Halfway there feels really good...

I want to start this long-overdue blog post with an apology for not writing one every week, for all of you interested in how things are going for us. Things are going so well for me that I don't think about telling people how well they are doing...maybe not talking about it so much is making me feel even better. So, for the next six months I will try diligently to tell my story more frequently. I do appreciate everyone's interest, so I will work at it.

On this past Monday, January 25th, I received the 13th Avastin infusion. (OK, I know I'm supposed to say Avastin/Placebo, but I'm getting enough feelings and reactions internally during and after the infusion that I'm quite certain I'm getting Avastin, and will likely keep saying so.) Since I'll have 26 infusions during the clinical trial -- I am now halfway through! Hurrah! I'm feeling better month by month, though I certainly feel the effects of both chemotherapies -- the Avastin and the five-days-out-of-twenty-eight dose of Temodar. Since my two most recent MRI's have shown that my brain has no sign of the cancer cells from the glioblastoma that was removed in June 2009, there are no cells for my chemotherapy to attack. The inevitable result is that they are affecting other parts of my system. Killing things, after all, are the reason for taking them in. So I work my way through that, but it is infinitely preferable to still having cancer cells reproducing in my brain.

And life is moving along very nicely in other ways too. I signed my contract for working with The Nature Conservancy as a contractor, just as the past two years. Getting back into working will help in many ways, not the least of which is earning pay. I'm doing a lot of cooking, too, as my appetites seem to have fully returned, and I have a freezer filled up with mule deer, with gifts on the side of elk and mountain goat. We've taken up using our treadmill regularly, too, as it is raining a lot and Faith and I are both trying to upgrade our exercise levels. Working well so far, too.

Travelling to Seattle every other Sunday has become pretty standard, and pretty comfortable. I've become very familiar with my medical work there, and with a batch of the nurses and managers. They know us by our first names and greet us happily, and we have great visits. We also have big trips planned in February and March. We're both going to the Mule Deer Foundation annual meeting in Salt Lake City -- Faith is running a Forest Service information booth there on Sitka blacktailed deer, and I'm running for the Board of Directors. I leave the ending Sunday for Texas, for a week-long feral pig hunt with friends. In March we go to Reno for Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. So our ventures and adventures should keep us occupied and happy.

Again, I apologize for not keeping you all better informed. Things are going well, so I shall try to keep that information level up too.

Here's hoping 2010 goes very well for all of us...

Dennis & Faith