Another hurray!!!

Yesterday's visit with my oncologist, Dr. Yee, included great, fabulous, welcome, joyous, fantastic, hurray news: the CT scan says the tumor on my pancreas has not changed since 3 months ago AND the blood tumor marker (CA19-9) continued its zig-zag graph (see first image below) and went down slightly over the past three weeks.

So today I started my SEVENTH 3-week round of oral chemo Xeloda. I love that I can keep on keeping on! I'm hanging in there and very happy for it.

My blood tumor marker progress chart.
The lower the number, the better. 229 is considered  a "high" number,
 but the good news is that it is not going up.

It seems crazy but I have to share my CT scan final report with you... HIPPA-be-damned. I'm sharing information with the world about my guts!!!

I want you blog readers to help me understand these two pages. I was pleased to learn that I have "shotty aortopulmonary window paratracheal and subcarinal lymph nodes". After some "wiki time", I learned this actually is good news. It was sobering to read this and understand so little. Just give it a once over and try to absorb what's going on in my chest/abdomen. The best (and understandable) part is that the tumor is "essentially stable".

It is titled "chest CT" but did include my abdomen. 

"No new metastatic focus identified" was also happy news!

Here are my more recent favorite "escapes" from cancer/death thoughts:

Grilling baby back ribs on the Big Green Egg for church small group
AND Barb's MCC Donor Relations department party held this evening.

Listening to British folk-rocker Richard Thompson's latest CD "Electric".  Thompson writes some more sad, hard luck, lost love ballads which are not always uplifting, but very well written and the guitar playing is unsurpassed.
Yes, I am an old man and still buy CDs instead of listening to shitty mp3s. Life is too short to be listening to low-fi!!

My latest jazz fav is Oscar Peterson and this 2-disc CD is fantastic. It is a Telarc live recording.
A marvelous recital by a true master. Gorgeous music and gorgeous recording. (1996)
Oscar was 71 years old at the time. He had suffered a stroke in 1991 which affected his left side. I can tell from the recording he had to adjust his technique and the right hand is more prominent. Also, a remarkable collaboration with the other players with whom he had years of experience. Peterson died of kidney failure in 2008.

Thanks everyone for following my journey. I feel strong, have virtually no pain and am loving life. Keep on keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you very much!