Monday, March 3

Liz just sent in the following update. Some info is redundant, but it is more detailed.

We have our marching orders set up now, and we are ready to go. Bert starts six weeks of radiation therapy on Monday, March 10th at Piedmont Hospital. It will be 5 days a week with the weekends off. He will also start an oral chemo drug (Temodar) the same day which he will take 7 days a week during radiation. It is a low dose, and the side effects do not sound like they will be too bad. After the radiation treatment, he will participate in a clinical trial testing higher doses of the chemo drug. If he is selected for the experimental dose, he will take the oral drug 21 out of 28 days a month for one year. If he is selected for the standard treatment, he will take the oral drug 5 days out of 28 days a month for one year. The oncologist we met with last week was very uplifting in that Bert had an excellent recovery, total removal of tumor, is young, is healthy and there exist some exciting new drugs to treat this disease that were not available several years ago. He gave us a great boost of hope which we intend to ride out as long as possible. Bert went to Grace's "Doughnuts for Dads" today, and he walked around the neighborhood for some exercise. Yesterday, he and the girls and his sister and brother-in-law went to the aquarium and the World of Coke. They had a blast, and Liz had some "me" time.