Worth the price of admission

I apologize if this post is devoid of humor or good cheer. I am blogging through a terrific headache. There is quite a bit of good news to share and so I want to fight through it to get all this out there.

First, I just learned that I'm going home today--very good news. They were unable to grow a culture from any samples that they took. This leads them to conclude that I had no infection of any sort and that my fever must have had more innocent roots.

But the big news I actually received after I typed yesterday's post. One of the medical tests they performed on my first evening in the hospital was a CT Scan of my sinuses and chest. I asked the doctor when he informed me of the need for thistest if I could get any updates regarding the mass in my chest from this CT Scan. He said that he would be able to see those lymph nodes but said that given how early I am in my treatment regimen that any noticeable difference would not be likely.

Yesterday at rounds I was told that, indeed, there is a noticeable decreasing of the mass in the lymph nodes in my chest well before doctors would routinely see such an effect with this treatment. This, of course, does not account at all for another mass not viewable in the scan or the cancerous cells in my bone marrow but it is a first indication of the efficacy of the treatments I'm receiving. Excellent and encouraging news.