I had a friend from Hawaii message me looking for an update and when I responded, he said, “Thank God, I was worried for a minute there.”
I understand that. No news isn’t always good news, so here’s some news. When Ann Sophie, Will and I first arrived in Minnesota and got going with the Mayo thing, we had appointments almost every weekday, and usually a few. I was at the clinic Monday thru Friday and worried if I would need them when they were closed over the weekend. If it was outside office hours, I’d go to the ER.
These days, the appointments are much less, the next one a scan on Sept.21. But it’s a big one. When you are in chemotherapy, you might feel better and hope things are going better on your insides, but you really can’t be sure until someone looks in there and tells you for sure. This CT scan is where we find out how the meds have been working. If you remember, I’m taking a couple chemo pills that are hopefully reducing and eventually eliminating the Cancer that almost killed me a short while ago. They are part of a “targeted therapy” taking the place of the standard chemo I started out with. If this works like we are hoping and praying for, I could at some point be cancer free!
Sept.21 is when we find out just exactly how it’s been going.
As for me, I am doing much better symptom-wise. The swelling in my legs, feet, stomach, and back has all but disappeared which is awesome for me. The fluid drain I had in both lungs has decreased significantly. The right one stopped flowing completely and was removed. The left one still produces about 150ml each night. But that’s way less than before when it was at 750ml.

One of the ways you tell how well treatment is working is to look at the symptoms. Less fluid means less reaction to Cancer, so we hope for the best. The only unknown is steady pain in my neck. This appeared about a month ago and we have not been able to get a hold of it or find out a reason for it. The docs have theories that it could be Cancer in my spine, which from an MRI scan 2 weeks ago, is still present-no bigger, no smaller. Is the pain coming from this? If so, they’ll do radiation treatment. I really would rather not have this and hope that’s not the case, but it’s possible. To me, it feels more like a sore neck you slept on wrong.
Ever since this ordeal started, I’ve been taking a medicine cabinet full of drugs, so these could be reacting to each other or maybe a side effect from one or more of them. Ibuprofen helps with the pain and morphine doesn’t, interestingly enough. We hope for good news on the 21st! Anyway, that’s it for now. Thank you for your prayers and support.