Grandson donates hair to Locks of love

Don's grandson Patrick had his hair cut on June 6th at the Hagerstown Suns baseball game for "pitching the pink". Patrick and I both work at the park and we decided it would be a good idea to do it on the night the ball team raised money for breast cancer prevention and treatment. He is giving it to "locks of love" for them to make wigs . He has grown it for over 6 years and we cut 15 inches off of his hair. The players wore their pink jerseys and signed them to be auctioned off which raised over 4 thousand dollars. Patrick has seen what cancer can do to a family and a person by watching his mother , (myself), aunt charlotte,and his grandfather go through numerous cancer surgeries and treatments. We are very proud of him for doing this.

-Elizabeth

better and better news

*** email from the Don ****
Friday 05-15-09 Chemo Doctor check-up just fine. Blood chemistry shows drop in "infection" counts, but to be expected. Follow up next is PET Scan now for mid to late June (date to follow) rather than July. Still in good spirits & feeling great !

gets better and better

***latest email update from the Don****
Met with Chemo Doctor and finished LAST round of IV stuff. All seems going without problems. Gained another three pounds, blood work is in normal range, and no side issues.
We'll do a PET Scan late July to confirm how the treatments worked. At this point all signs are quite good, but keep your fingers crossed.

A quick observation

This is the first time I have added any content to Dad's page, but I could not resist when I saw this picture. We took this picture on Easter. As you can see Dad is looking pretty good. I thought I would share it with everyone. This is a rare photo of Dad with all of his grandchildren.

almost there....

****another update from dad via email***
Just met with Chemo Doctor. All continues just fine. Blood Chemistry doing what is to be expected. Next round for me is on May7th (last & Final) IV. From there we wait 4-6weeks & do another PET-SCAN (measures cancer cells). My calculations show Mid JULY for status/confirmation/party.

*** saw dad this week, he looks great! what ever drug they are giving him this round seems to be helping .*****

round two...

For Thursday 04-16-2009

Just completed 1st round of 2nt Chemo series & met with Chemo Doctor assistant. He is more concerned with side effects than I am this time around as we've added a new drug to the mix (Taxotore), But as before I've got Meds to counter the uglyness beforehand. Good news from today is.....I've gained another 5 lbs, Blood Chemistry going in is Better that it was in January which gives me some breathing room as the counts will drop with this round.
The REALLY Good News is I have Nurse Billie doing the IV stuff. She makes it almost easy.
I'll do Blood work and meet with Chemo Doctor on the 24th (no treatment) for comfort level on both sides.
My next REAL Chemo session will be 21 days after this one (due MAY 7th 2009). I'm still in a great mindset & ready to do whatever.

CAT results

***** dad got his results from the CAT scan he just had on the 23rd**************
No "cured" as yet, but things are looking good. Output from last Friday Doctors meeting is NO surgery is going to be required. Chemo Doctor wants to do one more round of treatments starting in about a week. These will not be the BIG DEAL the first round was, and no RAD stuff required. Think of it as building on my progress so far. We remain close to putting this thing to bed, but not yet. I'm OK with his plan & remain in good spirits.