Well, now I know why Tim the Housesitter didn't see Pearl while he was here: she'd gotten stuck in a closet for five days! Aside from being very thirsty, she seems none the worse for wear; when left alone, she truly does hibernate. Apparently, she decided to have her revenge by meowing loudly at me last night, every hour, on the hour, which certainly beats the dreaded Kitty Surprise, if'n you know what I mean.
I'd like to think that maybe she's learned her lesson and won't climb into closets anymore, but both Cheryl and I know that our cats really aren't very bright.
The drive home wasn't too bad - I ended up taking the slightly longer route through Lewiston to try to avoid a massive thunderstorm to the north, which I managed to do for the most part. The air was thick with ozone and the smells of rain and freshly-cut wheat, which combined with the pyrotechnics to the north, actually made for an enjoyable trip.
Friday morning, I happened to bump into Chris Fountain, the nurse who's in charge of coordinating all the various clinical trials at Providence, and got to pick his brain for a bit. Right now, the plan is for he and Dr. Crocenzi to get a CAT scan after the radiation therapy and see what, if anything, has changed, and if Cheryl's still good to go on ipilumimab therapy - even though the study is fairly liberal, she may not be eligible to continue with it (although, it's worth noting, "ipi" is close to FDA approval, which would open it up to everyone). Chris did mention that they're another couple of trials opening up soon, so we do have a Plan E should the current therapy crap out. He also mentioned that, simply to improve her quality of life, surgery to remove the tumor-riddled portions of her gastrointestinal tract is not unthinkable, but major surgery like that is very risky and would most likely be a last resort.
Also, according to Chris, what he has seen with stomach tumors and radiation therapy is that, occasionally, a lot of the tumor tissue will be killed and end up being...well...barfed up. And it looks like meatloaf.
Say it with me: ewwww! And Cheryl doesn't even like meatloaf.
At present, Cheryl is kind of riding the roller coaster of nausea and stomach cramps, but she's usually getting plenty of dilaudid and other Happy Fun Drugs that keep her feeling okay, but pretty sleepy. She's only got two more treatments to go, and if all goes well, we'll have her back home by the end of next week, and she can sit on the couch and watch the Olympics to her heart's content.
Saw The Dark Knight on an IMAX screen down in Tigard (and, guys, if we're paying $13 for a movie, I think you can spare a little Windex and clean the damn lenses! It's very annoying to have these giant black spots on the screen because the projector is dirty).
That aside, I really liked the film, although I'm reluctant to call it The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. Worth the price of admission, definitely, and Heath Ledger's performance truly was all that and a bag of chips.
Dave
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