Thanks to my good buddy Angela for stopping by after her radiation treatment on Thursday to bring decorations for my IV tree - garlands and candy canes hung with my meds all day - a cancer Christmas tree. And I do mean all day - it was a long one. My chemo port was clogged, so we had take some extra time with the "rattlesnake venom" treatment to clear the clog in the catheter - all in all, about a 9-hour stay. But as bad as that sounds, it really isn't. I have lots of friends there and we drag our IV trees around the treatment center and visit each other all day - a kind of cancer block party. I don't know if this is something that happens on days when I'm not there, but I'm glad they let us get away with it. We learn a lot from each other and generally create a pretty good vibe in a place that might not ordinarily have one. As bad as cancer is, one of the gifts it brings is being with these people - the patients, nurses and doctors - they're all just the best.This week by the numbers - marker up slightly at 7.2. I should try to see if I can animate a stock ticker on the side to display the tumor marker numbers. I used to keep a spreadsheet with a running graphical display, but lost track of it - buried in a distant subdirectory.
I am running a belated Hanukkah picture - last Wednesday was the last day, but I thought I'd include it as this week's postscript:
The menorah is a little hard to make out in the image. Sorry about that.
