Remarkably Unremarkable

Your PET scans bore me, darling.

"Boring is good." That was the informed opinion of Kathy, our nurse practitioner, during this morning's oncology appointment. This was not an assessment of Karen personally and certainly not one of me--I had just cracked up the nursing staff with a Noel Coward-caliber rectal thermometer gag centered around the punitive application of a digital thermometer with the added bonus feature of a word picture describing Karen standing up and grasping the arms of a nearby chair. When it comes to sly, nuanced wit, I am the undisputed king.

At any rate, the real cause of all the boredom were Karen's PET scan results. She'd had the scans done earlier in the week and they showed continued response to the crizotinib. In fact, they looked just the teeny tiniest bit better than they had last time around in February. We were extra delighted because Karen has been feeling more tired of late and has had some shortness of breath. We, frankly, were expecting bad news. So it was fantastic not to get any. To celebrate we will be getting our Living Trust drawn up tomorrow because we know nothing says PARTY like making a will.

It Beats Eating Live Scorpions

Behold the muscle-bound Stuart Smalley.

Our friend, quality American, and all-around good guy Ken Brown works at Nvidia and thanks to the completely arbitrary nature of the universe he had occasion to chat up UFC commentator and Fear Factor torturer Joe Rogan just the other day when he visited the Nvidia offices for a new show. Ken told Joe that he knows of him primarily from seeing the UFC at my house and that we all thought that Mike Goldberg was kind of a tool. Joe smiled knowingly.Perhaps this was the moment when the mighty Joe Rogan's heart softened just a little. In short order Ken filled in Joe on what we've been dealing with since November and Mr. Joe Rogan grabbed up a piece of paper and wrote the following "Karen, Never give up, never stop being positive, and never stop searching for a way out of this! Best of luck & love to you...Joe Rogan." It's not the most poetic thing in the world but they are tender words indeed coming from the sort of man that gleefully encourages others to drink donkey semen. And donkey urine. And God knows what else.

Karen had had a kind of rough weekend so finding out that Joe Rogan didn't want her to die was kind of nice.

When Karen gets to work on Monday, that sucker is getting taped on the wall.

Heart to Heart

So last Friday Karen had her monthly oncology check-in. While I had managed to recover from the jet lag heaped on my head from my work week in Frankfurt, I had not recovered from the metric ton of insomnia that took its place. I'm all for staying up until the wee hours of the morning but when the wee hours have actual daylight in them even I feel I've gone too far. But Friday morning, ah, it was great, I was sleeping so well. Then Karen woke me up and said it was ten minutes until her appointment and did I want to come and why don't I just keep sleeping since nothing ever happens and I said Okay but call if there's news and I'll join you asap and I went back to sleep. But not really. She left, I woke up, I had some coffee, and there was news and she didn't call me. So I won't be stupidly sleeping through these monthly check-ups anymore.

These aren't the hearts you're looking for.

So the news wasn't huge but it was this: Karen seemed to have developed a heart murmur. And the tumor markers in her blood work had risen which would imply that the cancer was coming back. Or, actually, maybe not since she has seen these markers bump up a couple of times before and it was confirmed by PET scan that all was well. Or well enough, anyway.

The heart murmur apparently demanded immediate attention. Both the cancer and the meds she is taking could potentially have an adverse affect on her heart. Which is wonderful because if you're essentially a pinata stuffed with cancer you don't really feel complete without a damaged heart. An appointment was set for today (Monday the 6th) for an echo-cardiogram to see what was going on with her heart. Happily, Karen already had planned on taking the day off work since her step-sister, the delightful Bridget David, was visiting. The three of us squeezed into the small examination room as a delightful little man in need of a more delightful big shower conducted the test. We will have to wait for a cardiologist to weigh in officially within a week or so but the technician said he didn't see anything to worry about.

As for the cancer markers. The docs at Contra Costa Oncology aren't terribly concerned since Karen has a pattern of having them fluctuate. That being said, I'd feel better with a more definitive assessment and as luck would have it Karen is scheduled for another PET scan on the 21st. We've reached the theoretical mid-point of the crizotinib's efficacy so it's time to take a look and see how she's doing. Ideally, we'll hear back from the doctor within 24 hours of having the test done.

In the meantime, we will bid a sad adieu to Bridget when she leaves Wednesday morning and then bid a fond bonjour to my parents who'll be staying for the weekend in order to observe the fiasco that my birthday has become. And of course, my mother's birthday the same day. And Mother's Day. And probably some other holiday.

I'll post more news when it happens. Which, hopefully, won't be for a long long time.