Saturday, April 14, 2007 6:20 AM, CDT

Good Morning,
Oh what a week it as been! I did not feel well all week—and this is supposed to be my healthy week!!! I spent most of the week in bed—again!!! As I mentioned, I was in the ER on Tuesday night with pain in my upper right hand rib cage.
As it turns out, I have a slight case of pneumonia and a slightly collapsed lung. Hmmm…slightly collapsed lung. No big deal, Mrs. Abusheery. You’ll be fine! I guess I thought a collapsed lung was a big deal and there would be no way to describe it as slight. Apparently, I’m mistaken!
I was in a great deal of pain and it was hard for me to breath. I had to go back into the doctor’s office on Wednesday and they started me on an antibiotic which they jump started with an IV dose. By Wednesday night I felt a lot better and by Thursday I felt great but exhausted.
Dr. Walsh and I had the opportunity to follow up on the pneumonia and collapsed lung when we reviewed the results of the CT scan…………………J. All of my lymph nodes have decreased by 50%, which is outstanding!! The tumor behind my mediastinum has stabilized. So although there hasn’t been any decrease in size, it hasn’t grown any either! The tumor in my lung has gotten slightly smaller but could also be swollen.
The doctors are theorizing that because it’s dying it’s also swelling on the inside. The swelling is probably causing it to block an airway, which has resulted in my pneumonia.
“Congratulations, Kim, you have pneumonia!!!” Now there’s something you don’t hear every day. It could be a very exciting thing that I have pneumonia! Weird!!!
So, we’re on the right track. Although there has been no major decrease in either of the big tumors, Dr. Walsh feels we are on the right course of treatment. He also added that it’s very early in treatment to expect to see any significant change in the tumors. The fact that they haven’t grown is significant in itself because we had proof they were growing.
I had my
first CTscan on January 24th (thereabouts) and my second CT scan at Dana Farber on March 2nd (roughly) and both of the larger tumors had grown in that short time.
We will continue treatment for another three rounds and take another scan. Dr. Walsh is expecting the tumors to “melt away” completely. He said there are no “iron-clad guarantees” but feels good about my response to treatment. As I said, we never had the time to really discuss what the doctors expected if it was a colon cancer. And none of the docs wanted to speculate until they knew I was on the right course of treatment. Every time we asked, we’d get the standard, “well let’s see how the CT scan looks after three rounds.”
Dr. Walsh also mentioned that it was early to even do a CT scan to check my progress. They did the scan to ensure we were on the right track. If there was not a good response to the regimen I’m on, he would have switched it to a regimen tailored for lung cancer.
I owe a lot of you some phone calls and emails from the past week or two. I apologize. I have really spent a lot of time in bed sleeping. I was so tired, in fact, that I fell asleep while I was on the phone with my Mother one day. No kidding. We were talking and the next thing I hear is "What are you doing?" and I said, "Are you talking to me?" I had totally stopped my end of the conversation because I was alseep! I’m feeling great now—just in time to get whacked again on Monday J!
Greg, the kids and I are up in Maine for the weekend; thus the reason for the late posting. We came up yesterday afternoon. We’re staying in Portland and will head up to Freeport and LL Bean later today. I love LL Bean and I love the outlets. I’m not sure the kids have the same passion for shopping that I do (well Katie already does!!) but I might get to poke in a few stores while we’re up there! Other than that, we’ll basically hang out and enjoy being out of the house for a few days. It’s good to get away!! We’ll be home on Sunday.
Thank you all for your support and love over these past few months. It has carried me through and will continue to do so as I keep up the fight.
I will talk to you all soon.
Love,
Kim