Tubing in November

You know, I would like to go just one day besides Sunday without getting something in the mail from a doctor or hospital.  I guess that isn't going to happen soon since I keep going to see them so often.  Oh well.  My doctor, Dr. Wallentine stopped to talk today for a minute in the clinic while I was getting chemo.  He mentioned that our offices are close and that he often sees me crossing the street or getting out of my car on the side towards traffic.  He told me "I almost ran over you again the other day"  I told him, "I bet Selecthealth would pay you nicely to run over me"  He said, "Probably true but keeping you alive is my goal, so I can't run over you"

On Thursday we went to see the ENT.  I can't hardly hear at all in my right ear anymore and it feels swollen like an earache.  They did a hearing test and confirmed what I already knew, basically almost no hearing in that ear, really none in the high range and the eardrum wasn't moving right.  The doctor took a look and saw some fluid back there and recommended a tube in my ear.  They told me that it could be done at the hospital or in the office but warmed me that there would be quite a bit of pain.  I chose the office.  The anesthetic was pretty easy.  When they took a scalpel and cut my eardrum my hearing immediately got a little better.  The vacuums was loud but not so bad.  It was weird having the tube put in, I could hear it click into place.  Anyway, I feel like I am hearing better now.  And the pain they warned me about was like nothing.  I guess it is all relative.   On a scale of 1-10 that pain was like a 0.5.  I live in the 3-5 range with peak pain around 8 every day so that was nothing.  I wish that the pain of that surgery was all I had to endure.

In the meantime I had a great call from the scientist in Houston.  Basically she said that the T cells from my blood are growing really well, that she has already talked to the HER2 people so that I can move directly to that study if GD2 doesn't do what we want.  We had also wondered why they couldn't just keep adding T cells for GD2 if is was working to replenish the ones that were getting tired.  She said that we could do exactly that.  If is working I would just sign up for the study again, and they would keep giving me larger and larger doses until the cancer was defeated.  We loved the sound of that.  I wish January 5th could come sooner.