Update

It is time to give an update straight from the P. E. area. Every cycle of my chemotherapy lasts four weeks. Monday was three weeks so I had a bone marrow biopsy to check my progress.

When I started the chemo I had these bad cells in my marrow measured at 21%. The bad guys are called "blasts" and they are red cells produced by the cancer that are larger than regular red cells, and they live longer. They crowd out the good cells so I end up with not enough blood. The goal of the first four-week cycle is to get the blasts measure down to 5% or lower. This state is called "remission." At this level of measurement my good stem cells can produce enough good blood that I can be out of the protective environment. From the biopsy Monday the blasts are down to 9%. There seems to be some hope that the blast measure will continue to decline this week. So I do not have a definitive report to give you. I will have another biopsy this coming Monday and it will determine what will happen next. I am unwilling to speculate what that will be.

The best case is that the blasts go down and I enter the "continuing" phases of my treatment. The goal of these phases is to continue to attack the cancer, but with doses of chemo that do not take my body so far down to need the P. E. So I ask you to pray that my blasts will be down low enough.

One perplexing aspect of this ordeal is that my body is supposed to start increasing my blood counts. This is not happening yet, but the doctors do not seem to be concerned. So pray that I can remain patient. The good news is that I am suffering almost no side effects. I have had no fever since Saturday night, and I am sleeping much better. In fact, they are taking me off of some of the antibiotics because I have had no fever for a while. I am slowly losing the excess fluid that has accumulated in my body. I have no appetite, but I am able to force myself to eat so that I can remain healthy. I am trying to exercise my legs and lungs, but it is difficult because I am so weak. Nevertheless, God is good.

And the USA just beat the best soccer team in the world (Spain) 2-0. What a great game.

What Cancer Cannot Do

The following is in a pamphlet from the Chaplaincy and Pastoral Education ministry of M. D. Anderson Hospital. It has probably been distributed widely, but I had not seen it, and it meant a great deal to me. So I am sharing it with you.

Cancer is so limited . . .

it cannot cripple Love.
it cannot shatter Hope.
it cannot corrode Faith.
it cannot destroy Peace.
it cannot kill Friendship.
it cannot suppress Memories.
it cannot silence Courage.
it cannot invade the Soul.
it cannot steal Eternal Life.
it cannot conquer the Spirit.

Cancer is so limited!

Golf Gods

Through the years my golfing buddies and I have learned an important lesson. Let's say that we have been working on our game pretty hard and we go to the course to try it out. It sometimes starts out to be one of those magic days -- the ball goes where we plan for it to go, our putts are on the line we try to hit, we can consistently hit the ball instead of topping, hitting fat, etc. It is at this time one is tempted to say, "I think I have finally figured this game out." The lesson we have learned is to NEVER say that, because the instant you do, the golf gods take it personally and set about to prove to you just how idiotically wrong you are. The rest of the round is usually no fun at all.

As we all know, golf reflects life itself, so one should apply this principle in life as well. Sunday, I violated it. I declared that I had turned the corner with respect to my roller coaster fever. I was seriously expecting to feel good from now on. So of course it turned and bit me. I am still on the roller coaster. But the good news is that the high temps are lower than they used to be, and the peaks seem to be gradually decreasing. Mind you, I am NOT saying that they will continue that way (hear that, fever gods?) but it seems to be a trend.

I am getting a full bank of antibiotics, and a serious anti fungal medication, and likely will continue to do so until my body recovers enough to take over. My counts have not started to rebound yet, and the nurses assure me that it takes time. So please pray that the anti-stuff works, and that I can be patient.

Looking forward to getting to watch a lot of the US Open starting Thursday.

Roller Coaster

Starting Tuesday, I have been on a roller coaster ride with my temperature. This is caused by infections of some type or types somewhere or somewheres in my body. We have been running through various different antibiotics with not much success. One of the roller coaster days (they run together for me without much distinction) I was given a C T Scan. They looked at my lungs and my sinuses. My sinuses have been outputting tremendous amounts of phlegm. Gross, and it makes my head and face hurt.

