Continued saga with Ascites

Joe continues to fight the fluid build-up in his abdomen - getting 6 liters of fluid drained twice a week. Because of this, he is weaker and losing more weight than he can afford to! He will have another abdominal catheter inserted Friday at Parkridge in an effort to drain the fluid slowly and help relieve the pressure. He's eating, but we're draining more protein out of him than we can keep in.

We are all set to leave on Sunday morning for Houston. We'll be there until the 31st. On Monday he will get his second Trovax injection and after an hour they will give him the IL-2 injection. We'll monitor his symptoms and hopefully have enough meds to counteract any that he has (fever, chills, nausea, low bp, headache). Paul found a great worksheet for me on the internet so we can record the symptoms and chart the meds that we used to counteract them. On Tuesday they'll train me to give both the IL-2 injection and the medicines to counteract side effects. On Wednesday I will do the administering under their watchful eyes. After that, I am on my own (Yikes). He will get a higher dose of IL-2 his first week and 1/2 that dose for the remaining 5 weeks. He does get Saturday and Sunday off! We'll do this (6 weeks on/2 weeks off) for a year assuming that he responds positively to the medicines. It just has to work.....

So wish us well as we set off for Houston. Be careful on the road as Tom passed his road test! Another teenage driver has emerged! :-)

Thanks to the support from the guys at Caldwell who shaved their heads. You are priceless friends to Joe.



Happy 50th anniversary to my parents on Friday. We love you.

Additional prayers for Scott Anderson are needed as his biopsy has revealed malignant tumors in his brain. We are praying for his recovery.

Love,
Vicki, Gina & Tom