Well, we seem to be cruising along fairly smoothly...

You know, I can't even remember what I told ya' last time? My brain isn't firing on all whatevers today.

Anyway... Joe's on a new treatment... Erbitux... Doc had said he was an excellent candidate, so here's hoping! He had his 3rd full treatment on Wednesday. In two weeks, the PA said we'd do another CEA (measures the amount of cancer in the body... cancer markers) next appointment, the 8th of September (where is this year going?). Last visit, she'd said that while they didn't want to cause false hope, Joe's LFT's (I assume that's what she was talking about), were looking a lot better. About 1/2 of where they were before he'd started this new treatment. Awesome!

Joe's always been a quick responder tho... within 2 treatments of the first go 'round, his CEA went from over 3500 down to 315 or 317. It had gone all the way down to 72 or so before he started having trouble with rigors, which turned out to be an infection in his port, not the meds. Then on treatment #2, within 6 treatments (within... almost 5-6 months, due to all the diarrhea and hospitalizations), his liver had shrank remarkably... but then before we could get excited about that, they switched him to the Erbitux. Granted, his CEA was climbing a bit, but he'd not had a treatment in a month or more last time they'd run it, so it was going to be up.

I don't know... all we can do is still trust that they know better what they're doing than we do, and be praying that this new treatment is the one that will finally put Joe in remission.

I got kind of a weird "vibe" on Wednesday tho... even tho things are looking relatively good. The PA said we should take a vacation... to which we both laughed. We're barely making ends meet, Joe is in the hole for his time off... a vacation? What a joke! Then she said, even if we just went and sat on the beach... that so many folks who live near here never ever go to the beach... and it's true. We don't. Joe mentioned that we live right across the road from the lake but we never go fishing, and she said we should... we should take Chase and go fishing... make memories... This sudden "push" to get out and enjoy the finer things in life... makes me a little edgy. Then when I saw Wendy, the head chemo nurse... our first chemo nurse... she looked at me really concern-ed-ly (is that a word?), and asked how I was doing? I'm great! Really. Usual aches and pains... but with Joe not having massive diarrhea for weeks on end... being able to work pretty much full time... I'm having the time and energy to get stuff done here at home... HE'S able to get some small projects done... we're getting out and about together for the first time in seems like forever. The feeling was, what do they know that I don't know? And I still don't know. While I don't want to be in the dark... blindsided by anything, I don't want to just live in fear of the next moment either. I figure this next CEA will show if the numbers are dropping... if the new meds are working... If they're not, I don't know that we have a lot of other options available to us, unless they decide to try Joe back on the first treatment he'd done and see if it picks back up and makes any headway. It had... maybe his body just needed a break from it for awhile (tho Donna, our fave chemo nurse, and I feel like they jumped the gun a bit taking him off if it... his numbers were never bad with it... they'd gone up a bit from lack of treatment from all the mess with his port, but the cancer wasn't growing really... kind of stable. Like the doc has said, stable is good! If you get a treatment that gives you quality as well as quantity of life, even if it's just keeping the cancer from growing any more, even if it's not killing it off. As long as the body tolerates it... where's the harm?

Anyway... just want to check in quick... let you know we're still alive... and kicking... I'm making some real headway on the house, if I can quit drilling mega holes in the walls where they don't need to be (bad day!). You ever want to check out what I'm doing, let me know and I'll link you to my Photobucket. Except for Mr. or Ms. Chicken Scratches... they're still sending me porn... I'm sending it to spam. I'll have to say, they are persistant!

And... I'm off! (Y'all knew that tho, didn't ya'? LOL!) Hugs! Susan (*"*)