Its About Time

Big Don has taken punch after punch with cancer, for a while it seemed like each doctor coming in was trying to out do the previous with bad news.  Well Big Don finally threw one back today.  He pulled himself together and got a shot in.  It wasn't a knockout blow but at least we got some good news finally.  After three rounds of chemo he had a week off last week and went in today for bloodwork and a general check before his next treatment.  The news was as good as we could have hoped for.

His weight is stable and his white cells, which are responsible for fighting infection, are up from where they have been.  He also had a test for a tumor marker, this is a substance that the body makes in response to the tumor.  While it isn't a great screening test it can be helpful in determining if the cancer is responding at all to the treatment.  Big Don's tumor marker was down today from where it had been when he first arrived in Phoenix, it is still very elevated but does give us some hope that the tumor may be responding in some way.  Now we aren't breaking out the champagne but we certainly can be happy and thankful for this small victory.  Well most of us can, what this means for Big Don is that he continues to get the same high dose chemo and high dose side effects for the next three rounds, but at least he fits into the corvette better now and doesn't have to worry about his hair in the wind (it should arrive in Phoenix this week just in time for the cooler weather).  So we enjoy a Bud for this good news tonight and the fact that we are still in the game, and we go back to work.  There is a lot of fight left but at least now we know Big Don can punch.