A Happy New Year!

We flew to Texas on Dec. 27th for his scans on the Friday the 28th. Since we were not getting the results until Monday we decided to have a fun weekend (in between his naps, that is). Saturday we went to the movies and saw Charlie Wilson's War with Tom Hanks. It was a really enjoyable movie, as most Tom Hanks movies are. Since we didn't have a rental car we had to cab there and back. With the cost of the movie (which, thank goodness was only $6.50 each), some popcorn and the cabs it was a $50 "date." Well worth it, though, just to keep our minds occupied. On Sunday we went to see the Houston Texans play the Jacksonville Jaguars (football, for those not in the know). It was a GORGEOUS day. We couldn't get seats together - there were none together in the entire stadium. So we took tix in the same row - opposite ends. I figured that once everyone was in their seats I could sweetly ask them to all shift one seat. Fortunately, that wasn't necessary. I sat in a seat behind Gerry, next to a very nice couple. At half time it was clear that the vacant seat on the other side of them was to remain vacant, so they moved over and Gerry sat beside me for the rest of the game. While I am not that into football it was pretty exciting, especially when A. Davis of the Texans caught the ball and ran it 97 yards for a touchdown, and immediately after half time he did it AGAIN, this time running 104 yds for a touchdown. After the game we walked across to the grocery store and then the hotel shuttle picked us up.

Monday we went to see Dr. Kim. The results were in: all the tumors grew somewhat, except for the one on Gerry's adrenal gland, which either stayed the same or shrunk a teeny bit. They saw a "something" on his brain MRI but are not sure what it is....could even be a shadow. So the dr said he was not going to continue the interleukin-2 treatments (for which Gerry was very grateful as it was awful). They told us that they were giving Gerry a month off and that we should come back at the end of January for more scans. At that time they hope to be able to tell what it is on the brain, plus discuss other options for either chemo or another clinical trial. Gerry thought that since the IL-2 didn't work that there were no other options but Maura, the PA said that there were ALWAYS other options. I truly believe that at this point, any treatment they give him would be palliative...to slow the process a bit, but I will ask about that when we are there again. The dr. also suggested that perhaps the next treatment can be done in S. Florida so we don't have to fly back every three weeks. That would be great - Gerry would prefer not to do the travelling as much and I need to return to work at the end of Feb. That night was New Year's Eve, and even though we spent it in our hotel room, Gerry was in a great mood (no more IL-2 - YEA) and we ordered fattening desserts and watched tv together. Then he conked out around 10, woke at 11 (midnight eastern time) to wish me Happy New Year, and went back to sleep. I spoke to Alison, my brother Jon and my mom, and at midnight TX time I spoke to Becca, who lives in Destin, Fl and is in the same time zone as Houston.

We were very fortunate to be able to switch our airline tickets to New Year's Day (instead of the 8th) and flew back to Florida. Happy New Year!