4.19.12

Had my first sort of setback Wednesday. I had my routine blood work and chemo done and was informed that a key blood marker (CEA) they check to, well, check the status/progress of the treatment and the cancer had risen significantly since last month, from 81 to 167 (ideally, in a healthy adult it should be at/near zero; last August mine was at 960, so... ) It was disappointing news in that, when I met with my oncologists earlier in the day they, and I, were very pleased with the results and all thus far, telling me that, as of then, the response to the treatment had been the best-case scenario for the extent/advanced stage of the cancer, both for how it was beating back the cancer as well as my tolerance to the treatment (they also told me that I was easily their most physically fit/active patient- yeah, a little pat on the back for Vito!) and then to find out these results later in the day, a little before I was done with my chemo session, was, well, disappointing. I felt- and feel- fine; still wouldn't know that I was sick if I didn't know that I was sick. And they'll check it again in two weeks, see where it is going, if it's a pattern or a one-off kind of deal, and what to do about it. But still... disappointing.

In a way this sort of serves as a bit of a wake-up call, a prod to re-focus a bit more on getting the most out of each day. Where I've been feeling perfectly well and have had, to this point, such positive results it has made it somewhat easier to take things a bit more for granted, to not live with quite the sense of- what?- urgency, or at least of purpose, that I had back when all of this was still newly discovered and things were still sort of in flux. The past few months I've sort of, not forgotten but maybe dismissed the fact that I am on the clock as it were and that it is important to take the effort to accomplish more of the things I'd like to while there is still time and I am still well enough to do so.

So if I can get something positive out of this, then good.