Good-Bye 2010

Today we said good-bye to Duke for 2010.  Joe's last radiation treatment and oncology appointment for 2010 was this morning. As always, the radiation treatment was on time and we were out of there and heading up to the first floor of the Duke clinic by 7:45a.m.  After a miscue with the on-line appointment check-in was corrected, we landed in the right clinic promptly at 8am and Joe was called for blood work and vitals within 15 minutes.  To our surprise, the first person in the exam room today was Dr. Zafar, not Minoka his nurse or Leigh his nurse practioner. That was truly a first for us!  Joe's blood work results were already in and his bilirubin count was at 1.6.  How cool is that?  Still dropping even after chemo for 2 weeks.  Dr. Zafar advised that Joe should increase the number of chemo pills he should take to 3 every 12 hours (up until now he has been taking 2 pills every 12 hours) and told him to increase the number of Creon pills (those are the ones that he takes whenever he eats something- a synthesized enzyme mimicking those that are created naturally in the pancreas) from 2 at a time to 3 or possibly 4 if he is eating a large meal.  This should help the digestive process and hopefully help minimize his weight loss.  It was a very good appointment. Dr. Zafar seemed genuinely pleased with Joe's health and lack of serious reaction thus far to the radiation & chemo.  Joe has off tomorrow from radiation & chemo since the Radiation Oncology clinic is closed for the New Year holiday but will resume Monday morning at 7:30am.  As a side note, Joe was even able to get his flu-shot today since his bili count is so low!  It was a good appointment and we were out of there by 9a.m.  The best part of the day.....Hardee's Sausage Biscuits for breakfast on our way home!

and Good-Bye 2010