April 1st, (no fooling), I went down to UCSD to get my Clinical Trial evaluation done. It was no big deal other than the 8 hours of being there (with 5 hours of that just waiting around. Hopefully I checked out OK because this is the last step before I am accepted for the trial. I had blood drawn (14 vials), a physical exam, an EKG, and echocardiogram, and a CT scan. All of this they pass on to the trial folks (at Abbott), who give their thumbs up or down (kind of like the Roman Gladiators). I didn't expect to get any answers so soon, but Dr. Kipps called at 4:30 on Friday and told me that they saw a 'shadow' on my lung in the CT scan. Right now they don't know what it is. It could be a pocket of leukemic cells (good), or a fungal infection, or something else. On Monday he will get the team of radiologists, pulmonary guys together and try to see what is going on. The possibilities are a lung biopsy, or a bronchoscopy, or a PET scan to get more definition. In any case, it looks like I will be going back to La Jolla next week to figure this out. It also means that I probably won't be able to start the Clinical Trial on April 13th, unless they can clear up this thing up quickly. They have to get this out of the way before I begin treatment because they don't want to be treating two things at the same time.
Also yesterday we found out that Donna has 'walking pneumonia' and was put on antibiotics yesterday. Of course last night I started feeling bad, so I started my Z-pak to try to ward off anything that might come my way.
It is always something…
Terry
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