So 11 down, one to go for this cycle...
Its also Friday the 13th and I have some good news to share...

What a day, what a day. Beth and I got to the clinic early for Beth's one o'clock with Darin, the acupuncturist. And of course, it was a busy day so it took a while for a chair to open up in the lounge. As it turned out, a private room opened up first so I was in for a quiet day, good thing I brought in the reading materials. George was out today so Rebecca took the vitals. Blood pressure was 121/87, pulse was 81 bpm, weight 198 lbs, blood O2 was 98%. All looking good and stable. I got into my room where Jessica was waiting to jack me into the chemo matrix. I was actually glad to get a private room since we will be going over the results of last weeks PET scan. You can overhear discussions between patients and doctors in the group room so any bad news to one patient can be like a big bummer bomb going off with many casualties. Good news for one cancer patient adds hope to the others. Bad news, on the otherhand, shakes the foundations of everyone. You certainly feel pity and sympathy for that patient, but deep down, you begin asking yourself if this disease is beatable. Your best chances to beat it is not questioning if its beatable, but to believe that it can be and will be beat. To be fully educated about this disease and the treatments, you have to be exposed to the mortality rates and the difficulties of the treatments. So, your foundation takes a pounding from start to finish. It is hard at times to be convinced that you can win and this is where your community of support gives you that much needed lift. Having your loved ones around you telling you they are convinced you can do it carries you through. Take for instance me right now, the nausea is keeping me awake this morning and my body shakes from all that chemical infusion yesterday. To put it mildly, I feel like like this. I don't want to take the useless anti-nausea pills nor do I want to use marijuana at this time so getting onto this blog and getting you all updated helps get my mind off the troubles and more into telling you its all good. All of you already know how hard this is on people and that is why you have rallied around me sending me your love and energy. So I can come here and give you my positive and upbeat side that will feed both my positive energy and yours, and so that it will then get fed back to me, by you...giving me a double dose! So its all good.

My blood counts looked good again and Jessica got me started on the pre-meds and a bone fixing dose of zometa. Of course, shortly after the benadryl kicks in to put me to sleep, Dr. Chen comes in. So we got started talking about how I feel and I went over the nausea, bloody noses, and some headaches. He then gave me his exam and things were looking good. So he then pulled out the scan reports and went over them. As it turned out, my treatments have been showing positive progress. How it works is the PET scan quantifies the cancer metabolism and it assigns it a number in the "standardized uptake value" or SUV. From what I have researched, a value of less than 7.0 would be in the good zone, 7.1-10.0 would be in the caution zone and greater than 10.0 would be in the "oh shit" zone. I have also seen the caution zone go as low as 4.0. Anyway, most of my SUV numbers where cut in half since the last scan. Lymph nodes in my neck went down from 3.0 to 2.6, chest lymph nodes went down from 4.7 to 2.4, the cancer around the heart went down from 5.0 to 2.5, the size of the lymph nodes in the abdomen decreased and the SUV went down to 2.3 from 5.0, the cancer on my neck went down from 5.4 to 2.3, the cancer on my left shoulder blade went down from 6.2, no value was given on this report, but has shown some healing, and the cancer on my ribs and left hip are still present but showing less metabolic activity. I like seeing the progress around my heart and on my bones. The report also said the bones were healing in my neck and shoulder and there was still no signs of cancer in the spleen, pancreas, liver or kidneys. Dr. Chen wants me to followup with Dr. Sytman with this report and see where to go with the heart and also some fluid build up around my right lung. So Dr. Chen's says I am looking good and was pleased with the effectiveness of the treatments. But ahhh, was it the chemo, the diet, the hoxsey tonic, the herbs, the detoxing, the prayers and meditation, the pomengranate, a combination of one or all? Hah, we will never really know, but we will be continuing with them all for as long as it takes! Dr. Chen says I am handling the chemo remarkedly well and so after the completion of this cycle next week, I will take a week off and get started on round 2. I think the diet and detoxing is helping, but then again, the nausea and aches and pain from the chemo are really starting to take its toll. I told Dr. Chen that if necessary, I can endure getting started on round 2 without a week break. He wanted me to take the break.

So even though I have a lot of work still ahead of me, its nice seeing some progress with my healing process. There is debate whether or not SUV numbers are better for prognosing than actual tumor quantity and size. From the few sources I have read, the evidence is leading to the SUV numbers. If you can understand the system, you can see the progress and feel good about the numbers. When I got home last night, I begin researching more and more wanting to know the real value of these SUV numbers. Prior to cancer, SUVs where just large gas guzzlers and the only numbers I was concerned about was mpg/city and mpg/hiway and $$$! From what I read, I don't want numbers above 7.0, and since my highest value before treatment was 6.4 and all that was cut in half, I am feeling good. So I do understand the system (enough anyway) and therefore can play the game (timidly) without being confused. A smaller SUV number means a lower metabolic uptake of the surgar meaning less cancer cells metabolizing. So I will continue blasting away on these little varments until there is no metabolic activity seen!

Yeah, I feel pretty icky right now but I am also feeling good to see some progress. I prayed for just a little good news this week and I feel I have it, more than I was prepared to receive. As I said, I have a ways to go yet and things can always take a turn for the worst but getting this little bit of good news helps with the confidence and the motivation to continue forward. I thought if the news wasn't so good I would be fine with it and turn the healing process up a notch. Well, I still feel motivated to turn the healing process up a notch anyways. What more could I do? I got those new herbs from India Dr. Sodhi put me on that have shown good success in solid tumor breast cancer patients and I started them this week, I have been drinking a new revolutionary water that detoxs while hydrates, and I will lay ski's to the slopes beginning next week. I have a lot to live for so there is no time to waste...