Hey everyone! Another week, time for another update.

It’s been a fairly dead week in terms of medical appointments due to the holiday, but things are going to pick up again next week. I have another Spinal Tap scheduled for first thing Monday morning, where I’ll get another set of chemo drugs delivered to my brain.

It’s been a few posts since I’ve gotten into it, but a refresher on how the Spinal Tap works:

I’m wheeled into a normal procedure room and laid face down, the position I’ll stay in for the following three hours. The main technicians then inject a large needle into the lower part of my spine, which is used for two purposes. Firstly, cerebrospinal fluid is removed for testing purposes, so we can see exactly how much of the cancer has reached my brain and/or central nervous system.

Secondly, the same injection site is used to administer chemotherapy drugs in a method known as “intrathecal,” where the medication is delivered directly into the brain.

This is obviously an artist’s representation, because I don’t own blue shorts this tight.

This’ll all be followed by a visit with the full medical team on Wednesday morning, where we’ll see where we’re at. My hope is that we’re back on track toward obliterating the existing lymphoma, but there’s a real wide set of possibilities that we could come back with… anything from “the cancer is getting its ass kicked!” to “let’s start talking about our palliative care options.”

Energy wise and health wise I’ve been feeling pretty good the past few days. My sleep schedule has been gradually making its way back toward normal, even with all of the various and assorted medications I’ve been prescribed.

I’ve tried to focus most of the medications to be taken at 8AM and 8PM, which is convenient, but it also leaves an awful lot of other medications, mostly painkillers, to be taken throughout the day and night, every three hours. It makes it a little difficult to keep that normal sleep schedule, but I’m doing what I can.

Of course, I have a lot more topics I’d like to write about, and I still need to record the Daddy School videos that I’ve started, but for now things are going pretty well. Certainly better than they appeared to be going a few weeks ago.

And, of course, close and extended members of my family are coming and going for the foreseeable future, which is wonderful. It’s also teaching me quite a bit about accepting help, about actually sitting back and letting people help me, which is something that I’m not used to and is taking a surprising amount of effort to get used to and accept.

So we have spinal taps, medical reviews, family, holidays, and a hundred other topics I want to write about that I’m not going to get a chance to go over today. In the meantime I’m going to keep living, and doing what my doctors tell me, and fighting this stupid thing that’s in my blood every way I know how.

As always, please direct all questions, comments, threats and requests for nudes to the comments here on the blog, and I’ll get around to them. Take care everyone!