Wow! I need to catch up.

Just looked and saw my last blog entry was the end of January as I was going into chemo number 5.  For a guy who has nothing much scheduled to do with his days they sure seem to fill up quickly.

Well I am now one full month out of my last chemo treatment (number 6) that was on February18th. I got a cool certificate and Anna posted it on the fridge; just like the accomplishments I had as a kiddo.

Time sure flies by.  The six treatments went by so quickly.  Made lots of new friends in the infusion center and will actually kind of miss sitting in the recliner with my wife by my side while Cyndy and Jack kept the bags of chemo drugs dripping into my system for 5 or 6 hours. Surprisingly good coffee for a clinic, lots of Little Debbie snack cakes to munch on, and interesting conversations around the room with others battling this crazy disease.

I am sure everyone has unique responses to dealing with chemotherapy infusion but as for me I found it exhilarating.  Perhaps it was from the "good" drugs they gave me to combat the feeling of the "bad" drugs, or maybe just the adrenaline rush of knowing that the chemo they were pushing through my port into my heart was heading on it's way to kill those cancer cells. Either way, I looked forward to chemo days and shooting another bullet against this cancer.

I don't want to give the impression that fighting cancer is fun or without it taking it's toll on me. Fatigue, pain, nausea, and just knowing that nothing is right about what you are going through makes for some long days and some sleepless nights. But praise God that this first stint of the journey is over.

A few weeks after my last chemo I had another PET scan. This time in the Tulsa office of Oklahoma Oncology and a few days later received the results while visiting with Dr.Lynch.  All my lymph nodes responded wonderfully to the 6 rounds of R-CHOP and most of all the tumor in my abdomen, which started out about the size of a football (regulation NFL size, not those wimpy NERF ones), has reduced in size by 80 percent.  While that is great news, we were hoping it was reduced down to nearly nothing so we could proceed with the Autologous Stem Cell Therapy (big words I know) but it wasn't.  Sooo.... I get to have a few more chemo treatments to finish off shrinking away the rest of the tumor.  No more R-CHOP for me... I am moving on to a new therapy called ICE.

NO.... I won't be doing any white guy rap, just a different form of chemo. It will be a little more intensive as the chemo is delivered over three days in St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa instead of the 5 hour infusion in Tahlequah.  Logistically will be a little tougher, but after two rounds they hope the tumor will be gone and we can move toward that final phase of the Autologous Stem Cell Therapy.  Even though the time frame is a bit longer, it will give me the best chance of being cancer free at the end.

Dr. Lynch offered some more encouraging news that if the cancer recurs years from now there is a new treatment that has just been approved by the FDA and it is in the form of a pill.  A pill that kills lymphoma... wow!  Now that is truly a miracle.  And who knows what new treatments may even come after that. 

We will trust God and see what He has in store for me. Again I thank all of you that are praying for Anna and me (and my family).  We have been truly blessed by it.

My friend Josh Maxwell and many others would want me to make sure that I inform you about the Benefit for Brownie they are putting together to help with these medical costs.  I am very thankful I have medical insurance and I appreciate what they are doing to help me deal with the sometimes overwhelming reality of what all this treatment is costing.  

Brownie