There is nothing in my life that occupies my thoughts and prayers as
much as Barb's fight with cancer. We seem to live in 6 week periods
between visits with the doctor. As much as we want to believe his
mantra - that the patient is doing as well as he/she feels, we still
wait breathlessly for the results of the latest blood tests.
 Six weeks ago the results were excellent - 12 weeks off chemo and
the cancer markers had fallen even farther - time to celebrate - we
went to Pizza Hut.
 This week we found that the markers had increased a little. It
didn't seem to bother the doctors and the nurses were not concerned,
but we were not so sure.  We still have the good news that no chemo is
in the offing for the next six weeks. That will mean that Barb will
have been off chemo treatments for nearly half a year. It seems hard
to believe.
 Of course we are still doing a Herceptin (another cancer fighter)
treatment every three weeks and a treatment with Zometa (to strengthen
the bones) every six weeks, so we have no opportunity to forget the
monster disease that we are fighting.
 After doing a little reading on those two drugs I feel so lucky that
our health insurance covers as much of the expense as it does.  The
cost of those two drugs would be prohibitive to patients with no or
little insurance.
 So now we live. And wait. And after six more weeks, we will hope
once again that the tests show no need of additional chemo treatments.
 We continue to thank all of those who keep us iin their thoughts and
prayers.  Family + Friends + Faith. = LIFE.