A lot has happened in our lives since our last update 2 weeks ago. We took Lauren to Eugene, Oregon for her introDucktion to U of Oregon. Bonnie decided that we would take a few extra days to explore Oregon a bit. We spent 2 days in Medford exploring Ashland and Jacksonville. In Ashland they have a summer-long Shakespeare festival and we attended a very nice performance of Macbeth and wandered around town. In Jacksonville, they have an historic downtown with a number of very old (for this part of the US) buildings. In Eugene we attended 2 days of orientation for parents, while Lauren attended orientation for incoming students. All of us left feeling very positive about her college choice.

This was my first time away from home for a multi-day period so I was concerned about meals given my limited diet. Everything worked out fine except Bonnie and I both forgot to replace my pain-killing patches on time and I started going into opiate withdrawal which was not fun at all and kept me awake until 3 am one night in Eugene.

Dashiell and I both got some good news last week. Dash was told that his broken toe was healed so he could remove the boot he’s been wearing for nearly a month and return to normal play, so he will be able to go to camp mid July through mid August. I got a good report from my PET scan. That doesn’t mean I’m cancer free yet. That will take 5 years of clean scans. The latest scan means that the tumors they saw in December are gone now. This is the best possible news for now, so that’s good!

We have been steadily dropping the pain-killer dosage. We were at 86 a few weeks ago and today we went to 24. We’ll see soon if we can try even lower or if we need to go back up to 36 for a while. I’m still taking 5 other meds and I don’t plan to drop any of them soon but someday I’ll be med free!

Later this week I start work again, albeit telecommuting from home. I expect it to be a stretch at first but I’m anxious to get back to work.

I want to thank everyone for their comments. This blog has been a great idea to record how Bonnie and I are feeling at the time and to communicate with others. It was amazing to hear from Nancy, a dear friend from Grad School days that I had lost touch with 30 years ago. Nancy, thanks for your words of encouragement. I hope that your life has been as rich as you deserve!