Infusion 53, another CT, and maybe lung mets

I flew back to the DC area on October 11 and stayed overnight in my increasingly empty house. On Friday morning Spencer and I drove up to Pittsburgh to visit Garrett. It was Carnegie Mellon’s family weekend, so we took the chance to see how he was adjusting to college life. He was delighted to see us and get some food off campus. He’s finding his courses to be challenging and, for the first time is actually having to do rigorous homework. He said that he’s still finding the balance between meeting his school obligations and everything else.

After attending various campus events on Saturday (and playing 5 games of racquetball), we drove back to Northern Virginia. Along the way, we listened to a chapter of David Brooks’ The Road to Character of his profile of Dorothy Day, then had a freewheeling discussion about the development of values, character, free will and determinism, and what really mattered in life. It was one of those uncommon conversations with my sons that showed their searching and development into maturity, and a memory that I locked into my hippocampus.

On Sunday Garrett and I attended church, where one of his colleagues spoke about serving in the same mission as Garrett served. The opportunity to visit with members of the church where he grew up gave him both pleasure and the realization that he was in their eyes fully formed and launched into the world. From church I took him to the airport to fly back to Pittsburgh and school. I likely won’t see him until the winter break.

With my CT scan and infusion not scheduled until Wednesday, I spent Monday and Tuesday finishing packing the few things remaining in the Great Falls house. I built a large wooden crate to house an antique leaded glass cabinet from Jennifer’s great-grandmother, and another crate to transport a mica shade from our arts and crafts light. I found a couple of closets that had not been emptied, cleaned out my safe, packed my tools, and sorted more of the detritus in the garage. Habitat for Humanity picked up more large furnishings, and Salvation Army got many bags of once-valuable things that I’ll never think of again. The small pile of remaining things will be transported to Utah by Spencer later this month when he will drive our Forester and a small U Haul trailer west. Although Spencer will continue to live in the house until it sells, in theory by the end of this month there should be no more stuff in the house that 'll need to move.

Speaking of the house, in August I took it off the market to refinance the HELOC that was coming due as a balloon payment. Wells Fargo’s underwriters didn’t want to write on a house that was actively listed, so my agent pulled it out of the MLS.  In less than 30 days the bank had the new loan in place. My realtor decided to leave it off for 90 days so the days on market counter would reset to zero. Meanwhile, we’ve still had some showings and even got a lowball offer. Hopefully we’ll get some more interest once it goes on the market next month.

On Wednesday October 17, I visited with Dr. Ferrera, my Kaiser oncologist, who told me that my labs were utterly unremarkable, and that physically I seemed to be doing ok. I then went downstairs for another CT scan (#33, I think). I asked the CT tech to use a 20 gauge needle and leave it in place since I was going to have my infusion immediately after the scan. 

I walked back upstairs and was soon seated in the infusion area, laptop in place and Diet Coke by my side. I was wearing my Krispy Kreme shirt, and several patients and nurses asked me where I had the doughnuts. I pointed to my belly. Once nurse started jonesing for donuts, and talked about how she and another nurse would try as many different types of donut shops as they could get to. She recommended Texas Donuts in Centerville -- "donuts the size of Flintstone wheels!" Sounds like my kind of place. With the duration of infusion down to 30 minutes, there’s barely enough time to get settled before I’m done.

Infusion No. 53 was utterly routine, which is a good thing. Except for the lingering rash on my forehead, I’ve not had any side effects. No rash anywhere else. No coughing, breathing issues, or diarrhea. No temperature spikes. No signs of an autoimmune reaction. Dr. Ferrera and I agreed to keep going with my 4 week infusion schedule for at least the next 3 months barring anything unexpected. I’m scheduled for additional infusions with Kaiser on Nov. 14 and Dec. 12, and I’ll have one more visit with Dr. Ferrera on Dec. 13. Then with the new year I’ll transition my care to Dr. Ben Maughan at the Huntsman Cancer Center in Utah. 

I flew back to Utah on Thursday, and today (Friday) was called by a Kaiser nurse who told me that my CT showed no changes from my last scan -- no new tumor growth, minimal uptake in my primary tumor in my neck, and no other areas of concern. Dr. Ferrera wanted to do another PET scan in December to help ensure that my transition to Utah has the most complete information possible. I'll keep on going until something else happens.

October 21, 2018 update: Kaiser posted the results of my scans. The node in my neck is unchanged in size, 11 mm x 12 mm. In my lung, "there is a new pulmonary nodule with spiculation and associated parenchymal nodule in the medial upper lobe measuring 7 mm. This is moderately concerning for metastatic lesion versus and inflammatory pulmonary nodule." I did not get this information from the phone call, so I'm glad I read the scan. I've scheduled the PET for December, and we'll see what it shows.

Meanwhile I've been anticipating my first Utah winter in 34 years by buying a season pass to Snow Basin, my "home" ski area of my youth. The area is almost unrecognizable, having tripled in size since I last skied there in the early 1980s. I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with the mountain.