New Doctor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Hi folks!

I have just completed another round of doctors visits, with the following results. Some doctors at Dana Farber have developed a desensitization protocol to deal with allergies such as mine. Since taxol and carboplatin are the world standard treatment for ovarian cancer, with seemingly good results (extended survival rates, mainly) it is desirable to integrate the taxol into my regime. To do so, I will have to be admitted to the Brighams ICU for the first round only. I will probably be there for 24 hours but will not know the day until the bed literally becomes available. (Please don;t call and ask when because I won;t know). It will be sometime the week of July 7th. There will be a one-on-one nurse with me bedside and they will start the infusion with a very diluted version of taxol (1/100th of the dose). These will be gradually increased over a long period in 12 increments -the largest of these being the final dose. They will keep me there overnight to see how I am doing. There is a very small chance of anaphalyxis, which they can deal with immediately. It is safer for me and is very controlled. It is a protocol which has been tested on 413 patients and I feel satisfied with the results. Subsequent treatments can be done at the Dana Farber in their desensitization unit, which has a patient nurse ratio of 3:1. It all sounds very hopeful. In total, I will have 6 rounds of chemo,every 3 weeks. Those dates can;t be set up until the next one is, which is the hardest to schedule

This weekend we move into Nonquitt and leave until Thursday, at which point we will move down for the whole summer. I am looking forward to being there although I have been told that I will have no hair and that the sun isn;t good for me....it will be a wierd summer. Lots to look forward to this summer.

In other news, we lost power and phone service for 14 hours after a microburst hit at 5:00 on Tuesday. I was not here (enroute from the hospital, of course), but Amanda took the kids and dog out of the house immediately and called me from her car. It was very scary because it took down alot of trees around us and one in our yard, which wiped out the utility wires to our house. Some fell on cars with people stopped in traffic on Elm St. and one fell on the train tracks. Anyway, bad news on our landscaping. We have a big gaping hole to Elm St. in front of our house. Fortunately (although not so good for insurance reasons) it did not hit anythingelse. The tree was a huge spruce which provided good shelter from the road.

I am feeling surprisingly energetic these days. It is telling that I feel better as a chemotherapy patient than I did full of cancer. What a relief to get the bulk of it out of my body. However, a few pesky cells remain which need to go away....enjoy your summers, full of happiness!!!