Still haven't managed to find the cat

OK, so cycle 4 underway. Sandi has another day before it is complete and the chemo cycle is done. We're hoping the side effects won't be as bad as last time. We're trying to stay on top of them better this time plus she's 2 more weeks more healed from the stomach surgery, so maybe. It's not likely to ever be "good" during chemo week though... Her blood counts all looked pretty good. Sandi fights hard to eat when she doesn't want to. That's not easy, but is important. Turkey on sourdough with homemade cranberry sauce has been the ticket lately.

Sandi had a CT scan this week also. It showed that the tumor was "stable" ... which means they couldn't observe any growth. This is good (duh). It is not possible, really, to determine how much of the tumor has died back, if any, as dying/dead tumor tissue doesn't really look different than live "healthy" tumor tissue. The CT just doesn't show that very well. However, her previous CA19-9 indicator number was very good, so that + stable CT is about as much as we could hope for this early in the game. She'll get another CA19-9 marker test in a couple weeks, and we're looking for that number to fall further. This falling number is good and indicates the chemo is working. She won't likely get another CT scan for several more chemo cycles. One thing that's becoming more real is that this is a long game. The trick is just taking each day as it comes.

Sandi's friend Dana is here visiting this week, so she has some relief from having to put up with my driving... (I'm sure that is reducing her stress at least 50%). She's really helping a lot with the girls, and supporting Sandi.