Hope for tomorrow...

During my long absence from the blog, we have had lots of activity but not much has changed with my treatment or response. That’s not all bad: this week I had a recheck on the tumor marker (CA19-9) and it was less than half the level three weeks before! It’s a real answer to prayer that I am able to continue Gemzar chemo after 16 weeks and that my bone marrow function has not dropped to the point where we would have to stop treatment.

The part of my bone marrow that has been suppressed most is that which makes red blood cells, so I’m now on various treatments for anemia and may be having a transfusion this week. No doubt the anemia contributes to my low energy and excessive sleep. But on the white cell (neutrophil) side of bone marrow function, where suppression would interrupt chemo, I’m doing fine.

Pain management is an ongoing challenge. The pain I was having with eating has thankfully resolved – seemingly when I took some NSAIDs (naproxyn) after getting a back spasm. My doctors are a little puzzled about the pain - even more so the cure – but it seemed to respond to naproxyn twice and has not come back! The other “pancreatic” kind of visceral pain still requires pain pills 4 or 5 times a day, but it is controllable. There is no reason to think that this is due to new cancer growth, as the marker continues to fall. The consensus is that it represents healing, inflammation, scarring…..as the cancer mass is responding to treatment. I keep thinking that this too will pass – and a couple of times recently I’ve awakened with no pain even beyond 6 hours of the last pills. This gives me hope that I can get off the pain medicine soon.

Some of you have been asking about Jackson and his foot infection – he has healed and yesterday I actually hired my farrier friend, Thomas, to reset his shoes. I kept thinking that my energy would return and I could do the honors, but that has not happened yet.

And we had another good visit with Michelle and her family from London. It always livens things up to have a 2 and 3 1/2 year old about the house and they are at a fun stage for grandparents.

Saturday was the last of a series of training seminars sponsored by our church for Bay Area ethnic churches. Co-chairing this project is one of my last remaining responsibilities as Missions Elder - as this two year effort comes to a conclusion with a day spent highlighting the kinds of community services being sponsored by the many faith based agencies in our region.

I am ticketed to fly to Tirana, Albania in 2 weeks for the annual mission trip of the Albanian Health Fund. So far it seems that I will be able to manage the travel and work there, but please pray for continued progress with pain control and energy resurgence. The plan with my oncologist is to be off Gemzar for a week, so my travel dates are October 19th to the 31st. This also allows me a 3 day stop over in London on the return trip for rest and relaxation with Michelle and family.

As I live from pill to pill, I’m again reminded of the favorite scripture of our late friend, Joe, Romans 5:3-5:
“Let us rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but let us also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured our His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”