Some Pleasant News

Moving to Mondays for the first day of my 21-day chemotherapy rounds was a really good move.  Day Four was still the roughest, but at least it was a Thursday instead of a Sunday.  The nausea was much diminished from the first round, but other side-effects rushed in to take its place.  I wonder if we'll be chasing side-effects as we go along. 

I did get some good news this week.  I had thought that the blood lab work I had been getting before intravenous treatments was only for gauging how well my body was dealing with the chemo, and didn't tell us anything about the cancer itself.  I was wrong about that.  There is a particular tumor "marker" (carcinoembrionic antigen, I think) that shows up in the blood work, and mine went down by nearly half from February 15 to March 20, from 15.8 to 8.5.  I don't know what it means for me, but I know its good.  The doctor had warned me that occasionally the chemo does not show a positive effect until the second or third round (and indeed, could possibly not work at all), so this is a nice development. 

Now in my fifth day of the current 21-day round, I feel like I've been knocked down about a quarter.  If the cancer is feeling more like about half of what it was, I'm happy to have gotten the better of it these last few weeks. 

Thanks so much for your prayers.