Bubkes

I visited MD Anderson yesterday. I drove from Austin with pal Stephanie. We met cousin Julie so she could join us for the meeting with Dr. F. Stephanie and Julie provide tremendous support, humor and relief from having to drive myself to Houston, on these visits. (No good comes from me being alone with my imagination 3 hours before or after an MD Anderson appointment.) No time for puzzles. We went straight in and got to the heart of the matter with the MD Anderson team.

“Jan, I’m going to teach you a Yiddish word. Bubkes. This means nothing. You’ve got one big piece of cancer, other than that, bubkes.” This was Dr. F’s response when I drilled him about finding other cancers in the CT scans taken in May “You’ve had time to really study those tests. Is there anything in my lungs? What about my intestines?” Bubkes. Good news.

We reviewed the CT scans from May again. It’s really all about tami and getting her the hell out. Dr. F. reminded me that my focus needs to be on the liver tumor. “We have a long way to go.” We are not trying to reach a certain size at this point. The desired shrinkage size is balanced with my tolerance of the medicine and side effects. I think it’s one of those things we’ll know when we get there.

On another note, my rash of unknown origin has a possible origin. It seems a small number of patients experience a severe rash from Temodar. Once again, I seem to be in that small number. As a result, I will take steroids with the Temodar (5 days per cycle). I said, “No, I don’t want to take them.” I was oddly assertive. Next, I pleaded. I gave a good argument why I wouldn’t be taking the ‘roids, but was overruled by Dr. F. He and nurse Bigshot both got the look on their faces. Many of my health care specialists give me this look. It often means, Jan, you've been reading again haven't you? The one where they tilt their heads to the left, listen, nod and smile patiently while I finish whatever rant I am on. They handed me the prescription anyway. Doi.

More chemo next Monday. Vacation at the beach next week. Hats and tons of sunscreen. We’ll measure progress on July 15 and discuss on July 16. I believe we’ll do more chemo after we discuss the progress.

I’ll leave you with another Yiddish word for nothing, courtesy of Dr. F. GORNISHT.

Photos

smack, smack,
Jan

PS. In case you are confused, yes, there really is another tumor in my lymph node next to my pancreas. It is much smaller and will be taken out when tami is removed. I didn’t forget, don’t worry.