ONE TREATMENT DOWN!

Mom and dad just got home from spending the day at the doctor's office. She did well and she's in good spirits. She went in to this with quite a bit of strength. She was walking 2 miles each night by last week, so her body is ready for a fight!

We were excited to find out that they can combine her erbatux treatment (the one every other week in-between the heavy duty treatments) with her heavy duty treatments. What that means is that she doesn't have to go to the doctor's office every single week. Instead, her extra erbatux will be given along with all of the other chemotherapy drugs every other week. So, she'll go in on Thursdays for her chemotherapy, come home with her chemo pump to administer the rest for 48 hours, get the pump removed on Saturday, then receive a neulasta shot every Sunday (neulasta boosts her white blood cell count). She will then have almost two weeks to recover before visiting the doctor again. It will be psychologically and emotionally easier to be away from the doctor's office. Although the nursing staff has been great, one of them told her yesterday, "You and one other guy are the only ones still alive who had this kind of cancer!" She was trying to be optimistic, but I think that's enough to freak anybody out! Luckily, they read a memo faxed to the doctor here in ABQ from Dr. Abdalla in Houston. The memo said that he thinks her 5 year prognosis is excellent. Thank heaven for Dr. Abdalla! We just hope that mom stays strong and continues to respond as well to the chemo as she did prior to the surgery. We're optimistic and have no reason to be anything but!