The roller-coaster ride continues. Paul's mom in Milwaukee has been in the hospital for over a week now. She has a form of gout which is very painful and debilitating. She's not very mobile so she can't go back home yet. They will be sending her to a rehab facility next week if all goes according to plan in the hopes of increasing her mobility so she can go home again. Paul isn't able to travel right now, so there are a lot of phone calls back and forth to his dad, the doctors, the nurses and the social worker. The social worker has been really great at coordinating and facilitating things for Paul's mom and dad. Paul’s dad is at the hospital every day, all day sitting with mom. At 93 and 96, they're both real troopers.

Meanwhile, Tim resumed his chemo treatments. Unfortunately, the side effects of nausea and lack of appetite have returned -- although not as severe as in previous treatments so far. He discussed the idea of extending his chemo from every 2 weeks to every 3 weeks, but his Oncologist advised against it. If the pancreatic tumor starts to grow again, it would grow exponentially and it would be fatal sooner.

Paul's lab numbers continue to improve, but now the docs at Stanford and Kaiser want him to have his stem cells harvested sometime later this month or early September. The harvested stem cells will be frozen and stored for when Paul needs a transplant. There's still some debate about whether or not to wait a little longer to see if Paul's levels go any lower before doing the harvesting. Although they can't totally get rid of the cancer cells, the idea is to aim for when there are as few cancer cells as possible. When it happens, harvesting first will involve several tests including a bone marrow biopsy most of which will be done at Kaiser. Once cleared for harvesting, it's usually 3-5 hours a day for 2-5 days in a row at Stanford Hospital. Depending on scheduling and other factors like traffic, Paul may be able to go back and forth from home to Stanford. The whole harvesting process usually takes 3-4 weeks. Today he goes in for a PET scan to see if any new lesions have developed.

Scented Shooting Star (Primula fragrans) at Dusy Basin, Eastern Sierra