Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year, all! Sorry I've not been posting of late -- keeping busy hanging out with the family and such over the holidays. But I'm back in Knoxville, as of just before January 1, and look forward to getting back on some sort of regular routine with the blog.

For starters, with yesterday's most recent treatment, I'll provide the first health update of the new year. Heading into the treatment, I suppose I'd been feeling alright. Seems the second week of the three week cycle is the best -- my pain is at it's least, and my energy and activity level at its greatest. Then the third week, leading into the next treatment, my pain starts increasing again, my energy starts waning...as if the tumors are recovering and resuming some growth at the end of the cycle. This would seem to emphasize to me the need to stay right on top of my regular cycle -- delays, like the last one, due to the low platelet counts, can be bad at this stage.

The good news is that there was no need for a delay with this treatment. In fact, nearly all of my blood chemistry markers were good -- my platelets were not only in a "treatable" range, but had even increased since my last treatment. My red cell counts had also stabilized in a good range after the transfusion I received at the last treatment. Blood chemicals which indicate kidney and liver activity also were moving in directions showing that these organs were in good shape. All of which are good signs...none conclusive, but positive signs none-the-less.

A more conclusive test of where things are will come with my next CT scan, scheduled for 2 weeks from now. Though I suppose it won't be so conclusive as we might like. My last CT scan came way back in October, after which time we went a month with no chemo, treating with radiation only those 2 tumors in my pelvis. So what will this CT scan show? If everything is smaller, that will indicate that this chemo is working, and we're in great shape. If some are bigger, or nearly the same size...we can't really conclude anything till the next CT scan. The growth could easily have occurred during that "down time" before resuming chemo in late November. In all likelihood, we will continue this treatment after the scan, so long as I feel that it is working, and that my pain is under control.

More posts to come. This weekend, for those interested, I will FINALLY begin posting thoughts on B XVI's latest, Spe Salvi come the end of this weekend.