Update

After several lengthy posts and a major holiday I figured I'd just take it easy and get everyone up to speed this AM. I had an appointment at Hopkins yesterday to check blood counts and to determine if I could start round 4 on Monday.

As it turns out my WBCs are again up to Super-Human levels thanks to some nifty pharmaceuticals but my platelets actually dropped a little. My doctor indicated that this tradeoff is fairly common and should right itself over the weekend. This means that they need to check counts again on Monday with the goal of a Tuesday start.

I am anxious to get the in-patient portion of the round over with so that I can move into the part where I begin to get feedback information on the progress of my treatment. I'll be getting some further CT Scans and a bone marrow biopsy all in an effort to gauge just how badly I'm beating cancer. Stay tuned to the blog sites because my efforts to get ESPN to cover the test results have proven unsuccessful.

Since it is new information to me I'll pass this along and sign off: The earlier CT Scan (from my fever-based trip to the hospital) that showed improvement in the lymph nodes in my chest apparently showed was the topic of discussion during my visit yesterday. My Nurse Practitioner shared with me the scan results and interpretations that indicated that nodes that had been measuring over 5 cm were at 8 mm. The most encouraging part is that these changes were seen after just two rounds of treatment! Here's to the hope that the bone marrow cancer cells are just as much in retreat as the lymph nodes!