Where to start????

Well it has been an eventful couple of weeks since the last time I wrote. Hence the title where to start? Well I will go in sequence.


One: I visited Dana Farber on the Friday, December 5th. It was a very good meeting. There are several ideas they have for me. They are going to analyze my tumors from my liver surgery to see if there are two growth hormones they can block. The concept is if they can block these growth hormones they block the growth of the tumor cells. If this works there is one clinical trial available and a drug that is already on the market. They also have 2 or 3 clinical trials that they may be able to get me in. For the trial they are thinking of doing first, I would have to travel to Boston at least two to three times a week. The other thing they suggested was doing radiation to the new tumors on my lower spine that were posing a danger. They figured it was a good idea to radiate before the pain in my lower spine got worse and also so it would not interfere with the clinical trials.


Two: Katherine's mom came down for a visit that weekend. About an hour after she left our house we got a call from Kath's dad to inform us Kath's mom was in an a very bad accident near Grantham. Since my parents live in Grantham I immediately called them to see if they could get on the highway and find the car. My dad drove up and saw the car on the opposite side of the highway that Betty was travelling. We decided at that point to pack and head up to the hospital in Lebanon. We were fearing the worst. She was extremely lucky and walked away without a scratch and was only soar. We saw pictures of the car and if you saw this truck you would be amazed that she is still alive. Also if you saw the site of the accident you would be amazed she is alive. This was tough for us and Alek since we had to quickly leave home and then the next day head back home.


Three: On Thursday December 9th Kath and I woke at 2am to find out we had lost power. So we decided to move downstairs into the guest bedroom where it was warmer so we could keep Alek warm. Well the problem was it sounded like we were in a war zone. Trees and branches were falling every 30 seconds to a minute and it was loud. I could not sleep and either could Katherine. I was sleeping in the living room. I was so scared a tree was going to come through the house, we decided to move the mattress out of the guest room into the living room. Finally we got about an hour or two of sleep. When we woke we decided to head up to my parents since they had power. As we woke the next morning our neighbors called us to let us know that our basement had flooded. Great, we had just refinished the basement this fall. They decided to call the fire department and they pumped out our basement. Then Bruno and I had to drive down to hook up his generator to the sump pump to avoid more water from coming into the basement. We looked many places for generators and could not get them. They were a hot commodity. They were selling them off a truck from North Carolina for $2000.00. We finally were able to get one 4 days into the outage. We did not get power back for a week. We ended up staying with Kath's parents for that time to keep Alek warm and safe.



Four: On Friday, December 10th, I got an appointment with my doctor and the radiation oncologist to go over the radiation plans. The plan was to radiate for 10 days. They would radiate the lower part of my spine to try to slow down the multiple tumors growing on my lower spine and especially one that was very close to the tail bone that has been causing me pain in my hips and lower back. I started radiation on Monday December 13th. When I got there the doctor met with me and informed me that it would only be five days of radiation. That was a relief. As is turned out with the storm we were in Hanover from Monday to Thursday so I did not have to travel from Hollis to Hanover everyday (1.5 hours one way).

What else is there. I think I am missing something but that is enough for one post.

I would like to thank the new followers that signed up. Thank you.

I would also like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. Merry Christmas!!!!