Things are going well.........

Sorry, it's been awhile since I posted anything, a month to be exact.
I have made a major turn around and feel a lot better.

The burn on my chest is healed. That was nasty but there is a cool dressing that promotes
healing by keeping it moist and never letting it scab and no scar formation either.

The pain in my chest is gone when I'm swallowing. It was like having
one of those headaches
you get from rapidly swallowing a real cold drink.
For about 3 weeks I had to spoon in a mixture of Maalox and 2% viscous lidocaine gel
to numb my esophagus before I swallowed anything but Ensure.
I'm about 90% back to eating anything I want. I do have to think about when to swallow
and the size of the portion.....too big and it does scrape the sides as it goes down.
I think I have a small stricture which probably go away with time.

My hair is slowly growing back but I will probably lose it again...........

At my last appointment where several opinions were gathered from around the country
on how to treat me...
University of Washington said done with treatment and scan again in three months....Yale
gurus had no opinion.
There are several chemo drugs that I can take one is GEMZAR. It works on the
squamous cells of which my cancer has some involvement.
Side affects are hair loss, flu like symptoms, and anemia and drop in immune
system. Something to look forward to.

So the tentative plan is to do a couple more rounds of chemo with different drugs
and try to kill off any cancer cells that may be hiding out.

I did much better with the chemo than radiation so I'm willing to give it a shot.

I have returned going to the gym, going for walks around the bog, our weather has been beautiful and my garden is in so I might as well do it.

So, I'll let you know when we start something.

Thanks for all the prayer and well wishes.

Nancy

Update on the update...
Hopefully I will be starting chemo again Monday, June 7th
another dose Monday 14th, have three weeks off
then again July 5th and 12th. Yeah, that's cutting it close to Joels wedding on the 18th but I'm eating better and hopefully
can keep my blood count up and can hang out with
folks when they get here.