We are back from the Big Apple after an amazing trip. As you may remember we went there for a photo shoot for one of the drugs that I am taking. They might use the pictures in a brochure or in a medical magazine, so chances are not many regular folk will see it. But the whole process for the photo shoot was pretty neat. Donna and I were there for about 5 hours, then another couple came, and the next day another woman was used. All of the people involved (15 of them at the photo shoot) were just great to work with and from what they told us, we were also easy to work with. The people from the advertising agency really made the whole process very easy. (Thanks Tracey). We did go out to dinner with some people from the agency, the photographer, and 3 additional people that were used in the shoot.
They wound up taking pictures of me in 6 different settings wearing 4 different outfits. They also used Donna in 2 of the settings. The photo shoot took place at an estate in New Jersey alongside a river about an hour from Manhattan. It was a huge house that had a boat dock and two more guest houses across the road where the horse stables were. It was worth it just to see the house.
After we were done with the photo shoot we became tourists and did a lot of the standard things. We took two bus tours (uptown and downtown), we took the Circle boat tour around Manhattan, we walked about 10 miles, had slices of pizza, had a hot dog in Central Park, had some fantastic meals, took the subway, took some cab rides, went to the top of the Empire State building, sat in Times Square (which has now become a pedestrian mall), and went to Greenwich Village and Soho. We also met up with Sarah's friend Nicole and went to dinner at a Thai place she recommended and then went and saw South Pacific at the Lincoln Center. That was a really fun evening.
New York is such a high energy city that you wind up going on sensory overload. We spent about the right amount of time there for a first visit, but there is so much we didn't see, we know we will be going back.
Even after just finishing treatment the previous Friday I felt great and didn't have any side effects during the trip. I got my blood work back from a lab test this week and my White is down to 57,000 and my hemoglobin is up to 14.2, so I am moving in the right direction. I go back down to La Jolla on October 13th for hopefully my last round of treatments for a while. Oh, and happy birthday to my sister and my Dad.
Terry
