Dose 9 of 6

Aaron is still doing chemo. He had dose 9 of 6 a week ago. We thought he would being doing a maintenance dose of just one chemo drug, but instead he is still doing the same two IV chemos, one oral chemo, and recently a third IV drug that shuts down the blood supply to tumors. Once he passed dose 6 we noticed he became significantly more fatigued and nauseous. He dropped 18 pounds in under two weeks (thankfully with all his In-N-Out meals he had extra weight to lose for such a time). This past week has been better. His dr. added a few meds to help with energy and nausea and it seems to be working. He still feels somewhat sluggish, but improved enough that he can keep down quarts of ice cream and doesn't need a four hour nap each day.

He had scans a month ago and they looked good to us. One dr. wanted to change course because he saw some progression of the cancer in the lungs, but we have learned that you don't jump to a new treatment at the first sign of progression, especially when it's minimal and slow. We have to make each treatment last for as long as possible. Aaron can always tell if a treatment is working by how he feels, and his breathing is better and his oxygen saturations have significantly improved since adding the newer IV drug (Avastin). He goes for scans again on October 30th. Thankfully, Aaron has put together a team of five different oncologists that he confers with before making decisions. This has been a great blessing. If he hadn't done this, he may be out of options today. Cancer is complicated and it requires a lot from those who battle it day after day. We are thankful he is willing to fight a good fight.

Some days I feel to say as Rebekah of old, "I am weary of my life," and at the same time we say with Nephi, "Nevertheless I went forth..."

Feeling up to a few hours of Lagoon

In August we took another trip to the Boston dr.