Jill says I’m obsessed with my hair. That I talk about it every day. Sometimes several times a day. It is just so interesting to me, I guess, that I’m seeing such changes in my hair over such a short period of time. And, it is not only my hair that is doing some weird stuff.

I have no cuticles on my fingernails. The cuticles have receded and sort of folded in on themselves, creating a little trough at the bottom of each of my fingernails. I tried looking in there. Nothing really going on, it appears.

Dr. Pippas put me back up to the full 800mg dosage of Votrient, starting on January 17. So, for about six weeks, I’ve been getting adjusted to the side effects. The mornings are tough. I’m most nauseated in the mornings and then in waves during the day. With my tastebuds out of commission, I’m eating much less and have enjoyed a hard-fought 30-pound weight loss. I expect to keep dropping a few pounds here and there, because I just don’t enjoy eating right now.

I want Jamie Keating to know that I’m dying to come to Epic for dinner. I know he’s been wondering why he hasn’t seen our faces in his new place. When foie gras tastes like Alcoa aluminum foil, it doesn’t make sense to eat foie gras.

I’m ready to talk about the pink elephant in the room. For over five weeks now there have been no new posts to my blog. Speaking of epic, I’m in middle of what I hope is the end of an epic writer’s block. There is so much going on in my life that I just haven’t been able to get my mind clear to write. In the midst of all this cancer stuff, I had an event in my left eye that sent me to see local retina specialist, Dr. Nicholas Mayfield, at West Georgia Eye Care Center. Thankfully the tiny leak of blood in my eye didn’t rise to the level of retinal tear. I still see floaters and my eyesight seems to have changed to the extent that my reading glasses aren’t so helpful, further impacting my comfort in using my laptop and making me less able to be in the mood to write.

But I finally have some good news to tell, so I’m powering through the blockade to tell it. The Votrient is working for me. The formerly 4cm tumor that is in my left adrenal gland is now just under 2cm! That is about a 50% reduction in the length of the tumor and equates to nearly a 75% reduction in volume. Dr. Pippas is thrilled with these results. Naturally, so are we. I guess the broken tongue, having to sleep with a vomit bucket next to the bed, white hair and diarrhea have begun to pay off.

Here’s what Dr. Pippas says. He feels like the Votrient will give me at least 18 months to two years of disease control. The Xgeva, the monthly injection that I take to keep a metastasis from setting up in my bones, and the Votrient will buy me some time while we wait for something that could give us a cure to come along. It is not the best existence, but the discomfort the drugs have brought into my life is WAY better than runaway disease. By a mile!

I am trying to reinvigorate my desire to write. Please be patient with me and continue to keep our family in your prayers.