Yesterday, I flew up here to Boston in order to have updated CT and bone scans. Both procedures were uneventful, except once again, the CT fluid acted like a barium enema. I’ll leave it at that. Needless to say, my afternoon in the hotel room pretty much sucked.
Last night it was pouring down rain, so I just went to an Italian restaurant connected to the hotel and picked up dinner to go. Between not being in my own bed and the residual effects of 150mg of Prednisone, I slept like a baby, with colic! The good news is my appointment was not until 1:00 PM, so  I was able to sleep a little later this morning to make up for my lost sleep.

I ran into my friend Ralph from New Jersey. It was nice to see a familiar face and catch up with him.  He is in the same trial, and currently on the same dose (75mg). He is also
experiencing the same side effects as me,: lack of appetite, nausea, diarrhea, etc.
We’ll touch base later this week to compare the outcomes of both our appointments.

I went over everything in detail with Dr. S and he recommended we change to a lower dose (50mg). I told him I’d like to see the bone scan first. When we compared yesterday’s scans to those taken in August, it was incredible to see the contrast and a relief to be able to see how much the tumors have gone down. Even comparing the scans to those just taken 9 weeks ago, there were very noticeable reductions. Some of the reporting from the pharmaceutical company lags behind but what they did have showed a 42% overall reduction from Aug thru the November scans. After yesterday’s it might be 50%. After seeing these, we agreed to lower the dose to 50mg. The doctor was very certain all the side effects would lesson by doing so.

I return to Boston again in 6 weeks just for an appointment to meet with the doctor, and then 6 weeks later I will return for the same routine as this week to have updated scans.

There was snow on the ground when I arrived yesterday. Right now it’s 55 degrees and
sunny! Somebody sang ‘Life is good today’, and I agree – it sure is.