder-green a chance at victory. Cheryl was greatly disappointed, so I kept the hooting, hollering and incessant displays of the Beaver Victory Dance to a bare minimum.

We're gearing up for our visit to Portland, where we hope the doctor will say that, yes, the IL-2 treatment is working (yay!)...which means another 12 go-rounds of IL-2 over the next several months (blegh). At least we know there's a few other treatments available should the news be less than stellar, however, since the oncology nurses had good news during the last set of treatments, we're going in feeling guardedly optimistic.

Still, if'n you have some spare mojo to send, we'll take all we can get.

Now I just have to finish up Xmas shopping before the Amazon.com cutoff for free shipping. If anyone on our shopping list has ideas for what they'd like, let us know, 'cause we're really stymied right now.

Dave