An uneventful but informative visit with Dr N today.  Today begins my "off week" from Gemcitabine. Because my CBC numbers were dropping significantly, I asked him about it. For starters, he was not the least bit concerned about this change. (More concerned about the 4 lb weight loss) and said it's pretty normal with Gemcitabine. In fact, he explained that this is the very reason they take a week break after three treatments. Three is about all the body can take at one time. He predicted that next week the numbers will be significantly back toward normal.

I've mentioned before that there is another guy with very similar pancreatic cancer on the same treatment regimen, about a month ahead of me. I usually ask how he's getting along and when I asked today, Dr N said he was not looking forward to me asking. It turns out the guy had what was a recurrence on the day of his final treatment.  Not much they can do about it except try to retard the tumor growth and ease his pain and discomfort. Will be trying a different chemo regimen designed for that. At least to begin with. This news was a bit of a reality slap in the face. I suppose I've just been taking advantage of all the energy I have to put into the Diabetes and Peripheral Neuropathy symptoms as an excuse to ignore the mortal reality of the cancer. Gonna have to turn my mind toward that, I suppose. So I asked what most people encounter when recurrence comes along. Of course, everyone is different, but substantial abdominal pain and digestive discomfort are pretty common. I will ask Teacher to spare me that as he sees fit.

That's about it for today. Three more chemo treatments and then the PET scan to see what's new, if anything. Here's hoping there's nothing there.

Namaste. Never give up. Life is here for us to do what we can with it. Bud, on the other hand, is here to make me crazy.