First, again I thank each and every one of you for your prayers and thoughts as I go through this medical adventure. Your prayers and thoughts are the solid floor of confidence on which I tread every day and I am convinced it?s your active participation in this situation that has made cancer just part of my life, not my life itself. I am humbled by it all.
Had a CT scan done last Friday, complete with iodine, and met with Dr. Shlaer this morning. All the tumors have shrunk, some significantly and some substantially. However, the retreat of the tumors is not yet far enough along for Dr. Shlaer to feel comfortable taking the left kidney out. Therefore, I will remain on chemo for six more weeks, with a little higher dosage of the actual cancer fighters. He feels this additional chemo will shrink the tumors even further and then he will have the kidney removed.
How do I feel? Tell you truth, I feel great. What was making sick in the
first place was some kind of bleeding stomach lesion (could have been an ulcer, could be part of the cancer). The stomach lesion was caused my hemoglobin to crash (less than 8 on a 12 point scale). Between the chemo and other medicines, we seem to have that one under control as my hemoglobin is now above 12, platelets are high, white blood cells more than adequate and I've gained more than 10 pounds since all this started.
My only side affects are that (A) the nausea medicine gives me some minor jitters and (B) I get a little tired by the end of the week, but less and less so as time goes by. I miss very little time at work and have been traveling again (out to Montana last week for ground squirrels and fly fishing with an advertiser). All things considered I am doing just fine, especially with the knowledge that the cancer is responding well to the chemo.
Again, thank you for interest. This wellness group grows longer and as of today officially goes around the world. Like I said, all this is pretty humbling. Foster's Adventure in Cancer continues. The Big C has not yet been whipped, but it will be. And remember, cancer is only a part of my life. I will not allow it become my life. I have a family to love, business to run, stories to write, fish to catch and dogs to sit with on the back porch. No way I can allow cancer to interfere with all that. No way at all.
Dave
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