"About the best it gets"

This, paraphrasing Dr. Dubois today, is not quite accurate -- but the sense of it was that the response he's seeing in me to the chemo is just about as good as it gets, esophagitis aside! He liked:

1. The tumor response (much of what's left is scar tissue). Mr. Potato Head is turning out to be a useful gauge, though not definitive.
2. My WBC (white blood cell) counts, 4.5 on a scale of 4.5 to 11 for normal people.
3. My tolerance for the chemo, which so far has been pretty close to "chemo? what chemo?" -- knock on wood. (Ouch, that didn't used to hurt as much when I had hair!). So far today, my only reaction is being slightly tired and -- not queasy, just ever so slightly "off."

So, we went out to dinner to celebrate. Yay!

Thanks for all the messages of good cheer! Special "above and beyond the call" thanks to MC and IR for compiling 4 CDs worth of "music to get you up and moving!!" And muchas besas to MAW for AM transport. The iPod worked champion. Katy took me home around 3:15, having had only 5 hours of toxic drip this time around. (A good name for a band, that: The Toxic Drip.)

After the next session, Dr. D will have another scan done to see if the rest of the Potato Head family is responding as well as the patriarch (potriarch?). Maybe I'll have tubers in place of tumors.

All 4 now, must...go... work... on Star Island... registrations. (We're registrars for our conference this year.)

XO to all,
D