Warsaw Sunset

Set the gearshift for the high gear of your soul,
You've got to run like an antelope...out of control.

taken w/cell phone thru dirty windshield
while driving over lake

{The first three pictures were taken from atop a bluff
by Kori...better camera, better photographer.}

Kori and I jumped in his car Saturday afternoon to go to a place where he has rock climbed in the past.

There was no wind, the water was perfectly calm...it looked like a plate of glass reflecting the sky back at itself.

So calming, so relaxing, so nice to just get in the car and go. We found a cool walking stick along the way, listened to some great tunes during the ride, and just enjoyed the perfect weather.

When we got home Izabella was still up, so I stuck around for a little while to spend some time with her before she had to go to bed.

***
I am feeling good these days. Still tired, still bald, still overweight (for me), voice is still messed up...but overall, pretty good.

I haven't really experienced too many side effects with Xeloda. Because of this, Dr. McK and I discussed bumping my dosage up. Well, that and the fact that he's worried that if I'm not suffering from side effects, the cancer might not be suffering either.

I reminded him that I tend to tolerate drugs differently than most people, that this particular drug is cumulative, and that I've only had 3 full rounds so far. He agreed with me acknowledging that I was on Taxotere for 2 years and was never as sick as some people are with it. He called in a prescription for more Xeloda (which I filled), but left it up to me as to the timing of when to change the dosage.

So, bottom line: I haven't upped my dosage just yet. That's one of the major differences between infusion chemo drugs and oral chemo drugs...CONTROL. If they're pumping the drugs into me every three weeks that's one thing, I just have to show up. But if you leave it up to me to take 4 (or 5) pills a day that's a whole different story. What if I forget (I haven't...and won't), what if I just don't wanna do it (I haven't...but might).

They tested my tumor marker (CA27-29) again today. Still too soon in my opinion, since my last test was done on February 9th, and I've only had two more rounds of Xeloda since then.

I'm not a big fan of tumor marker tests, my past doctors weren't either, but Dr. McK uses them to track the trend.

My 'trend' has been increasing over time, slowly...but still going up, which is not the way we want it to be going.

"Normal" is 0, here are my scores:

06/09/08 - 65 (began chemo break)
09/15/08 - 89 (still on break...but not for long)
10/15/08 - 88 (after 1 Taxotere treatment)
11/10/08 - 119 (after 3 Taxotere treatments)
12/15/08 - 123 (happy b-day to me!)
01/07/09 - 140 (after 5 Taxotere treaments,
which are obviously not working)
02/09/09 - 151 (after 1 Xeloda round)
03/16/09 - ??? (after 3 Xeloda rounds)

Here's hoping for a downward trend. I meet again with Dr. McK. on 3/30.

In the meantime, I plan to continue to enjoy this brief respite.

Next up: St. Pat's day/Steph's annual birthday celebration on Tuesday!!!

FIRE!PIT!
(at a birthday party I attended Friday night)