Bye bye beach.

Yesterday morning we had to get up early to leave Emerald Isle and drive up to Duke for another treatment.  It seems like no matter where we are we need to drive to Duke for something, and the beach was no exception.  It was sad having to leave the beach and our family but 4 days of fun in the ocean and eating lots of fresh seafood gave us some memories that we can take home with us.

Emerald Isle at sunset.

The appointment at Duke was my last treatment for Cycle 2.  I now have 2 weeks off and then return to Duke again on Sept 20 for some testing; bloodwork, a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy.  Then on Sept 25 we have an appointment to see the doctor and review the test results, which will determine whether we continue with more treatment cycles or proceed with preparing for a bone marrow transplant.  My gut feeling is that we will find there has been good progress in treating and reducing the cancer but more treatment time is needed, so we will start Cycle 3 and check back with more tests later on.  But maybe that feeling in my gut is just yesterday's chemo doing it's thing.  One suprise from yesterday's visit was the finding that my blood is quite thin.  I have taken coumadin, a blood thinner, for years and never had any real problems maintaining a proper clotting level.  But all of a sudden it has spiked way up, most likely the interaction with another drug I have started taking as part of my treatments. So the next few weeks will be spent trying to get things stabalized and back to normal.  My regular family doctor said I was not allowed to ride my skateboard for the next 3 weeks.  Bummer.