New Info, But No Drama--Maybe

That there is a pitcha of me an cowboy. I'm the white dog who can't quit kissin him. In the third picture, he looks purty darn happy. Then I kiss him again cause he's just SO cute!

Today Brave Billy got his FINAL "red devil". He's hopped up on steroids right now and feels great from the anti-nausea IVs. He will feel fantastic till Saturday, at which time he will experience his own personal zombie apocalypse with a little of the Book of Revelation thrown in. Poor baby.

DATE FOR SCAN THAT WILL DETERMINE ABOUT A MILLION THINGS IN OUR LIVES: JULY 30TH, A MONDAY. We get the scan around noon in Winston. At 2:30, we will be told by Dr. Thomas, our Wake Forest Oncologist who replaced our beloved Dr. Torti, what the CT scan showed.

GULP!

But, here was a surprise. We were handed our chemo schedule as we left today. I thought, "Chemo schedule? I thought chemo was dependent on what the scan shows." Hmmm. But apparently, no matter what the scan shows: (a) no tumor; or (b) a shrunken tumor; or (c) a tumor that has flourished mightily under the red devil and has grown into its own township, complete with a school system and shopping mall, and its own daily newspaper --no matter which of those the scan shows, they have Bill scheduled for TWELVE WEEKS OF MORE CHEMO! ARGH!

That's three months. ONCE A WEEK! OMGosh. Can he TAKE it? And it's all new drugs: carboplatin and taxol. So we have NO idea yet what these *new* drugs will do to his poor tired hairless nauseated body.

As they said, there are NO drugs known to science that can fight bladder cancer of his type, so they are just throwing darts blindfolded at this point, to be nice. Pin the chemo drug on the donkey.

Lots of folks have said they'd vote for him to quit chemo and have a great time as long as he can. But good luck convincing the ole cowboy of anything. He wants to fight like Chuck Norris in a rodeo full of foam-at-the-mouth bulls. He just wants to fight, fight, fight. 

Well, he gets to make the call. I'll be at his side cheering him on, no matter what kind of path he chooses.

So, in summary: Monday, July 30: scan at Wake Forest. Results at 2:30 pm. Interesting drive home, that will be, I am sure.

Then, two days later, start the new 3-month, once a week regimen of all new drugs. Of course, he can back out if he wants, after we see the scan results.

He's more and more excited about his baby girl coming to visit (well, she can be  29 and still be his baby girl)--we both are excited. Emma Jane is GREAT with sickbed scenarios and got plenty of practice with the cowboy when he was at Duke for 800 years in 2010.

That's all for now. Thank you for your beautiful, deeply touching love letters, and well wishes. You know we can't answer them all, but it doesn't mean we don't read each one over and over and over and feel our hearts lifted up so high by your endless patience and love and PRAYER!

Next post will be this coming Sunday, just to keep on my schedule. Love to you all. Go kiss a puppy. It's fun.