The scan showed a possible fungus infection in a lung, but no problems with the sinuses. They have started me on a strong anti fungal medicine, which can have some revolting side effects. But, God be praised, I do not seem to be suffering them. Then this morning, the doctor said that there was a possible second infection site in the lungs which, I think, is bacterial. So I am getting a steady supply of antibiotics, and I will continue to get these until my body had recovered enough to protect itself. It is amazing how much more efficient God's healing methods are than man's.

Therefore a prayer request is that my body will start rebounding quickly and take over the fight against the infections. Clearly I am feeling better because I have felt like doing two posts today. God be praised.

Day 10, 3 Days Late.

Day 10 is significant because it is my last day of chemotherapy in the "start-up" cycle of treatment in the clinical trial. Each treatment cycle lasts 28 days, so I now have 18 days to "recover" before the next cycle. What I receive in the next cycle will not be known until near the end of the first cycle, because it depends on how my body is reacting to the first doses. One possibility is that I will have to repeat the same procedure as the first time. Pray that is not the case. The other possibility is that I will enter a regimen of 17 "continuing" cycles as prescribed by the clinical trial. Of course, they may have to take me out of the trial at any time because things are not working as they should. Pray that that does not happen.

There is my future, as far as we can see. I should mention that I should not have to be hospitalized much during the "continuing" cycles. In fact, a lot of that may be able to be done in Abilene. We shall see.

God is good.

From now on, do not count on daily posts. I will post when I have enough information to be worth reading about. Please keep praying.

Day 9

We are having trouble conquering my fevers. Last night about midnight I could tell my temperature was climbing. It reached 102 degrees. Another call to the doctor, warm blankets, ice packs, and medicines finally brought it down to where I could sleep. Then this morning I awoke about 7:30 and felt great. I ordered breakfast, ate it, answered e-mail, etc.

The doctor came much earlier today and caught me with my pants down. Be was rubbing creme on my rash and my pajamas were down at my feet. No one batted an eye -- Be subtly pulled a sheet over my lower half. The Doctor is perplexed about my continuing fevers. My lungs are clear -- no pneumonia, my urine shows nothing,
and my blood work shows nothing. I do have pressure in my sinuses and my head drains a lot. So they took a swab there today and will run a test on it. They have also started me on a second type of antibiotic. The drainage from my sinus has left me with laryngitis. Bummer! You know how I love to talk.

My temperature started up again about noon, but they got it under enough control that I did not feel too bad, just listless. So now we are praying specifically that we can find and defeat the infection somewhere in my body. One of the nurses pointed out that when you have no defense against infection, it is difficult to find where it is located.

My temperature is up a little tonight, but I hope I can sleep it off. In any case, God is good.

Day 8

Late in the day yesterday my temperature started to rise and I started feeling droopy. I went to bed at 10:00 pm and immediately fell asleep. About 11:45 I got up to use the bathroom and during that process, I got a tremendous case of the shivers. The nurse came in about that time and noticed it. She took my temperature and it was high enough that she was required to call the doctor. They started giving me drugs to stop the shivering and to lower my temperature and I slept until 7:30 am. Of course, there were brief times where I had my vital signs taken, had some of my blood taken, and so forth.

About 8:00 this morning, they started me on an infusion antibiotic but I was still feverish and feeling really lousy as well as still sleepy. When Be came I just lay in bed and hardly moved. We battled this condition all morning and into the afternoon. About 3:00 pm I suddenly felt hungry. So I ordered some lunch, ate it, and have been feeling a lot better since. I even did 12 minutes on the "exercise bike." Tonight at 8:30 I had a supper of a hamburger and onion rings. Oh, I was given another bag of red blood cells today. I am anticipating a much better day tomorrow.

Here are the promised photos: Me on my bike and Be in her cap and gown.