Horses Near Boulder This MorningHe has lots of horses right now.ANOTHER LONG ONE:
Charm called about 7:30 and said it had been snowing hard at her house and very overcast, but had begun to lift and she could see some blue sky to the west. We had no snow here, only overcast and blue sky to the south, so we decided to go ahead and make our trip. I left in time to stop and take a few pictures of the stormy sky and others of Roger's horses with their heads hanging over the fence waiting for the boss to come with the tractor and some hay.
We met at Boulder about 9. The roads and the trip to Jackson were just about like most of the others. Parts of the road dry and some were icy and snow packed. The wind started blowing hard around Cora and all the way to the Rim, then settled down. It made the visibility poor and driving slow. We followed a snowplow and the wind blew great clouds up from the blade but not back at us, rather up the hill off the right side of the road. Wish I had a photo of that. Again more fresh snow had fallen and was noticeably deeper, with the berms alongside the road higher yet. The fresh snow was still on the evergreens and even though dark and stormy as we went further north, the drive was beautiful. It was pretty gloomy in Jackson.
Because driving was slow, we were right on time for the 11 a.m. appointment, not early as sometimes. All the chairs were full today. Some of the patients were familiar and some I hadn't seen before, but I met an oriental lady next to me who Paige introduced as Princess. She said it was the translation of her birth name. Everything went more quickly today, with the blood tests coming right back as good and the chemo drip was soon begun.
Paige did her usual checkup for the records. And I asked the questions I could think of. First, whether they had increased the dose of my chemo cocktail and Paige look at me a little funny and asked why. I told her I had felt a setback of pain and taking more time to get over the treatment last week. She said they had increased it by 30 ml but seemed to think that was small enough that I shouldn't have felt anything. But I did. I just wonder why they didn't tell me that. Last week they increased the steroid they give me by 1/2 a pill to 2 and 1/2. When I asked why, she said it was so I would feel better after the treatment.
Mainly I wanted to ask Judy Bayse after the fact (because she was in the checkup with me) what Dr. Ward had meant last week by saying "They don't mention it" when I asked him twice whether the pancreatic tumor had shown on the CT scans. Right away they let me read the report of the scans and asked if I'd like a copy. I said Yes, could I please have one. I'll edit and shorten it and put it at the bottom of this post for those who had the questions about this, and about the larger lesions on the liver since the last scans. It does answer those questions pretty well. Just skip it if you don't want all the details. I also asked about eating milk and sugar, or anything else I should be doing or not doing. Paige said just do everything or anything in moderation, that they had no evidence that anything was harmful, but to have plenty of fiber and whole grains, fruit and vegetables. She also said a runny nose was typical.
So Charm and I visited while we were waiting. After getting finished we went over to the Sweetwater Deli for lunch. I had a chicken salad stuffed avocado and Charm had her usual soup and salad. There was delicious honey wheat bread too. We didn't need to stop anywhere, and decided not to go to galleries or shopping, but just to come on home so we weren't too late getting back. The wind was still blowing, more so after we got out of the canyon. There was a lot of drifted snow blown over the highway which can get very icy. The picture below shows what that looks like, and the snowplow had been here not too long before:
Blowing Snow on Highway (we are on the wrong side of the road momentarily)We stopped for gas in Pinedale. We stopped for a few minutes at the airport. There was a man there who Charm said was the helicopter pilot. I didn't know there was one there, but he drove his truck over to one of the hangers and Charm said the helicopter was parked in there. Then Charm got her car at Boulder. Later she called and said that she rode the snow machine up to Boulder Lake in a terrible windy whiteout, but didn't have any trouble getting home. My way was windy too, and let up about East Fork as it often does. Richie Road was good until I got to the fork that goes up to the feed ground and there was a drift there I had to plow through, then the rest of the way was fine with only small encroaching drifts on the windward side of the lane. Got home about 4:30, a little earlier than usual.
Joe asked how our road was and I said fine. But no wonder since he said Bill had been in with the county snow plow again and cleaned it out. I couldn't believe how good they are being to us by making sure the road is o.k. We had leftovers for dinner and I was ready to relax. For the first time this year we ate dinner without turning on the lights. I'm always so glad for the longer days. By sunset the sky was clearing and there was a lovely sunset to the west. But the sky to the east was the ugliest yellow gray I've ever seen, very ominous and unusual looking. When I let the dogs out about 10:30 it was snowing and looked like it had been for a while.
SHORTENED VERSION OF CT SCAN REPORT: My comments in italics.
There are extensive diffuse degenerative changes in the lower thoracic and lumbar spine (details of what and where) consistent with degenerative change. No findings to suggest lytic or blastic metastatic changes to the lumbar spine. Prominent spurring to both iliac (pelvic) wings, possible prior trauma (my guess probably from when they did bone grafting from my pelvis to my broken elbow, as well has my numerous horse wrecks and crash landings.) (from reading on the Internet this is relevant because this cancer would/could probably metastasize to this area but there is no evidence of that now.)
There is what appears to be scarring in my lower left lung - (not sure from when, perhaps when I had pneumonia 5 or 6 times 20 to 25 years or so ago because these same scars were there in the early October scans, so not from the lung collapse. Otherwise apparently o.k. there. )
The spleen is normal. The adrenals are unremarkable. The kidneys are stable. Hydrodense areas scattered throughout the right kidney consistent with small cortical cysts are stable. (Medical lingo here is about changes due to the surgery which sounds o.k., bile duct bypass looks o.k., also where they took out the gall bladder is o.k. I guess I have quite a few clips or staples in there. )
There are multiple lesions scattered throughout the liver varying in size from less than 1 cm to larger than 2.5 cm which were not present on October 13, (and there were small lesions on the liver then so these are new or bigger) consistent with extensive diffuse metastatic disease to the liver. There is a stable appearing cyst in the right lobe of the liver which measures 3.5 cm. Some degenerative changes related to the superior iliac wings (which was the lower level of the scans.).
(Here - the biggest question I and some of you had confusion about after the Dr. Ward appointment is answered:) The overall prominence and bulk of the mass in the head of the pancreas is no longer apparent, and the soft tissue mass related to the transverse descending duodenal junction is not apparent.
