Back to Cancer

The facts from cancer day, roughly in decreasing order of importance:

I'm seven pounds lighter than at my last appointment. It must've been the high-end proteins on the cruise ship. 

The tumor markers are bouncing, but basically down. The last four measures have been 35, 13, 7 and 13. I'd prefer seven to the trend rather than an anomaly, but the teens are good. 

The tumors were determined to be "stable" -- i.e., smaller, but not the 30% smaller necessary to qualify as "decreasing."

I got more detail on the surgery question. As assumed, the problem was two-fold: there was the uncertain evidence that the cancer has moved outside the liver, and then there's the problem that the tumors in my liver are fairly dispersed and at least one is in a very hard to reach area. Thus, chemo's a better response as long as it continues to work. 

So the plan is to continue with the current treatment regimen for another quarter. Joy. 

And that is pretty much where we stand at this point in time. 

Except, of course, for the fact that chemo sucks, my head is pounding, I've got a head cold that just won't quit, and I still haven't even unpacked my bags.