Its been a tough cycle mentally . Kathleen’s main metric for what the cancer is doing (for better or worse) is how the lymph nodes in her neck feel and look. Its not been good. While they initially shrunk, they seem to be getting bigger in the last 3 weeks. But they are definitely hurting more which takes us back to August when the lumps first popped up. Sometimes the sites where the cancer has spread initially respond to the poison… and then they stop responding. We dont know that for sure, but its not a good sign. As a result, we are going back to the radiation oncologist on Thursday to see if anything can be done to help with the pain. Its a bit tricky to zap around the neck as there is too much going on in that region which could be damaged if they are not careful. But thanks to RIM and a whole host of other generous local donors, the cancer center has some great modern equipment here. We also see the chemo oncologist tomorrow. Of course, we will ask for his interpretation / assessment as well. Not feeling very optimistic. But then again, I think I have become numb to optimism and pessimism to some degree. At some point, I think our bodies dial down the amount of emotion you can feel…. or you just reach a point where you become heavier on the stoicism and numbness. We have to, in order to make it through.

Thinking of this great pic of Kathleen from the summer. She was on a 7 day infusion of 5FU while getting the radiation treatments. Despite feeling crappy and barfy and having a chemo bottle connected to her 7×24, she wanted a day at the beach. It was an amazing day. One of my favorite beach days. Ever. More pics of that day with our friends Jan and Diane at http://picasaweb.google.com/miketancsa. They are nice to look at during this winter spell

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Round 11 starts Friday if her blood work is OK.

—Mike