mercy

Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget none of God's benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good thing,
So that your youth in renewed like the eagle.
......
For God, yes God, knows our frame;
God is mindful that we are but dust

--Psalm 103:2-5, 14

Yesterday at Dr. Iqbal's office Karla & I received better news than we had dared to hope for. Monday's CT-scan, which I had undertaken to see whether the tumors had grown as drastically as suggested by the cancer markers in recent bloodtests, revealed to the contrary that my tumors have shrunk significantly. In addition, the cancer markers in this week's test have dropped to less than a third of what they were two weeks ago.

This by no means indicates a total cure, but it is tremendously good news. Two days ago, I was fully braced for the possibility that our treatment efforts to this point had failed, that we would shift to what could be a much more invasive Plan B, and that I may have to begin thinking in terms of how I plan to spend the final six to eight months of my life. Today, I feel once again as if I have a future. I am reminded that to receive surprisingly good news is no less possible than to receive surprisingly bad news.

My Gemcitabene & Xeloda regimen will continue with little change, except that my Xeloda dosage will be reduced to a fifth of the original. I'll take one a day for five days, then take a two-day break, then one a day for another five days. I should be able to handle that with little or no difficulty.

I've always had a skeptical chip in my brain that prevents me from using words like "miracle" too quickly--a Becker characteristic, I think. But I don't know what else to call this.