IL-2 cancelled

Amy, Andrea and I met with Dr Margolin to review my scans Friday and it was pretty bad news. They revealed something I suspected - I've got it in more places now than one of Dick Chaney's hunting partners has buckshot ;-). It's spreading like crazy on my neck and I've got some visible spots appearing on my cheek, plus it's all around my lower neck, down through all the lymph nodes along my spine, in my spine, back, spleen and now in the worst possible places: a small one in my brain, three in my lungs and many in my liver. Yuck. It's too far advanced and spreading too fast for the IL-2 to have even the tiny chance it would usually have. Well, at least that means I don't have to spend a month in hell doing IL-2, eh?





So she's putting me on a chemotherapy pill called temozolomide, aimed primarily at the brain tumor to try to slow it down some. Not anything else they can do, unfortunately, except make sure I've got plenty of percoset, which I do at the moment. The temozolomide (we've already begun calling it the "tamale" pill) is supposed to have minimum side effects and Dr. Margolin is prescribing an anti-nausea drug to take care of the worst. I don't think I'll lose hair, but we'll see. And get this - it's supposed to suppress your appetite, just what I need. She'll see me every two weeks now to see how I'm doing and we will probably scan the brain tumor again in a couple of months to check on it, assuming my body hasn't begun to tell me it's there before then.





As for the lung and liver mets, I'll just have to wait it out and let Margolin know as I feel the effects and we'll deal with them as they arise, mostly with pain killers I suppose. As far as remaining time goes it's pretty much agreed that it's less than 6 months. Now my challenge to to try to make the most of them. I may add a uke fest or two, though this mess on my neck and cheek are making me uncharacteristically self-conscious.





"So what's my state of mind?" you may ask. It is reasonable to start second guessing decisions at this point, especially timing of treatments, and make one's self crazy with 'should-haves'. But by now you all know that I don't do that sort of thing too much. Naturally one speculates on such subjects, but if you get carried away you go crazy and for what? You can't change yesterday and I'm content living with the results of the decisions I've made. Remember, the odds of IL-2 working were tiny anyway, so why beat yourself up for putting it off and then finding out it is too late? I've been mentally ready for the information I got yesterday for some time, so it wasn't a shock and I'm not going to go into depression or change how I live. If I have a concern it's how friends and relatives will deal with it now that we know the worst, and my hope is they will deal with it as they have all along - just be normal, as I shall try to be.





That's it for now. Since the next month will not be filled with drama requiring blow-by-blow commentary I will post probably weekly to let you know how things are progressing, and to show you pictures of my now finished America and the now in progress 1932 Alfa Romeo in 1/8th scale. Plenty to keep me busy. I can't thank you all enough for your support, it means more to me than you can imagine.