Some changes

Someone asked about my new profile photo, so I thought I would give its background. That was taken on a very cool evening in Paris as we were waiting for the Eiffel Tower to be lit (which occurs around 10 p.m. in the summer). Thankfully, I had packed a beautiful shawl given to me by my boss and his wife following their recent trip to India, so I was wrapped up tight against the chill. I guess the photo is a little blurred because of the low light, but I liked it and it reminds me of Paris even though there is nothing of Paris in the photo!

I had my scans on Thursday and they went off without a hitch. The nurse was back and she had to use the warming packs again, but found a vein after a few minutes. On Friday morning I saw Dr. K, who turned out to either be in a bad mood or became miffed with me after I told her about my meeting with Dr. Flores. She apparently wanted to be the one to make the decision that I should see him, not my orthopedic surgeon, but I assume she will get over it.

The bottom line: the main tumor in my right lung, which was stable at 1.1 x 0.9 cm following the first round of Gemcitabine, grew to 1.4 x 1.4 cm. Dr. K has decided to change my medication to Doxil. I will be seeing the new oncologist in New Jersey on Wednesday, so I suppose I could potentially start it late this week or early next. I will keep you posted. She also said that I'm probably looking at lung surgery to remove that tumor in three to six months. I don't know what that does to our plans for our cruise in November, but I'll wait to worry about that until I see the surgeon again at the end of the summer.

The other nodules are stable, and Dr. K is starting to think that some of them might not be mets since they haven't changed from scan to scan since December. I guess I'll have to get Dr. Flores' read on that when I see him again. I just realized I hadn't posted following my first meeting with him. Basically he indicated that he saw only two or three tumors but they were all too small for him to remove. He suggested I follow up with him in three months and he would follow along with my scan reports.

I didn't get a chance to work on my photos this weekend, but hope to get them onto Webshots this week. Look here for the link.

A belated happy father's day to all the dads out there!