As I mentioned, I've been having pain and numbness in my right side and pretty much just dealing with it. Wednesday, my left hand started feeling numb so I got a concerned and called my doctor's office to make an appointment. I saw him yesterday and he agreed that the neuropathy was getting a bit much.

When I started on the latest chemo drug, Revlimid, we decided to have me do the full strength of the pills, 25mg per day. A bit part of this is that I'm only 48 and should be able to tolerate it better, and the stronger the chemo that I can take and tolerate, the more effective (ie quicker) the treatment. The pills are taken for 21 days, then I have a 7 day break before starting again. As of yesterday, I'd done two full rounds and had taken the 14th pill of the third round.

So with the problems I've been having, he is having me stop the Revlimid temporarily and is putting in an order for Revlimid 15mg pills. I don't know yet when I'll be able to get the pills - his office is working with insurance and the specialty mail-order pharmacy and will let me know when I'll get them. They may delay since in their records, I still have a week left of pills before a reorder is available but who knows... The good thing is my doctor's office is doing all of the legwork on this.

So between the break in not taking the pills, and then the lower dose when the new pills come in - my doctor hopes that this combination will help me and that I'll get over the worst of the neuropathy issues. The other thing we're both looking forward to is that on Monday I get a new PET scan. This is the test, kind of like a MRI or CT, but before they put me in the machine, they inject radioactive sugar and have me rest for an hour. The scan then shows all of the outlines of the soft tissue from my head to groin, and we can see if the lymph nodes have decreased in size. Also, cancer cells tend to draw sugar faster so very active lymph nodes will show more "heat" and this would be bad (and was how my PET scan in October 2013 indicated that I had relapsed again).

So I'll do the test on Monday and by Wednesday of next week, we should get the results and see how effective 2 1/2 months of Revlimid have been. There is a term that I and other cancer patients use at this point - "scanxiety" - which is the nervousness of having to wait and wonder over test results. At least it isn't as bad as when I have to wonder if the lymphoma is back or not - those waits are much worse. This one, I know I have it, the question is how well my treatment is fighting it and getting me back to the remission state.

Mentally I'm doing well right now. I have a trip planned for next weekend that I'm looking forward to - going into San Francisco, exploring Castro with a friend (Jack) Friday night. Then Saturday, we have tickets to a one hour bay cruise under the Golden Gate and when we're done with that, checking out the Exploratorium at its new home on Pier 15. We then head down to the Santa Cruz area where we have a camping cabin for two nights. We'll use that as a base to explore the area. I went to UC Santa Cruz for a year and a half and can't want to show Jack the redwoods of Henry Cowell state park, downtown Santa Cruz (Kelly's, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Saturn Cafe) as well as checking out Monterey and possibly the aquarium there. We'll then head back late Monday night.

I'm also excited over a project I've been working on since late November, of putting together the Hanami Line proposal for our local North Natomas Regional Park. We've been making great progress on the proposal and had a meeting last night to review where we are at. This included a first look at how many trees we would plant and where they would be in the park. We have one more week to get it all ready but I think it will be a very solid proposal when we get to submit it.

So - I guess overall, things are really great right now. I still can't wait until things get better so that I can go back to work, but in the meantime, at least I have been able to keep my mind busy and hopefully I'm getting the lymphoma under control.