Reactions to $30,000 Thursday in Decreasing Order of Depressingness

1. I have hit the most depressing of milestones: for the first time ever, my weight now exceeds 250 pounds. 

2. My PET scan was a jumbled mess. I still have tumors distributed around my liver, but the PET also found indications of potentially cancerous stuff outside my liver -- i.e., in my lung and in various spots on the wall of my abdomen. The scan is limited in what it can indicate, particularly in the early stages so it could be not a big deal -- but if could also be a very big deal.

3. No answer on surgery as of yet as the PA hadn't discussed it with my oncologist. 

4. The irinotecan infusion kicked my butt. For about an hour after it finished, my brain was awfully fuzzy. Some food and happy hour beverages helped, but I can tell already I'm going to be paying a price for the infusion for a while to come.

5. The PA promised to get me an answer on whether or not surgery was a possibility in the next few days.

6. I was undefeated in the hands of cards played during the infusion. So while the infusion makes me fuzzy, it didn't make me so fuzzy that I couldn't recognize the right cards to play.

7. The SCCA gift shop sells the coolest playing cards. They're embedded with a three dimensional display that transitions between various relevant graphics, but they're light years beyond the 3D images you could buy when I was a kid. 

8. I may have found a cat. The friend who joined me for today's death march of oncology care has ties to an animal shelter north of Seattle. They have an affectionate cat which they named Helena when they got her. A short time later, the vet realized that she had some sort of medical condition affecting her eyes that was going to create long term troubles. So when the did they procedure to sterilize her, they also removed her eyes. So now she has a new name: Helena Keller. How can you go wrong with a blind cat named Helena Keller?* So unless she's already been adopted, I'll likely take a road trip this weekend to check her out. 

9. I get a pass on a chemo cycle. The next round is on November 5, which should be followed by a round on November 26, but I'll be on a cruise ship sailing past the Antarctica for that one so I get to skip it. 


* One additional piece of information: One of the XS's best friends is a vet who tends to adopt the broken kitties generated by her practice. One of her cats had also had its eyes removed. He was the sweetest cat, and if you just sat around watching him you would never guess that he couldn't see. He'd jump on things and off things without hesitation, just as if he could see them.