Ok, so there’s a reason I didn’t send a post out, and it’s a doozy.  I know mom sent out a post to a lot of people, and we called a bunch of you, but for those of us we didn’t do that for here you go:  I took a PET scan just before vacation, and the doc went over the results with us.  According to the scan, all my tumors are down under detectable ranges.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer or that I’m in remission.  It does mean I’m totally KICKING CANCER’S BUTT!!!

I got the feeling that both the doc and the nurse practioner were just as surprised as we were, and they want to run a few more tests to confirm the PET scan, but they are now talking about giving me a chemo holiday for two to three months so that I can pursue alternative treatments, like liver resection, chemoemobilization, laser ablation and other options.  They already drew blood today for a CEA check, and my thought is that it might be down a ways from the previous check, which had my levels down from 860 a few months ago down to only 55 a month ago.

So we have an appointment the 25th with the surgical oncologist to see exactly what our options are.

In any case, we’re all ecstatic over this news, since even I didn’t really expect news like this.  I knew I was doing good, but this far exceeded my expectations.  Now I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Now, to recap what happened the previous week.  I was scheduled to go on vacation the 24th of July.  the Wednesday before, my sister had an asthma attack and ended up in to hospital by ambulance, which freaked us all out.  Then on Thursday, I fell from a chair and landed on my left elbow. it broke the skin and started swelling, so one day after my sister visited the hospital, I made my own visit.  My arm was so swollen by then that they couldn’t tell from the x-ray if it was broken or not, so I ended up spending Friday through Tuesday in a splint.  When it came off, my arm looked horrible.  it was still swollen, and now it was black and blue.  Not to mention that my elbow still hurt, a lot.

Fortunately, the ortho doc said it wasn’t broken, and that I just had elbow bursitis.  It still hurts, but I don’t have to wear the splint anymore.

That night, dad got bit by a spider, and it worried us enough that he got it checked out.  Turns out he just needed it drained and some antibiotics for it, but it’s been a week now and it still looks ugly.

So the next day, my sis was heading home for rehearsal when her car broke down on the way home, so we had to go out there and help her.  We ended up parking it in Cabazon at the casino overnight and towing it back home.  Turns  out her transmission needs to be replaced.

Then on Thursday, we received a call friom my insurance telling me that my employer was no longer contracting with my insurance company and that my insurance was no longer valid as of that Friday, so we spent the entire day panicing and trying to get insurance for me immediately, which we did.  The moment was fast approaching that I would need to do this, but we thought we had at least a month to find new insurance.  As it turns out, it went very well for us in the end and I now have my own insurance.

Saturday, I spoke at the first national Rodeo for Life, which was held at the Pomona Fairgrounds, then headed down to the Chino Relay for Life and came away very impressed with the way it was organized and the amount of support they received from both the surrounding community and the City of Chino itself.  I got a chance to meet a fellow cancer patient there named Tom who also has StageIV colon cancer.  I just want him to know that my last scan is proof that it’s possible to thrive with cancer. I also hope this is the start of a great friendship.  I also hope that Chino RFL doesn’t mind if we consider using some of their ideas for our own relay next year. 

Monday, I started off the day getting my bloodwork done, then Sarah and I went to Disneyland.  It started off not so crowded and we went on Indiana Jones first thing.  Everything went great until I went to sit down in the car and I almost sat on a knife with a 5″ blade.  I went to give it to the ride attendant and he freaked out.  I was half expecting Mickey Mouse’s version of the Secret Service to detain me for questioning.  We went to Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan, The Haunted Mansion, Astroblasters and Indiana Jones.  Then we walked through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and watched Summer Fantasmic.  We also did a bit of people watching (and sometimes, laughing), and checking out the shops.  We went to Wetzels Pretzel’s before we left, so we ended up not getting home until after 1am.

So, that catches us up to today.  My family is still ecstatic, and we’ve been telling every one we could think of about the good news

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