Follow Up at UCLA

We made it safely to UCLA and back today without any celebrity deaths! Thank Goodness!

I had a follow up with my oncologist today and things are going well. She finally gave me a proper weaning schedule for the Predisone, but it looks like I will be on it at least another month. I will be glad to be done with it. She does believe it is helping the rash, so I need to stay on it.

Speaking of the rash, it is resolving, and is not as painful, "flaky" or raw as it once was. I am however spotted where the rash was. The bad news from today is that my doctor said it could take months for the spots to go away, and I could end up with some scarring. The funny part was that she warned me not to use any "skin bleaching" products until she approved. I had not heard of such thing, so when both Brett and I said "bleaching?" she said, "you know, like Michael Jackson!" Which gave us all a chuckle remembering our last visit. (Oh yeah, I was correct and a paparazzi pulled the fire alarm -what a mess!) I'm also still pretty fatigued, and she said part of that was the Predisone, and part of it the chemo recovery.

The best news is that my blood levels were great and I am still cancer free! I see her again in two weeks and at that time she thinks we may be able to start chemo pill maintenance with the ATRA (Vitamin A).

I did not intentionally leave Brett out of the last update. Blame it on chemo brain. Brett is doing well. Brett is starting to return to work more during the week as he feels more comfortable leaving me alone at home. I think that is a fantastic sign that we are finally starting to get back to normal. For all that we've been through, it has absolutely been rough on Brett. I feel bad because there are many people taking care of me, but not many to take care of him. We are looking into some local cancer support groups, and we are surviving day by day. Brett has been my absolute hero, and I know we will survive.

Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers. I'll keep you posted! KCA!