Round 4

It's chemo week #4. We had a long appointment with Andrew's oncologist this morning before starting his infusion. Andrew's platelet levels were stable, which confirmed the decision to decrease the dosage of one of the chemo meds, irinatecan. He's continuing on the lower dosage today, and we'll likely stay there for the foreseeable future. They rechecked his CA 19-9, the tumor marker test, and there was another significant drop—this time from 989 to 384.

I'm trying to schedule his first round of CT scans for this Friday or Saturday to gauge progress since beginning chemo. His oncologist plans to take the images to the tumor board (a group of senior oncologists who review patient records and provide input) next Tuesday. The circumstantial evidence (CA 19-9 blood results and resolved pain) point to a good response, and we got about as solid of a prediction as possible from his doctor that we're likely to see positive results.

Andrew's been having a lot of good days. Last week, we took Vivian to the doctor downtown—she's having migraines and we're doing some tests to rule out anything more serious—and turned it into a fun afternoon. We rode the sea glass carousel at The Battery (that's what we're doing in the photo above), ate lunch and a snowcone, and bought an ugly and overpriced Elsa bucket hat from a street vendor. Andrew and I booked a short trip in October for our 10-year anniversary and are really looking forward to celebrating. He also got cleared-ish to drive by his cardiologist, so he's been having fun with that. Andrew is still Andrew so his fun downtime includes researching clinical trials that may be a good fit after another 4 rounds of chemo.

Andrew says he plans to write a guest post for the fans, so hopefully that is forthcoming.