Battling Back

It's been a while since I lead off with a quote, but here's a good one.

"It does appear that his disease has completely resolved with the concurrent radiation and cisplatin followed by adjuvant 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin."

- Dr. Lorraine Dougherty, notes from medical chart for David Cole

Mind you, i still have an all important PET/CT scan in April and there's still a risk of recurrence for the first 2-5 years, but it's nice to see this.

I'm feeling surprisingly well here at 2 weeks post-chemo #6 and it's been a pleasant surprise. Nothing like the last two rounds. Thank God, and all of you for your thoughts and prayers. I still have wicked dry mouth and terrible mucous in my throat that keeps me from being able to talk much at all, and food is still all liquid through tube. Still, at this point, I'm not barfing constantly or being rushed to the ER. I consider that a very good thing.

This is a big week for me.

I had bloodwork done today at Doylestown, my last visit there until they take out my PICC line, which should be soon. My blood cell counts were low, so I'm really prone to infection right now. This means no going anywhere or being around people. Knowing how social I am, you'd realize how much of a hell that is for me. But I keep in contact with email and stuff. Hopefully in a week or two my counts will be healthy enough to reintroduce me to society. By then maybe I'll be able to talk again easier.

Tomorrow I go back down to Penn to meet with my medical oncologist Dr. Sherman. I haven't seen him since November/December. I'm interested to hear what he's got to say about my chemo results and plan of action for the future. I know he'll want me to put on more weight. I'm at 170 now. Ideally, I'd like to get back to 190. What's funny is that after I can eat again and life returns to normal, it'll be hard for me to keep from getting fat.

Wednesday I have a dentist appointment. I'm worried the dry mouth is having an effect on my teeth. Typically patients get lots of cavities and I fear this could happen. I've tried to do a good job of brushing, etc. but dry mouth is just hell on teeth.

So, like I said, busy week.