I really hoped to be writing a celebratory blog today, but that's not the case. It's complicated. First let me say that it's not all bad news, it's just not what we were hoping for. Tom finished his chemo on September 29th and he didn't seem to bounce back like we thought he would, and then he developed a cough, then a fever, so he did a round of antibiotics and had his scans this Monday. The scans showed two things clearly, one, Tom has pneumonia, which explains sleeping almost round the clock and coughing his head off. The other thing it showed was that the cancer in his abdomen is still there. It is significantly reduced in size which is a good thing, but it's still there which means the fight is not yet over.

So Tom will take a double round of antibiotics this time, and the Dr. says it could take quite a while to completely recover from the pneumonia. After he is recovered, in four to six weeks, he'll have another scan that will hopefully prove that all the crap in his chest is just the pneumonia. Then we have to figure out what to do about the cancer. Might be able to have more surgery that will get it, perhaps more of the same chemo, or a different one.

To say we're disappointed is an huge understatement. We had hoped that the scan would show that Tom was cancer free, although I don't think we really believed it could be true. I'll hang on to the improvement that the chemo made and hope they can find something to beat it or at least contain it. Tom is having a hard time being optimistic at this point, being as sick as he is doesn't help.

Thanks for all your support, thoughts and prayers.

Jan