Good News

Bill and I met with the oncologist today. We got some good news. My CA 19-9 blood test was 134, down from 197. He also talked about the ct scan. There wasn't any new stuff on the scan. The liver looks like it has healed from the radiation recall in June that damaged the liver and landed me in the hospital.

The last 2 rounds of chemotherapy we tried to do weekly chemo for 3 weeks with the 4th week off. Each time I was only able to do 2 weeks of chemo, because of low blood counts (white blood cells). Now we are going to do a higher dose of chemotherapy every other week. The day after chemo, I will get a shot that will help bring the white blood cells up, so low blood counts aren't a problem. The shot has some side effects like bone pain, fever, fatigue, etc. Hopefully, the side effects aren't too bad for me.

The deck is almost done. There are 2 railing pieces that need to be put in place and a set of stairs built.

That is it for now.

Michelle

That smells good

I didn't get chemo today. My blood counts were too low. My blood counts are so low, the doctor put me on antibiotics as a precaution. Next week is my week off of chemo. I will be having a CT scan to monitor how things are going. My CA 19-9 tumor marker did come down to 192 from 211 after the 1st chemo in this round.

I did get my laptop back. Thank you Bill for putting it all back together and thank you Kelly for letting me us your laptop. A quick update on Kelly. She is back to work after her bouts with dizziness that has kept her off work since July 27th. She still gets some bad headaches, but things are better.

I have been doing some cooking the last couple of weeks. I don't know what has gotten into me. A couple of weeks ago I made Chicken and Potatoes. Then we went to the Farmer's market. I made a homemade peach cobbler with some delicious peaches we got there. I also canned 5 jars of refrigerator pickles. They were good. On Saturday when it was so cold, I made some Tomato Bisque Soup with a recipe from Coopersmith's restaurant here in town. We also went back to the farmer's market on Sunday. This time I made a peach crisp with an oatmeal and brown sugar crust. It was awesome with vanilla ice cream.

Today my former work team was getting together for happy hour. I met them and got a chance to catch up. It was great.

Have a rowdy week.

Michelle

Ups and Downs

Bill and I met with Dr. Marschke, our oncologist, last Tuesday. We decided to lower the blood count parameters that decides if I get chemotherapy or not. This way I have a better chance of getting all 3 chemos before my week off. I had chemotherapy after the doctor visit. The blood work is looking good for the most part. The CA19-9 which is the tumor marker for the bile duct cancer has gone up again. It was 97, 4 weeks ago. Now it is 211. So that needs to start coming back down again. Hopefully after this round of chemo if I can get all 3 doses, the numbers will start coming back down again.

I forgot to mention that I got a 2006 Saturn Vue last week. We needed another car since Chris and Kelly are going to different schools now and with both of them working there were too many logistics to manage. I like driving it.

Sad news. My laptop hard drive died last week. So I am writing this on Kelly's laptop, she has so kindly let me use. As you can imagine for someone that spends alot of time at home, I use the laptop alot. It should be another week before I get it back.

My next chemotherapy is 8:30 am the day after labor day. I will have to set the alarm clock. That is just too early.

Have a great week.
Michelle