The space shuttle blasted off for the VERY LAST TIME yesterday. NASA failed us in July when we were there and they rescheduled the trip. And today we find out that SUTENT has failed us. Failure. Failure. Failure.

I shouldn't be so hard on Sutent. She (I give anything with remarkable strength, tenacity, and wicked side effects a feminine personification) has been good to us. She's given us a chance to be in the lucky crowd, the chosen ones for whom the drug works, the elite class of stable disease...

Not today. Today we're like those other people. People who are told that they have "failed" a drug. We're not sure of the reason, but it doesn't matter. We are on to the next drug cocktail...Avastin and Interferon. Sutent is tired of blocking the blood flow to the branching arms of baby metastases and she's tagging off to her bitchy friends to take the lead. You've been great Sutent, take a break. Have a beer. Enjoy your vacation. We may need you again later.

Dad's scans today said he had "slight growth" in his lil' lung mets and "a couple of new small nodules ...along the right hemidiaphragm" and 3 small nodes in the paracaval region near the "expected region of the renal hilum which are new and felt to be metastatic." You grow something new and you're a failure. Tough room.
It's not that we didn't expect it, we knew it would happen eventually. Just sucks when you're no longer the lucky bastards.

We're a family of problem solvers. Question answerers. Dad's first response to the spectrum of child interrogation was a chemical equation.

Why does the toilet flush? Because, honey... PV=NRT.
Why can't I live at the mall? Why? Because PV=.....NRT.
Why does the tile go in the kiln green and come out red? Simple. PV=NRT.



Low and behold, in 11th grade Chemistry, Mrs. Dyer wrote the answer to all my questions on the board?!

My mouth dropped, my eyes wide... I was nodding.... My dad in-ven-ted that! Like oh my gawd, yall! My Daaaaaaaad seyyyyyz thaaaaaa!

And I counted the minutes 'til dinner when I could have a real answer to the question of "didja learn anything?"

So why... if microwaves work, and space shuttles fly, and for God's sake, my cell phone knows where I am, and drugs exist that make sad people happy! Why can't there be an answer for RCC?????

NED= RCC-{[(26*sumA)+B)]}/9

There. Just in case.

Blah,
E

Where've you been?

Friends and family came to the porch to help celebrate Bryan's 60th birthday. We had good food, a fabulous cake, and lots of people. All of our kids and grandkids were here. Mike and Diana Roller and Talmon Preyer came from Mountain Home. Jerry Smith and his wife Brenda came. Jerry and Mike were Bryan's college roommates. Don and Lee Bell, Jeff and Sarah Koenig all came from Northwest Arkansas. Gail and Vic Sutcliffe came from Frisco, Texas. Terry Joe Shaw, Joe and Mary Helen Henry, Cliff and SanDee Clifton, Carl and Judy Chipman were the locals. The weather was good enough to sit on the porch, and we all visited until late.

On January 20, we flew to Honolulu where we took off on a cruise around the Islands. It was warm, beautiful, and relaxing, a time apart. We came back to Little Rock just in time for all these snow events.

Medical news? Not much. Bryan took an extra week off of Sutent during the cruise to be sure he could walk! He will have his next scans on February 24 and his appointment for the results on the 25th. The nurse asked at the last doctor's appointment whether he was anxious about the upcoming scans. No. Not really.

After the trip to Hawaii, Bryan went to the Greater Philadelphia Historical Home Show. He stayed in the hotel where the show was so that he would be close by. He flew back home during the Super Bowl, arriving back home about 10:00 pm. In March he's going to Las Vegas to Coverings, the annual trade show of all things for floors. Erin and Rachel are going along to be his beautiful booth support staff. I think they're actually going for the shows, food, and time away from their day jobs. (I'll be stuck in the classroom, having used up all my PTO for the year.)

I tried to post some Hawaii pictures, but my computer froze. Picture blue Gatorade--that's the color of the water. Feel 80 degree air, not humid, just a slight breeze. Hear cliche Hawaiian music--it's real. Now, this is how much I love the Gulf of Mexico beaches: they're better than Hawaii's. Really. Best news yet: a new airline is flying a nonstop flight from LR to Destin for $89. I'll be on it soon.