Update for October 11

Hi all! I qualified for the clinical trial using hyperthermia!! I was so relieved and thrilled on thursday when we received the news. As one friend recently wrote me, "Your blog is so positive, I'm sure that you've been through your ups and downs.", and yes, this is an emotional, spiritual and well as physical trial.
Last week I started off with a lung test (blowing into tubes) and a heart function (injection and watching how blood moves thru my heart. Then Tuesday, was scan day; starting with an MRI on my brain; then a CAT scan which is the usual to see the status of the pancreatic tumor; and then a PET scan which I'd never had before. The doctor explained that you're injected with a glucose that the cancer loves, but not the rest of the body. As he injected me, he said "Let the marinating begin!" All I could think of was my body lighting up like a Christmas Tree!! Wednesday was the painful day with a bone marrow biopsy where 7 attendees witnessed going into my bone but to get a piece - again wondering what that would show. And then for a bone scan. Thursday started off with a hearing test - apparently chemo affects your sense of hearing and you can be more likely to be affected by loud noises. No wonder John's and mine main arguments are his reading magazines or newpapers in bed at night or the TV volume because of John's hard of hearing! Anyway, after all that John and I had to take an emotional time out at Hermann Park where we talked about the scenarios that could unfold with our meeting with Dr. Joan Bull at 1:00. Mortality isn't easy to face!
I skipped over our initial meeting with Dr. Bull. She is a warm, wonderful woman that we met on Monday. She smiles and you feel that she likes you - I feel that she wanted to adopt me when we met. Of course, Theresa, her professional, serious and likeable nurse warned not getting ahead of ourselves. Dr. Bull is probably in her 70's, blond pony tail, wears bright beautiful clothes with a characteristic red waist pack. At our initial meeting there were the 2 of them and 2 other doctors in training.
So come 1:00 on Thursday we were delivered to Room #3 with the examining bench and one chair....I thought....well someone will come and give us the bad results and we'll be done. Prior to seeing Dr. Bull, however, Sandra came by to introduce herself and said that in the future we'd need to be doing all the scheduling for the trial. Does she know something we don't? Not getting our hopes up, we continued to wait. Fairly soon, Dr. Bull came in and jumped up on the examining bench and said, "Well, I suppose Sandra spilled the beans? You qualified! Your tests are great! Your liver looks good....there are a couple of spots on your lungs that we'll watch but I'm not worried. Last thing is that you need to meet Dr. Sue (he's the 3rd person in the triage that handles the trial). He'll look at the test results and run you up a couple of stairs and make a call on physical fitness. I met him and all went well. While we're waiting for Dr. Sue, we send out our text messages to annouce the qualification. Then we take off....We get a call from Theresa that she didn't realize that we'd left and that there were still a couple of things to cover and could be come back.
When we came back we met with the full crew this time and Dr. Bull said that there was one glitch that came thru - my bone marrow item was 35% and not the required 40% for the trial and they had to get an exception. Dr. Bull was working on a letter as we spoke, but they just wanted us to know. Later that evening I got a call from Dr. Bull that all was well!! Finally!
I finished my 1st day of chemo today, have more hydration tomorrow and then the heat on Wednesday. I envision this hyperthermia analogous to Montana hyperthermial (sweatlodge) so hopefully won't be too bad!
Love to all of you and thanks for all your prayers and wishes! -- Kerry