A piece of good news

Well today we just returned home from a family vacation at Bear Lake.  It was wonderful.  More about that in a minute.  Just as we were leaving the beach this morning I received a call on my cell phone.  It's amazing how you really can't get away from things very well anymore.  Anyway, in this case, it was a phone call I was glad to receive.  It was Dr. Robinson, my oncologist from Mayo, calling to give me information on the genetic analysis of my tumor.  As you may remember, we sent off samples of my tumor to a group called "Foundation" several weeks ago to have a genetic analysis done looking for weaknesses or characteristics that could potentially be attacked.  The results were in today.

It turns out that they did find a weakness in my cancer.  He told me the name of the gene but I can't remember it.  All I know is that it had a bunch of letters and numbers in the name.  This particular gene has a drug that has recently been discovered that can attack that specific gene.  The information is early still but it has come far enough that there are phase one clinical trials being done in at least six locations throughout the country and additional trials in France.  As I understand it, phase one clinical trials mean that it hasn't yet been proven to be effective but there is enough favorable evidence in animal models to justify and allow trials on humans.

These new "genetically targeted drugs" are probably the future of cancer treatment.  Most oncologists agree on this point.  At some point these will replace chemotherapy and other treatments since they can kill or suppress the cancer with very few side effects for the patient.  Right now there is a race to identify unique cancer genes and develop drugs to attack these unique genes.  The problem now is that the research is so new.

So, what does this all mean for me.  Basically we are hoping and praying that my cancer is gone.  However, if it were to come back it gives me more options.  That is good news for me.  To be honest it brought tears to my eyes when he told me.  This stupid cancer seemed to have superhuman powers.  It felt so good to hear somebody tell me that they had discovered that it had a weakness.

Overall I am improving slowly.  I had an infection earlier this week that really took the wind out of my sails, so to speak.  I have been on an antibiotic now for several days and I am feeling much better.  I think that it didn't hurt to have a few days off work when I could take a nap when I was tired.

It's still hard to eat but even that is improving.  Today I ate two pieces of pizza and some spaghetti.  Granted I have to take two tylenol, two Motrin and then rinse with dental topical anesthetic before eating but still, a week ago I was doing all that and there was no way I could have eaten those things.

We just returned home from Bear Lake on a family vacation.  It was wonderful!  Simple tender mercies.  We had rented a condo to stay in.  We are pretty careful with our money these days so we rented one of the less expensive places that we could find.  Just as we were leaving from my nephews wedding to go to Bear lake we had a call from the property manager saying that there had been a mix up and our condo was not available until the next day.  He was apologetic and offered to let us stay in a different property for one night until the condo became available.  We don't usually like to make waves so we said that would be fine.  We we arrived at Bear lake we were wondering what time we needed to move from one place to the other.  At that point they said, "Well, if you want you can just stay at the alternate place and not move.  Why don't you check it out and call us"  Well, the alternate place was just beautiful.  Much larger and nicer than the one we had rented.  Actually JoLynne had looked at that very property and passed it over because it was more than we could afford.  It's a simple thing but we were grateful.  It was so nice to spend time with family.

Adam and Elizabeth on the "Tube"

Spencer's first time on a wakeboard

Cute Vivian going for a stroll with Grandpa

The view from our rental home windows

Morning walks with JoLynne

A beautiful day on the beach

Recovery

Well, it has been three weeks now since the end of treatment.  The doctors had told me to expect an increase of pain beginning about a week after treatment.  They were right.  The mouth sores were pretty spectacular.   Those began about one week post treatment.  Taste buds were gone, of course and pain with eating became pretty intense.  Basically my daily routine is to take tylenol and Ibuprophen every 6 hours and then at meal time to rinse with a viscous lidocaine solution and then a second topical anesthetic that is even stronger and then eat quick before the anesthetic wears off.  Oh, and I drink an "Ensure Plus" every meal to try and hold onto my weight.    After that I run to the sink and try to brush and floss and then spit blood for the next few minutes.  Then I rinse with anesthetic again.  Even doing all of that I lost about 18 pounds.   Frankly eating is no fun anymore.  After about two weeks my doctors here determined that I had a herpes infection on top of the mouth sores so they started me on Acyclover and that helped.  I was showing some improvement and then started getting worse again.  Another visit to the doctor revealed a sinus infection had come up.  I started some amoxicillin about two days ago and now I am seriously feeling better.  This morning I woke up and thought, "wow, I don't hardly hurt".  I haven't eaten breakfast yet but still, that is serious improvement.

My doctor from Mayo has been so nice.  He has emailed me multiple times checking on me and suggesting what I should do.  I couldn't ask for a more kind, caring doctor than Dr. Foote.  So, I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I have been so tired lately too.  I'm hoping that in the next few days that begins to grow less as well.

As always, I am so grateful for the prayers and faith of others in my behalf.  Thank you!  Four weeks ago we were told that there was no hope for my survival.  Today I am just dealing with a sore mouth.  That is a big step forward in my book.  Truly a miracle.  Thank you for helping that miracle happen for us.

By the way, here is a picture of the bird back in Minnesota that kept swooping down and grabbing my hair every morning when JoLynne and I were walking.  That was really weird.  I have cut my curls off now.  You just can't walk around with your hair looking like nesting material, it's just too dangerous.