Final Treatment Done (!)

Went for a cat scan and my final avastin treatment yesterday. As per usual, the cat scan involved drinking the nasty raspberry crystal lite solution but it went pretty quickly and smoothly otherwise. I also had the standard tests done and then in to see Dr. I. He had already seen the results of the cat scan (and other tests) and said that everything was looking really good. We talked for a while afterwards and then we were done - while I'm not going to miss treatment much, I will miss seeing Dr. I (who reassured me to call anytime I had any questions or problems). Afterwards, I went into the waiting room where I fell asleep and, next thing I knew, the nurse was waking me to go in for my avastin treatment and it also went quickly and smoothly. The staff there is great and they wished me well knowing that it was my final treatment - going to miss seeing them too. The rest of my treatment is now evaluations. In early December I'll need to go for an endoscopy after which I will meet with Dr. I once again. I will also be following up w/my nutritionist at that time.

Last Thursday marked a year since my cancer diagnosis - quite a year. I read through the blog to remind myself of all that's happened and I now realize how much I left out - it was just too tough to write at the time to get everything down. For instance, at one point I made reference to the 'tanning booth' that looks a bit out of context now - I always referred to the radiation machine as the 'tanning booth'. Whenever I got on that machine, I knew it was killing parts of me and it scared the hell out of me each time because I wasn't sure what was going to be left afterwards. I didn't put it in the blog at the time because I didn't feel like expending a lot of energy whining about something that no one could do anything about but it was still a big part of the experience. All-in-all, while there are some things I wish I had done differently, I'm happy that I got down as much as I did and I appreciate all of the responses I got from everyone.

So I'm feeling pretty good overall these days. I still have pain and continue to go for acupuncture but the pain's not that bad and things continue to improve. Eating also continues to improve and swallowing is pretty normal these days. I continue going to the gym 3x a week and try to get out on weekends and be active. I'm still pretty tired by the time Friday rolls around and tend to spend Friday evenings resting, watching TV or dvds, and sleeping late on Saturdays. Again, pretty good overall - it's been 7 months since the operation and it really does take a year to recover from so the next 5 months are pretty important.

In the last post, I mentioned I was thinking of retiring this blog and replacing it w/a mailing list. In the end, I've decided that I'm going to keep this blog up and send out messages to a mailing list whenever I update it, that way anyone interested will know when to check out the blog. If u're interested in receiving such email about updates, send email to me at:

hmurakami49@gmail.com

and I will put you on the mailing list.

be well all,

--Dr D

PS - got a note from Sloan-Kettering saying that my Aunt and Uncle nicely made a donation on my behalf. I appreciate that very much.