Wed. round 5 of chemo

We met with the dr. this morning and he walked in the room and said "good news" and then told us of the CT scan results. The lymph nodes in his neck and groin have virtually gone away and the massive tumor on his abdomen (actually it's 2 masses together) have shrunk about 70% and the doctor was pleased with that. The measurements went from 10 X 13 cm down to 8 X 5 cm and the other mass went from 10 X 8 cm down to 6 X 4 cm. Considering Dad has had 2/3 of the required chemo treatment...that's doing good. He has today and one more to go. Then after the last treatment they let him rest for a month and then they'll do a PET scan to not only check the size, but the activity level...that is..whether there are any active cancer cells still remaining. The doctor said that with a tumor that large, there is a certain amount of "structure" cells...non-cancerous ones that support the cancerous tumor...so even the remaining mass at this time could be just that...but we'll know more after the PET scan in late September. If it shows up as non-active then there would be no more treatment...the structure mass would just slowly be assimilated into the body. If it shows up as active, then they would go to plan B with stem cell treatment and other forms of chemo. So at this point we let the next 2 rounds of chemo do their thing and then get results from the PET scan. Dad is very encouraged with this info and that's good. He's currently hooked up to the chemo treatment this morning and is doing fine...the benadryl has knocked him out for a few hours...so that helps the day go by a bit faster. Guess that's it for now.