Prep for Round 5

First the not so fun stuff, Dr. Edenfield again held off the Vectibix for another week hoping that we could get his face cleared up further before the flaring up starts again. They are still trying to figure out how to walk the tightrope of giving him steroids to clear up the reaction from the chemo but not so much that they cause a reaction of their own. Unfortunately they look so much alike its really hard to tell what reaction is from each treatment. We are really hoping he will be able to get back on the Vectibix by Round 6 and continue on it for the rest of his treatments as it shows the most promise for success in treating the cancer.

We also got some news about what the future holds (well, somewhat). We do know that Tim will be on this chemo for at least 12 rounds and they may continue him on it for a little longer than that but spread out to more infrequent treatments. The hope of this is that he will not become immune to the treatment (similar to what happens if you don't take all of your antibiotics I suppose). We're just holding out hope that his CEA will continue to drop and will stay down over the course of the next few months which shows he is still benefiting from the treatment. I've never heard it explained like Dr. Edenfield did but apparently if there are 100 cancer cells and 80 have been killed there is still a plateau of how many can be killed as the other 20 may just be immune to the chemo. Continuing to treat them would just make them more resilient and keep this treatment from being an option down the line.

Dr. Edenfield also mentioned yesterday that he believes a clinical trial will be our next step. There is no way to know what that will entail as far as treatment/travel/schedule/etc until we are closer to reaching that step (most likely we will know more in May) but we are both pretty anxious/excited about what it could do for Tim. If you all could just keep him in your prayers for the CEA to continue going down and to stay that way and for him to be placed in the trial that will give him the best results possible we'd be so grateful!

On to more exciting news, This past Saturday we went up to Asheville for the day and had a good time checking out some antiques, looking for a white belt for Tim and enjoying a late lunch. We got back late in the evening but with enough time to order a pizza and rent some movies.

Tim got to play some golf on Sunday before we headed to watch the Furman game at the Drive Stadium. Monday was a regular day of work before we went on our date with Emma who is the daughter of Tim's childhood friend Ern.

Tim picked her up and after my friend Lesley saved the day with helping to change her into dance clothes we headed over to her dance class.

She did an awesome job at her class and we had a great time watching all of the little girls running around. Once dance was over we headed to Chick-fil-A for dinner and some playing on the indoor playground. She also taught Tim how to play the game she got.

We had one last stop by McDonald's for hot fudge sundaes (no the diet was obviously not followed yesterday) before we took her home. Ern called with a report a little later letting us know that he found her passed out on the floor of her parents' room. I believe we were a success.

Thanks for all of the support!