No Clever Title

Try as I might, I'm not having much luck coming up with titles today. This is frustrating because I was asked to think about game titles for work today and I totally drew a blank. Similarly, I'm drawing a complete blank coming up with something delightfully witty for this post. And that lack of a slyly humorous title is holding me back from finding an appropriately inappropriate pic to post alongside the text. Here's hoping all of you (and my co-workers) can manage to overlook this shortfall this time around.

After a few months of visiting the oncologist on a once a month basis, Karen is going back to biweekly visits. Our last appointment was just last Thursday. Her blood work was fine and Dr. Sherman didn't find or hear anything concerning during her physical examination. So that's good. However, Karen is increasingly finding herself short of breath. She runs out of breath if she talks awhile and if she exerts herself which these days means just walking for a bit. For the last week or so she has been making an obvious effort to conserve energy, sitting still and breathing very deliberately and limiting her speech. If we're out walking around like we were over the weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium she takes frequent rest breaks.

Karen believes the crizotinib is starting to lose its efficacy. We are on the cusp of her eighth month on the medication which is when people can typically expect it to stop working. The rash on her face--which is a side effect that indicates the drug is murderizing cancer--has gone. Her fatigue is worse. And there's the trouble breathing. So we'll be seeing the doctor every other week now to keep tabs on it.

It's not a great development but we are trying to keep our heads up. After all, we were convinced it had stopped awhile ago and everything was fine and the trouble she was having then cleared up on its own. This time, the difficulty does not seem to be going away.

The good news is that our action-packed summer continues apace. My college roommate Neal Rosen and his wife and son just spent a week with us and it was simply fantastic. If there's an upside to this cancer business it's that we have been blessed to spend lots of time with people we care deeply about and who apparently are fond of us as well. More New Yorkers are coming in two weeks (the Ferrante-Agnelli clan) and there will be family as well in August, with one of Karen's sisters visiting and with Miranda and I going to Oregon mid-month to see my sister (and maybe meet my other half-sister).

I'll post updates as they develop. Unfortunately, it looks like they might be coming more frequently now. Here's hoping the headlines can keep pace.

Baked Alaska

And so we have successfully returned from a week cruising the atypically sunny and warm shores of Alaska.

Not the Alaskan bear we saw.

Karen's Glorious Bucket List Cruise of Doom was a success pretty much all the way around. Since we didn't go on a Carnival cruise we were spared the indignity of defecating in the hallway. This made the cruise much more enjoyable. I must admit that while I still don't particularly care for cruises and did at times feel trapped on the boat, I did basically enjoy myself. Winning $300 at blackjack helps. Absolutely crushing a roomful of strangers who mistakenly thought they were participating in a couple of lighthearted trivia contests and not a bloodsport really helped. Not that I'm pathologically competitive or anything.

Karen had a great time and the trip was everything she hoped. She saw a glacier "calve" from the helipad on the bow of the ship, witnessed a whale breaching just a few yards from her whale watching boat, and even got to see a bear in the wild during our visit in Skagway. The entire thing was relentlessly documented by Karen's sister, Liz, who took a photo every time she inhaled. The kids had a good time as well, including, however improbably, Dash, who made a bunch of friends and kept so busy we hardly ever saw him. He spent the final night at sea lounging in a hammock with twin sisters.

And now we're back and work starts again tomorrow (except for the kids who actually had to return to work about 12 hours after we got back home). Karen is feeling well, we've got more friends and family lined up for visiting and except for the hellish heat things are pretty good.

If it weren't for the cancer this would be shaping up to be one of our best summers ever. It's still not too bad.