Twenty-six

Yeah so it's been a while since I've posted. There just isn't much going on.

I'm still on the chemo Gemzar. The cancer appears to be growing, but very slowly, so the drugs are helping at the moment. It's playing hell with my blood counts tho and I have to drink a ton of fluids to keep my blood pressure up. Unfortunately, they told me beer and whisky do not count as fluids in this case.

Wound care continues as before. The docs and nurses at the wound clinic think it won't close up/heal over while the tumor is there behind putting pressure on it. I saw another surgeon for a second opinion but no dice. The tumor is down into muscle so it's inoperable, and removing some of the tumor or some of the tissue isn't good because the body will know something's been removed and will step up efforts to regrow things there - I'd have a bigger mess than I do now.

The trip to Florida was great. We didn't see the shuttle launch, but the space center is amazing. We also spent a couple of days at Disneyworld. Sandra says she doesn't have to excercise for the rest of the year now - she got quite a workout pushing me around the parks in my wheelchair so I could save my energy for the fun stuff.

My sister's baby is a boy! He'll arrive sometime in July. I got to go to the ultrasound with her and her husband and it was very cool. He's big and healthy and developing right on track. He kept clutching and burying his head in the placenta during the ultrasound, just like a shy little kid might do with a blanket - it was cute.

Cheers

Twenty-five

Well, good thing I wasn't thinking about it and getting excited - NASA put the launch off for at least a week while they check a fuel valve. We're still going to Florida next week though. It'll be good to get away, even if things won't work out the way I'd hoped. We'll probably do a day tour of the Kennedy Space Center, and use the extra couple days we'd planned on for delays to see Disneyworld.

Cheers

Twenty-four

Today is my anniversary. I was diagnosed 4 years ago when I was having a lot of pain and I went in for surgery for the doc to remove what he thought would be a large ovarian cyst. It turned out the ovary was a 14cm tumor and it's been treatment and cancer, cancer and treatment ever since.

Four years is a long time. It's kind of a bitter-sweet anniversary. I've had 4 more years than if the tumor had just exploded and killed me in the first place, but it's also been 4 years of cancer and all the treatment and pain and loss of function that's gone along with it. Can't say I'm regretting the 4 extra years though.

I'm still going to Florida next week to see the launch. I try not to think about it - I get too excited. It looks like it'll be the last shuttle launch for a while - they'll probably make massive budget cuts to the space program to try and help with the recession.

Cheers

P.S. Happy Birthday to my little bro Tommy!