Tammy's white blood cells recovered nicely so she had her second dose of chemo Wednesday. Her "take home chemo" is about 2 hours from being done and then she has the "white blood cell shot" tomorrow (stimulates bone marrow to grow white blood cells faster so hopefully no more delays). She is having alot more nausea this time around and even some esophageal spasms which she HATES...but she is pushing through and things get a little better each day. Before the treatment she was

Tammy's white blood cell count was too low on Thursday for Chemo, so the second treatment has to be rescheduled to hopefully sometime next week (have to squeeze us in). There were indications in the blood test that the white blood cells would recover soon (other types of white blood cells were recovering well), so they weren't worried -- apparently this is common. From now on, I believe she will get an extra drug to help her white blood cells recover faster. The good news is

We are 1 week into the first chemo treatment, the next one is 10/8 (next thursday). The first round of chemo was ok...caused a few issues here and there but not horrible yet. The bigger problem is that Tammy's GI system still is struggling after surgery, causing difficulties eating, alot of discomfort and continued lost weight. She has good days and bad days still. Looks like Catherine is going to take a leave of absence from her school in West Palm and stay with us for a wh

Chemo is about 6 hours of in-hospital infusions and a take home pump with 46 hours of additional at home infusion. Then repeat every 2 weeks. We are at home and Tammy is doing well so far. Apparently the IV drugs they give her for nausea and things are very good so you typically get worse after a couple days...so we will see. Tammy currently eating dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes and ensure. More later as we figure out how this will go.

Had the second second opinion from Sloan Kettering today. Same story - they agree with the plan at UF and don't think that radiation therapy is valuable. This cancer is rare and there isn't any direct research on it -- so they generally follow the protocols for pancreatic cancer. Not alot of treatment options here, but at least we can do it from home where we have LOTS of support. We also had chemo training today (chemo starts next thursday) -- 2 hours of discussion of possib