September 2, 2009

They took me off of Chemo. The Chemo Dr. (Lippman) said I had a "miraculous" response to the chemo. He said he has never seen anything like it. This is the one that gave me the death sentence very gruffly, in front of Pamela and my daughter Cathy. " You are in stage four of a four stage illness. It is spreading. There is no cure! I give you one to five years, depending on how well the chemo works." Hmm. I wonder who provided the miracle. It must be the only one in the miracle business. If you think your prayers aren't working, take that! I know God did not do this so I can just live off of the fat of the land, and have a good time. He has something for me to do. I just need to find out what it is and get busy with it before he gets somebody else to do it.

They did surgery on my eye lid. It was very successful. My left eye would not close because of nerve damage that caused a sort of palsy on the left side of my face. This made my eye dry up and burn all the time.

I have neuropathy in my fingers and toes. Dr. Lippman said most people on chemo experience this. It is permanent nerve damage. I have some loss of feeling in my fingers and toes. I am even more clumsy now, but some feeling is being slowly restored.

I go back to M. D. Anderson next week to meet with the Doctors again, and begin Radiation treatments. They will also remove the stitches from my left eye lid.

I don't look forward to radiation treatments. They want 35 sessions. That is five days a week for seven weeks. That is a long time to be away from home and the office. The side effects are bad, and there will be some permanent damage, but I better just do what they say.

I did ask the Radiation Doctor if I would be able to play the piano after the treatments, and he said yes. That will be good, because I didn't know how before. I will put on a concert when I get back.

I will keep you posted.