Chemo continues with cycle 8

This weekend is the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Thanks to everyone who has donated. I’m starting to worry that our training wasn’t nearly aggressive enough. The 40-mile course is actually 45.54 miles with about 1100 ft of elevation gain. The posting explains: “Route distances will vary slightly for the LIVESTRONG Challenge Austin due to road limitations that compromise the LAF’s high safety standard. However, the constantly rolling Hill Country terrain coupled with heat, wind exposure and the infamous Texas chip and seal pavement makes the Austin course the most difficult in the series.” …hmm..nice – I definitely think the emphasis this weekend will be on “Challenge”.

Kevin is doing great. He is gaining weight – currently at 165 lbs. It’s hard to believe this past spring he was only 140 lbs. He is also regaining a lot of his strength and has even started doing a few little projects around the house. – Must be all the positive energy everyone is sending his way. He is in the 2nd week of cycle 8 with his chemo. Last month they tried to double his dose (cycle 7) and after a couple weeks some of the bad side effects came back on pretty strong, so they backed off. This time through they started him at 1.5x standard dose. His scans continue to show stabilization, but the hope is that we can actually get some regression of the tumors. The brain MRI was also positive (as in good news). The Stereotactic Radiosurgery seems to have helped since the MRI indicates necrosis in the frontal lobe tumor. We also discovered (from scans made the day of the radiosurgery) that just prior to the procedure, the tumor began to bleed quite a bit. But now the scans show a decreased amount of blood indicating it is being absorbed back into to the body.