The word for the day is "setback"

Cheryl's still in the hospital for now. They were having problems reinstalling a catheter into her port (third time was the charm, ow), and the latest blood cultures have shown she's got another bug in her system, which might explain why her temperature spiked to 102 yesterday. They're worried that the port might be the source of the infection, in which case it'd have to come out and a pick-line would need to be installed in her upper arm, and six weeks later it'd be surgery again to install a new port.

Bother. Let's hope the port isn't the source of these recurring infections, but right, all signs point to it being the culprit.

Cheryl's oncologist is suggesting, in an attempt to shrink the nasty tumors that are making eating anything beyond applesauce an impossibility, that she undergo radiation therapy for a week or so to see if that at least mildly improved things. When or if this will happen, we don't know yet. When she will return to Portland for another blast of biotherapy, or if she's even able to get more of it, we don't know yet.

Sigh. No wonder my doctor's got me on antidepressants now. Hooray mood elevators! Sadly, Prozac also affects my liver so it's forcing me to cut back on the happy juice. Drinking twice as much for the same buzz and getting double the hangover takes a lot of the joy out of Triple Martini Night.

On the reasonably bright side, we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of Cheryl's initial cancer diagnosis, and most people diagnosed with metastatic melanoma don't make it to a year since it is a very aggressive cancer, and while her stomach is riddled with nasty tumors, they don't seem to have metastasized heavily beyond her tummy and upper GI tract. So, while I doubt we will celebrate this anniversary with soda and pie, it's at least one tidbit of good news. We'll take what we can get in these parts.

Late Breaking Update: Turns out Cheryl has, in her words, a "rare and unique" bug, so she's being transferred back to Providence, and, fairly conveniently, her folks are coming tomorrow for a visit (note to self: finish cleaning the pigsty that is our apartment), and they can ferry her to Providence, where, hopefully, they'll get her back up to speed and give her another blast of biotherapy. And hopefully not keep her there for another two weeks.