and the waiting begins...

I went to work for a bit yesterday and then I hustled off to UCSF to get scanned. First up was my ultrasound. After waiting more than an hour (that office is chronically late, I don't know why I bother to show up on time at this point) they scanned me. It took quite a bit of looking around before it was confirmed by two different radiologists that they cannot find anything to measure! They can see an area where it looks like something was going on, but there's nothing left to see with an ultrasound. I suspect I will need an MRI soon (better resolution).

Then it was off to my CT scan. The particular scan I have been getting looks at my heart as well as the organs in the lower half of my body (Tykerb can cause heart damage in some folks). The problem with this kind of scan is that the contrast has to get pushed into you FAST! This means they need a big gauge IV. It hasn't been a problem in the past, but today there was a new tech...and my veins hide as soon as they sense the tech is nervous. She tried hard, but no luck. They finally called Eli (who I've renamed 'the vein whisperer') from across the street. He came in and got it started in one try (it was the 5th poke for me). It all seemed pretty good at that point, but not so fast; They pushed the contrast in and I knew right away something wasn't right... It turns out that some of the contrast leaked out of my vein. Thankfully enough went in to get the pictures, but I left there with a big bulge on the back of my hand (and three cold packs for my trip home).

It's nice to know the results of the ultrasound already, now I'm just waiting for the results of the CT scan along with the verdict from the tumor board. I will know more on Thursday. I expect there will be more tests before I know for sure what comes next. I'm hoping to at least be done with the trial. This high dose of Tykerb has been ROUGH! There is a lot of puking, lots of nausea followed by a serious case of the trots.

Thanks for all the good thoughts. We're hanging in and hoping for the best.

The news from Duluth is that Keith's mom continues to do "ok", but the neurologist now thinks a trip down to the Mayo Clinic is appropriate. That will happen in a couple more weeks. We're all very curious to learn if Mayo will discover anything different or if we just need to continue to persevere with patience.

Like my new 'school picture'? Maybe I'll sign the back and send them to some of you...