Sea of yellow support

January 30: My co-workers at Fluke and Fluke Networks suprised me with a show of support by wearing yellow Live Strong shirts today. This really lit up my day! Support from people I work with, friends and family has helped me get through my situation. This was overwhelming!

Post treatment

January 14 - January 27: Each day has been progressively better than the day before. I still have ringing in my ears and it doesn't seem to be getting better. The muscle pain in my lower left leg and foot comes and goes. I can't walk for more than about 5 minutes before it starts to tighten. Hopefully these two lingering problems will go away soon. Other than that I'm feeling so much better than I have in the last 6 weeks. 1-1/2 weeks to go before the tests and meeting with the doctors.

Cycle 4, last treatment days

January 10 - 13: The treatment has gone really well. And now it's over which feels really good. I'm experiencing a lot of fatigue, constant ringing in my ears plus some stomach queasiness. But for the most part it just feels good to be done with the four cycles of chemo treatment. Now, the waiting period until February 6th to find out whether surgery is the next step or not.

Cycle 4, Day 1

January 9: Treatment went well today. I had a high enough white blood cell count to do the treatment. We met with the doctor and she had the results of the CT Scan from last Friday. The tumors are shrinking - some went down about 40% and another one about 50%. This was good news. It means the chemo treatment is working. Surgery still sounds like it will happen though. The tumors would have to shrink away to nothing and even then, she thinks because of the number of tumors that surgery would still be necessary. But she wants to consult with the surgeon after this cycle is over. So, after this cycle is completed (four more days of treatment plus 16 more recovering) on February 6th I go in for another tumor marker blood test, CT Scan, hearing test and consult with both the Oncologist and the Surgeon. At that time, they'll review the latest scan and markers and we'll talk about surgery.

Continuing on

Dec. 26 - Jan 4: It's been going okay. There are good days and not so good days. I'm continuing to have a fair amount of muscle pain in my left calf and foot. Walking up stairs is a challenge. There's more fatigue after this last cycle compared to after the first two cycles. Tomorrow, I get a CT scan. This will be the first one since November 2nd - before treatment started. I'll get the results of that next Tuesday when I meet with the doctor at the beginning of the last cycle. I'm hoping that the scan will reveal shrinking tumors.