Thanksgiving Recap

To say I have things to be thankful for is a far understatement.  So much has happened this past year and first and foremost I am thankful to be alive and well in this beautiful world among such great company.

I am thankful for the support of my family and friends.  I am thankful for all the letters and emails and little gifts that have brought smiles along the way.  I am thankful for everyone who has had the opportunity to stay at Hotel d'Guyer and everyone who has been with my family through the good times and bad.

I am thankful for modern medicine, without which I surely wouldn't be here today.  I am thankful for everyone's generosity who has donated to my cause helping to fund these amazing new clinical drug trials like the one I'm on now.  I am thankful for Yondelis my little sea squirt friend from the west indies that is actively killing my tumors.  I'm thankful for my team of doctors and nurses who take care of me and endlessly work at finding better treatments for this disease.

And mostly I'm thankful for my Autumn.  She is my pillar of life and hope.  She keeps me going on a daily basis, bringing me up when I'm down and making me laugh and smile for no reason at all.  I am so thankful to have her by my side!

Some Encouraging News

Excerpts taken from the final radiology reports of last week's scans:

Chest CT: Stable left upper lobe nodule, consistent with known treated metastatic disease. Other small peripheral branching nodules are no longer seen, and may represent treated metastasis.

Cervical Spine MRI: There are minimal changes compared to prior study.

Lumbar Spine / Sacrum MRI: Redemonstrated is a pathologic compression fracture of the L5 vertebral body with epidural soft tissue tumor extension that is still present, but decreased in size when compared to the prior examination. No new pathologic fracture is identified in the lumbar spine or sacrum. No new metastatic lesions are identified within the lumbar spine.

Left Lower Leg MRI: The mass demonstrates decreased size compared to prior study, now measuring 13.1 cm compared to 14.7 cm in longitudinal dimension, and 5.6 cm compared to 7 cm in axial dimension.

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The nature of the quantitative data from the left lower leg MRI allowed me to crunch some numbers:

• Longitudinally there was an 11% decrease in length.
• Axially there was a 20% decrease in diameter.
• If we put these two dimensions together and assume a cylindrical shape (πR² x H), then we can calculate a 43% decrease in the primary tumor volume!!!

This last value was so high that I had to go back to my engineering books and make sure my percent decrease formula was correct!

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The oncologist we saw today was extremely pleased with the results telling us that he had never seen such a positive response after only two rounds of Yondelis. We'll take it!

And I started my treatment today! My liver functions were the lowest they've been since I started this new clinical trial, dropping into the double digits :)

The End of the Chemo Brazilian

And just like that my hair grows back, soft as a rabbit's foot! For a touch, please make a reservation at Hotel de Guyer. We've added a new aerobed to our accommodations.

This was pretty funny: Last weekend Autumn and I completed our monthly crusade to Costco and the guy checking us out was hassling me about using a friend's membership card. "No really that's me!" I said and he replied, "The member on the card should always be present at checkout." I guess the shaved head, glasses and full beard threw him off!

Lately I've been feeling pretty good. I've had a great two weeks of work / normal life and next week I start another infusion (round 3 of Yondelis for those keeping count). This coming weekend starting yesterday is the annual CTOS (Connective Tissue Oncology Society) Meeting in Paris, the largest annual "sarcoma specific" meeting and my hopes are that something great will come out of the combined brainpower of the world's sarcoma experts!

Until then I've been consuming a lot of my free time researching new cancer treatment methods, cancer prevention diets and holistic lifestyle guides. It's an interesting obsession but exchanging red meat for fruit and grains, cutting out my nightly pint of ice cream and reducing the intake of chemical preservatives can't be bad for you.

Yesterday was a long "Day-o-Scans." Five hours of CT and MRI Scans after which all I got to take home was a lousy chemical aftertaste from the contrast. I swear there's no reason to have all those scans every 6 weeks. I scheduled a meeting with a radiologist on Monday to devise a better CT/MRI follow up plan.