Cycle 4, lfg

The biggest news: there are trophies

Dad went to a car show last weekend and absolutely showed off. He took home Best Custom Truck with Camper and landed Top 25 with his other car.The guy has so many trophies from his car shows, he’s gotta make room for more in his house!

Best part wasn’t the hardware though—he spent the whole day with Matt and his nephews Jacob and Patrick, standing around cars, talking about cars, pointing at cars, eating food around cars. You know, dude stuff. He came home tired and happy, which is exactly the kind of tired we like to see.

Patrick, Glenn, Matt, and Jacob

The scan (the really good stuff)

He had a PET scan on the 8th of July, and the results are a classic plot twist: very great news, and some annoying. The good: the cancer that was busy in his bones and liver has gone quiet. The treatment is doing it’s job there, and we’ll take that win and run with it. The annoying: the scan found some activity in a few lymph nodes in his pelvis and chest that weren’t part of the party before.

Appointment Olympics is tomorrow

Although I’ve learned a lot during this journey and should probably pursue getting my MD at this point, I’m not going to play amateur radiologist, so we meet with his oncology team tomorrow to actually go through the scan and figure out the game plan. That’s where the real answers are, and I, in true Steph fashion have 103 questions. I’ll report back.

Small wrinkle: he might not get treatment this week, because of a tooth. Yep, you read that right. The thing putting my Dad on the bench this week might be an infected molar they found during his pet scan. Starting chemo with an active infection isn’t safe, so they may hit pause until the tooth situation is handled. It very much explains why last month his white blood cell count was so high and continues to climb—it was a perplexing mix for us all. We won’t know until we are in the room tomorrow, but if they want him to wait, it’s the safest and smartest call, not a setback.

We’re also meeting with the palliative care team tomorrow; basically the “let’s make you more comfortable day to day” crew, and at the top of my list will be getting a plan together for his sodium, whether that’s the palliative team or a referral to an Endocrinologist. His sodium is the one thing that’s been super stubborn and hasn’t budged, even with his increased dose of salt tablets.

Love you all—thanks for cheering him on.

Steph