Home again, home again (but not for long)
We have been traveling fools lately, spending most of last month out of town, half of that spent chasing the eclipse, on which I may expatiate elsewhere.
The latest course of treatment, as I reported six weeks ago, has yielded dramatic results, returning the bloom to L’s cheeks and twenty pounds to her spindly frame, but all good things come to an end, and as one of the oncologists on the case has told us, her (rare) form of cancer comes in a few different known flavors of which hers is the most intractable, and which routinely bursts free from whatever shackles that have been placed upon it. This appears to have happened as the “ENHERTU” regimen begins to diminish in efficacy, so now it’s to be a “clinical trial” in Southern California, which will require us to present ourselves there for weekly infusions through midsummer; at longer intervals thereafter. At least this is “stage 2” of the trial, because the principal purpose of stage 1 was to determine how big a dose of the drug cocktail the average patient could stand before begging for the surcease of sweet death. In the meantime, we have been obliged to cease the ENHERTU treatments to clear her system, and absent any intervention at all since the beginning of last month she is beginning again to feel poorly. The most recent scans suggest that the beastie has again begun to open up branch offices in other abdominal precincts.
Highway 5, the principal route between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, is a thoroughfare that yields up its entire scenic charm after the first few roundtrips, so we have stockpiled a lot of audiobooks, most recently Pratchett’s Small Gods. Because Lina feels that I am apt to be too slow and cautious behind the wheel, she usually insists on driving, and it’s true that she beats my likely time by an hour or two each way, but I sometimes worry, as I writhe in terror beside her at 90 mph (about 145 kph for those of you who subscribe to the atheistic and unAmerican “metric” system), that she is less concerned about the possibility of dying in a fiery wreck than she might have been in former years and in better health.
I still grieve for our dog (2007-2023), but I am glad for his sake that he isn’t around to endure these daylong drives, which were hard on the poor old thing.
cordially,
The latest course of treatment, as I reported six weeks ago, has yielded dramatic results, returning the bloom to L’s cheeks and twenty pounds to her spindly frame, but all good things come to an end, and as one of the oncologists on the case has told us, her (rare) form of cancer comes in a few different known flavors of which hers is the most intractable, and which routinely bursts free from whatever shackles that have been placed upon it. This appears to have happened as the “ENHERTU” regimen begins to diminish in efficacy, so now it’s to be a “clinical trial” in Southern California, which will require us to present ourselves there for weekly infusions through midsummer; at longer intervals thereafter. At least this is “stage 2” of the trial, because the principal purpose of stage 1 was to determine how big a dose of the drug cocktail the average patient could stand before begging for the surcease of sweet death. In the meantime, we have been obliged to cease the ENHERTU treatments to clear her system, and absent any intervention at all since the beginning of last month she is beginning again to feel poorly. The most recent scans suggest that the beastie has again begun to open up branch offices in other abdominal precincts.
Highway 5, the principal route between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, is a thoroughfare that yields up its entire scenic charm after the first few roundtrips, so we have stockpiled a lot of audiobooks, most recently Pratchett’s Small Gods. Because Lina feels that I am apt to be too slow and cautious behind the wheel, she usually insists on driving, and it’s true that she beats my likely time by an hour or two each way, but I sometimes worry, as I writhe in terror beside her at 90 mph (about 145 kph for those of you who subscribe to the atheistic and unAmerican “metric” system), that she is less concerned about the possibility of dying in a fiery wreck than she might have been in former years and in better health.
I still grieve for our dog (2007-2023), but I am glad for his sake that he isn’t around to endure these daylong drives, which were hard on the poor old thing.
cordially,
