Quick Update

Let's start with Bentley, she doesn't make it into the posts often enough. She is loving that it is finally cooling off just a little. You'd be amazed at how great 80 feels at night when you take a walk and she's definitely enjoying the cooler nights. She prances around like it's a crisp fall night. She still has a small cough sometimes and is still taking her medicine for her Valley Fever but we're not concerned because she is supposed to take it for 6 months, maybe longer.

Lounging in the fake grass on Friday night

Moving up in the world and sitting on the lounge chair with me. Notice the feather on her nose :)

Mark turned the big 30 on Friday. And to celebrate he got 30 cake pops that he didn't have to share with anyone (but me). That's probably why there are at least 15 left in the fridge but hopefully we'll get through them before they go bad. The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet around here but it was a nice change of pace after our previous weekend in California.

Happy 30th Birthday Cake Pops (the rest of the 30 are on the plate in the background)

And then there is me. As part of the trial I'm in, I got an MRI between the two series of chemo treatments (between #12 and #13). Well, that was done last Thursday and I got the results back this past Tuesday. I don't know if I ever mentioned this but in our beginning talks about this trial I'm participating in, we had asked my doctor if he thought the trial was worth being part of. Probably a silly question seeing as he was recommending it but he did talk about the amazing results they were seeing with patients tumors appearing to "melt away." Well, I'd like to say that mine is reacting in much of the same way and has significantly reduced in size from when this all started. Plus, that one rogue lymph node that was "plump" is back to its normal size. Maybe after this next series of treatments there will be nothing but scar tissue left! I'll still have surgery of course but I just think that would be amazing. So YAY!

But BOO to the fact that I didn't actually start the next series of treatments this week. My blood work showed my platelets were too low. In actuality, they aren't that low (yes lower than someone not on chemo) but according to the trial, they have to be at a certain level for me to get treatment and they were just under that number. Before you get confused and ask "but you just had a blood transfusion," let me clear that up real quick. I had a red blood cell transfusion. It is pretty rare to get a full blood transfusion. Plus, they don't give you platelets unless you numbers are WAY lower than what mine are at right now. I wasn't told there was anything specific I could do to raise them, just time. Although I did look it up and healthy eating can help (guess I should leave all the remaining cake pops for Mark). Anyway, hopefully they'll be high enough this coming Tuesday to start this new round but for now, we're still waiting to do treatment #13 and now my last treatment will be the Tuesday the week of Thanksgiving. Good thing I was only doing some wishful thinking that we could go home and didn't actually buy tickets!

My original plan was to stay home the rest of the week after the new treatment but since I didn't have it I decided to work. It's definitely been weird working more than 2 days but I've been feeling good. Definitely looking forward to a relaxing weekend though.Not sure what's in store but hopefully in the next week we'll get to see Aunt Pam and Uncle Bob who are in town for Aunt Robin's youngest son's wedding next weekend (that reads confusing, sorry). It's always nice to see NC faces in AZ because it kind of feels like we're in NC...kind of. And then Pam and Bob's daughter and family (Kelly, Will, Tyler & Dyllan) will be here the middle of next week for the wedding as well and we're going to get to see them too. Yippee!