Yesterday was Paul's parents' 69th wedding anniversary. Since his mom Fran died, Paul's dad Mike is doing ok. Mike keeps busy, which is how he copes. He and Paul miss Fran and it will be a big adjustment for both of them. Paul will be going back again to Milwaukee soon to check in on his dad -- in addition to Paul's many calls a day to see how Mike is doing. Mike lost 30 pounds since Fran went to the nursing facility since Mike didn't want to eat much while he was sitting with at Fran's bedside. But lately, he's been trying to take better care of himself trying to gain back some of the weight he lost. Mike has always been a really good cook and enjoys eating when he's feeling good.

On the Tim and Paul front... At first, Tim's CT scan results seemed mixed. His tumor was not shrinking any more. We thought it meant that the drugs were no longer effective and that the tumor was not responding further to treatment. But when Tim talked with his oncologist, she explained that the dead pancreatic cancer cells had formed scar tissue. No further shrinkage is expected and only tumor growth will be significant. Our other concern was that Tim's bile duct stent will soon need reaming out to allow better flowage from his liver to avoid another bout of jaundice. Tim went into the last round of chemo not feeling so great which then carried over into the current round of chemo. We're both hoping he'll start to feel less nauseated and gain back some taste and appetite.

Paul, meanwhile, had really good lab results. His chemo seems to be doing it's thing. The only result that wasn't so good was that his neutrophils (white blood cells) had dropped pretty significantly meaning that Paul is more vulnerable to infections -- which makes his plane trips a little more precarious. But, he's determined to do it. Paul's stem cell harvesting is likely to be delayed for at least another month or two since he's still responding to the current chemo treatment.

Live Oaks (Quercus sp) at Morgan Territory