Our weekly blog-entry pattern seems to have stretched itself out a bit. I had thought Steve might be doing the next entry, and he intends to do so again one of these days, but meanwhile here's a short update for anyone who is still checking and might be wondering how things are going. J
The second and third installments of this four-installment chemo round have been successful (that is, the critical blood counts have been in good enough ranges so they could go forward), though Steve's energy level has remained generally somewhat lower in these past two weeks than it had been recently. He has been trying to get by with more food by mouth and less time on the feeding machine. He likes the freedom from the machine, but his weight has continued to drop—so some reversal of that pattern may be necessary. Yesterday he ate pretty well and used the machine overnight, and this morning we were both pleased to note he was back up a couple of pounds. Next Wednesday is chemo #4, and then after a week off we get another CAT scan to assess the progress of the chemo vs. the cancer.
We are relaxing at home over Labor Day weekend. (Steve is napping now.) I have been busy with the start of school, which seems to be going well but keeping me busier than I expected, for some reason. We've enjoyed a bridge group evening and have another coming up soon, and will soon be rescheduling the playreading group that got canceled when we went to Flint. In September we plan to visit Eddie in Oregon, and then for October we seem to have (tentatively, at least) scheduled out-of-town activities for every weekend of the month. In addition, Steve has scheduled himself for at least a couple more teacher-training programs, and is in touch with his textbook co-author and their publisher about some further work in bringing their texts to online format. All of this scheduling clearly shows an optimistic attitude going forward. Our total schedule for the next couple of months looks to me challenging even for normal circumstances, so I guess we had better start storing up our energy now!
We've also had regular as well as irregular visits with many friends, and it continues to be true that social contacts are highly therapeutic so we hope you will all know that we are always happy to see you—please don't take the above paragraph's crowded-schedule content as a suggestion to stay away!
We hope all is well with all of you, and we thank you again for your support. Enjoy the last bits of summer.
--Carol
