Hi ho Hi ho

It's been back to work week. William managed to avoid further side effects over the weekend and went back to work on Monday. It's so unfair that he has to work as bad as he feels. Even though he is greatly improved, he still feels awful. It's just a much less awful awful than he felt prior to the start of chemo, if that makes any sense.

The cancer and the chemo leave him exhausted and weak. He's weak and tired when he wakes up and leaves for work, drives clear across town, works 8 to 9 and 1/2 hours, drives the 40 miles home, and can do little other than eat a light dinner and lie down. Some nights he sits up at his computer for a little while before giving up and heading to bed. He doesn't think he's brave, but the truly courageous never do. He has to ride that rank bull not for a mere eight seconds but 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and hold down a job.

He's having difficulty sleeping at night. He has stopped drinking coffee, those of you who know him well are likely as amazed as we are by that fact. He has a cup in the morning before leaving for work and that's it for the day. The generic Ambien he was prescribed has no effect on him. Perhaps he's just too exhausted and weak to sleep? We don't know why, we just know we've tried every trick we can find and nothing has helped so far. He settles for cat napping through the night and calling it good enough. I'm sure that's not helping the weakness and exhaustion either.

He had an office visit with his Oncologist today and got a beaming report on the diminished state of the monster. The swollen nodes on the left side of his neck are completely gone. The nodes on the right side of his neck are almost gone. The profound swelling in his left thigh is down about a full 1/3 from where it was and below the knee his calf is only slightly puffier looking than the normal leg.

The nodes in his torso must be greatly reduced as well because he's gotten quite a bit slimmer in the middle. When all of this started back in November and as it got so much worse in December, his face had begun to look slim, his arms and shoulders were getting so thin I could see his shoulder bones and his right leg was getting almost scrawny. The monster was making some parts waste away while ballooning out in others. We couldn't understand at first why he seemed to be gaining weight in the middle while losing so much everywhere else. Now we know. As the chemo melts the swollen nodes, his left leg swelling reduces as well as the swollen nodes in his abdomen and chest.

The Oncologist tells us that William is doing as well as we can expect at this point and said that it was remarkable to see this amount of improvement so quickly. I think it's the chemo combined with the positive energy from all our many friends and family coming to us from all around the world.