Surgery on Thursday

A brief update on my treatments:

I've recently finished five cycles of chemotherapy (gemcitabine and taxotere, every three weeks). Overall, we weathered this treatment well. I did gain about 15 pounds of water weight (although I do hide it reasonably well!!). Also, last week, I was pretty sick with what seems to have been pneumonia, but I've mostly recovered now.

We're happy to report that my lung nodules have responded very well to the chemotherapy; my recent chest CT's have looked very good. However, at the same time, I have new nodules in my spleen. These were not visible before my chemotherapy began and have been gradually enlarging. Certainly (without having actual tissue to look at) we can't be sure of what these are, but cancer is a major concern.

So, I'm scheduled for a splenectomy at Hopkins this Thursday as both a diagnostic and potentially therapeutic procedure. While this is significant abdominal surgery, it's not a terribly complicated procedure, so we expect that I'll do well. I hope to be home within a couple of days.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers - we're very appreciative as always!

Robert and Gwyneth

A Rough Week

Time flies (yes, even when you're getting chemotherapy...) - it's been a month since our last posting!

We finished cycle #4 finished without incident and were able to take a short vacation in Rehoboth Beach - had a great time:

As for cycle #5, everyhting went fine with the chemotherapy itself. Unfortunately, starting last weekend, I got pretty sick: mainly high fevers and fatigue. On Saturday, I had my first trip to the Hopkins emergency room (which, believe it or not, was not an entirely painful experience!!). My white blood cell count was fine and an infectious workup (chest x-ray, blood cultures, urine cultures) was unrevealing, so I went home on antibiotics.

Unfortunately, on Monday, I still felt really bad and so I got a CT of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis (to look harder for some site of infection). While my chest x-ray had looked normal, the CT suggested that I had pneumonia. I was admitted to the oncology center and fortunately, started to feel better by Tuesday, when I came home. I had a bronchoscopy on Wednesday (with washings and biopsies) to try and diagnose the cause of this pneumonia.

I'm home now and - importantly - am definitely feeling better (I haven't had a fever in several days). Given how terrible I felt, I'm being good and staying put for a few days!! Very happy to be on the mend.

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers,

Robert and Gwyneth