Monday July 21 2008

Small Herd of Cow Elk

Tetons from the Boat

Boat from the Boat


Cabin Near the Boat Dock

Entrance to the Park

Gloria Virginia Lynn at

Church of the Transfiguration

Another Picture of the Elk

One of the cruise boats on Jenny Lake

It rained a little in the night. Seems we go from early to late every day. This morning we were up and gone by 8 a.m. to drive to Jackson for my appointment at 11 with the Huntsman's Doctor Ward. We enjoyed the drive up through the Hoback and Bondurant. Got some pictures along the way. Stopped at the Hoback Market. We got a few snacks and I bought some nice grapefruit. Their produce looks great.

Let Beverly and Gloria off on The Square so they could power shop while I was at the hospital. I got to my appointment a few minutes early. Seemed like a minimum of waiting. and had a cookie and small cup of coffee while I read the paper. One of their local mountain climbing guides had fallen on The Grand and was killed. It seems like there's been a rash of well known mountain climbers that have been killed by climbing accidents in the last few years, really devastating to their community.

Lisa took my vitals. And then I got into the gown for the exam. Dr. Ward looked like he felt a lot better today

. My time with him was short, but sweet. He reviewed my tests since the last time I'd seen him and talked about the recent scan. It's good news - the pancreatic tumor mass is much reduced, and the liver lesions - some are gone and some are significantly smaller. He also looked at two liver function tests which they have measured at each treatment. It began with my first treatment in December until the present. Someone has made a graph of them and it is on the computer. It had spiked very high in December and gone down every time since to level off very low at present. Dr. Ward said he was very happy with the progress that has occurred since he last saw me. A couple of things he told me I had not heard before. The first cycles of Gemcitabean had not worked well for me (although I thought they had since the tumor marker test readings had continued to go down) however he thought the Full Fury was working very well. He said it is mainly a colon/intestine cancer chemo treatment, I had not known that either. He said to continue the Full Fury and have another scan in September.

Beverly made arrangements with Virginia to go to lunch with us. After my appointment, I picked them up at Eddie Bauer and drove them by the hospital so Gloria could see where I have been getting the chemo treatments and all. Then we went to Virginia's house and and picked her up and got to see Calvin. We asked Virginia where was a good place for lunch and she chose the restaurant at Snow King. I'd never been there, it was quieter than most places and the food was good. We inivted Virginia to go with us to Teton Park and she said she would like to go along.

We drove in to the park, and it always delights me to use my Golden Eagle Pass - just wave it at the gate keeper and save $25 entrance fee. We saw a nice herd of cow elk with only one calf. They must have hidden the other calves somewhere. We got some good pictures of them. We stopped to see the Church of the Transfiguration. The visitors were ringing the bell as they walked under the arch it's hanging in. It was really pealing in the quiet air. Then we drove to Jenny Lake and took the boat trip across the lake. Beverly and Gloria hiked up to Hidden Falls and enjoyed seeing that. It was mostly overcast and pleasantly cool all day. Sad to report that I didn't feel like I could hike over the uneven ground without a possible fall even though I've long wished to see the falls. Virginia waited along with me until they got back. It's only about 1/2 a mile so didn't take long. We got onto another of the boats going back and by then it was already 4:30, so took Virginia home and headed on toward home ourselves.

We didn't grocery shop in Jackson and didn't get gas there either. That was a mistake because it was $4.09 up there and $4.39 in Pinedale. We had some dinner at the Chinese Gourmet, that was also good, filled up with gas, stopped in Ridley's for a little bit of groceries and drove home in the evening light. It had been sprinkling on us more or less since we left Jackson, so was glad to have the moisture. We had another piece of pie and visited until about 11:30 I suppose. Beverly downloaded the Google Earth (virtual geography) software onto my computer and we looked at that for a while. Also googled some places to stay on our upcoming trip and checked out availability of rooms. What a pleasant enjoyable day we had.