Thursday, September 20th

Today was treatment day 3 of 3 for this 4^th round of my new chemo protocol.  As I’ve mentioned, this 3 days in a row thing has its transportation challenges so Amy was with me on Tuesday, my parents yesterday, and Kathy Lynch chaperoned today.  Fun for all!

Lately I’ve been a bit achy and uncomfortable so I’ve been using the pain meds a bit more then I had been.  In fact, Dr. Richards wrote me an Rx on Tuesday for a stronger dosage.  We’ll see how that goes.  More importantly I also got the Rx for my next PET/CT scan.  We had been pointing toward doing the scan after round 5 of chemo but since I’ve been having this discomfort we’re going to jump in sooner than later with the scan.  This will get us the scan results a good 2-3 weeks sooner and, if necessary, we’ll be able to take action on anything new that requires immediate attention that much sooner.

My blood counts have been mostly stable.  Neulasta is doing its job for my white blood cell count but my platelets have been all over the place.  I have the blood counts checked in week 3 of each 3-week cycle and generally they show as very low at that time.  But so far during that final week they boomerang back up into normal levels in time for the next treatment.

Plans are now starting to come together for our winter cancer fundraiser and it will follow in the pattern of what we’ve done for the past two years.  We’ll be participating in Cycle for Survival where 100% of all funds raised go directly to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the clinical trials/research they are doing for rare cancers.  Esophageal cancer is considered a rare cancer.  The past two years we participated at event sites in Manhattan and Long Island but it looks like we’ll be spinning down in Bethesda, MD this year.  My daughter Erin will be taking the lead for planning and recruiting since she lives down in the Wash DC area.  Some of our NJ/PA based Mentschen will also make the trip to Bethesda.  More details to follow.

My fundraising for LiveSTRONG has trickled along but I think at this point it is essentially complete at a grand total of $6,805.  That’s a single event fundraising record for me.  Our Mentschen team will eek out a total that surpasses $33,000.  Gotta love it!  Thanks!