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.
