Stabilization

I am writing today March 10 to announce that my condition seemed to stabilize more than two weeks after the beginning of my diarrhea. As I said earlier it was a difficult period, both physicaly and the psychologicaly. It is a vicious circle which I managed to get out of today thanks to my wife and my brother Omer. Marie-Josée found this period difficult but she was able to give me reason to hold on to and change my paradigm. Let me explain: My body was losing strength because of diarrhea and so was my mind. I could not explain why this was happening, even though deep down I knew that it was a side effect of my new chemo. Being aware of this fact did not really help me justify the severity of the effect. The first turning point was provided Marie-Josée. In her readings on the Internet, she shared an anecdote of a patient who received irinotecan, whom also had diarrhea. This patient sayd It was a strong dose of irinotecan that gave such a severe case of diarrhea but the outcome was that all her metastases had disappear after this treatment. This story gave me a positive spin out of my downward spiral. Now my position is that the diarrhea was caused by a high dose combined with the fact that I probably have no more cancer so the chemotherapy only had my gut to attack. Me, I buy this version. This can not be confirmed until a few weeks but now my mood is in better health. The cherry on the sunday was the call from my brother Omer today. He offered to have a coffee in my neighbourhood. Omer and I do this from time to time when his work brings him in my neck of the woods. It had been a while so today's invitation was welcomed. Even though my moral was better, I lacked a little something to be fully motivated. 30 minutes chatting with him pumped me up and completed my recovery.

Thank you to my wife and my brother. It's amazing what a good timing can do for someone.

Here is the schedule for the coming days:
Thursday I meet with Dr. C, hematologist. She will probably prescribe chemo next week.
Then, Thursday at noon I meet the surgeon dr Y. I look forward to have his opinion and at the same time I fear will not hear what I want.
Since diarrhea delayed my treatment, Marie-Josée saw an opportunity to do the PET scan earlier. So we are waiting to see if next Monday, there would be a spot for me. We strongly hope.

Finally we continue to plan the trip to Dubai. The aircraft is booked and the hotel too. Children are keen to go skiing in the inside ski resort. There are plenty of other activities that we expect to do. We will be glad to share the first eight days there with grandpa Yvon and Loulou. We are fortunate to have our reception committee on site. I will let you know about my medical visits as soon as I can.