I was told there would be no math

Most of the time Big Don wants more when it comes to numbers.  More trucks at the warehouse, more dollars in the bank, more weeks of vacation with his family, and mostly more cases of Bud onto the trucks and into the stores.  He has become very adept at addition and multiplication, so good he almost forgot how to subtract and divide, until this pesky cancer came along.  Now less is better.

Less complications, less fatigue, less nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, LESS CANCER.  Well this week brought us another less that we can partially celebrate.  The tumor marker that we have been watching has fallen again and that is some subtraction that even Big Don will do.  It started out at 2800, was at 1300 after three weeks of chemo, and is now at 600 after six weeks of chemo.  We of course will temper our enthusiasm, we haven't even gotten to the seventh inning stretch yet, but good news deserves a reward, so Big Don's reward was Candy Cane. 

Of course Candy is our family dog, they bought her for me six months before I left for college, nice gift I guess.  Ten years later she has become mom and dad's dog.  He likes to give Candy a hard time but we all know that Big Don is too sensitive to do anything but love that old dog.   Thanks to some high temperatures in Phoenix, a mean landlord in Missoula,  and too long of a run from Montana to Arizona Candy has been staying with some great friends up in Whitefish.  But this week she came with Mary to Phoenix to stay with mom and dad.  You can be sure she will stand guard and join right along in the fight with Big Don, after all she is a Dulle. 

Despite some boredom Big Don really is doing good.  They moved into a condo near the campus of ASU, they say they wanted to let the Kirk's have their house back, but I'm pretty sure it is so dad can look at the coeds over at the college.  I do know that I'll be visiting more often.  There certainly is not enough thanks to their previous landlords.  We all say we would do anything for the people we love, but I'm not so sure everyone would welcome some guy losing all his body hair and spending most of his time in the bathroom into their guest house, so thank you so much to the Kirk family.  Big Don is still medium sized as he is the same weight he was when he started chemo and that is a big plus.  He will have two more sessions of chemo followed by a CAT scan to evaluate the tumor.  Again it will be anxious moments but at least we have the ASU girls now. 

As the boredom and dog days set in I can tell you without question that the only way that Big Don is getting through this is from the daily emails, phone calls, blog comments, and love he is getting from all around the country filled with his friends and family.  In medicine I unfortunately see a lot of people that get sick and don't have anyone to turn to.  Big Don is a lucky guy, sure he has cancer, but how many of us truly get to see how many people care about us and have our backs.  So as we subtract all of the cancer, Big Don is sitting on the balcony smiling, but still adding up cases of Bud.  So once again we have one for him (man if this tumor marker keeps going down I'm gonna become an alcoholic).