There and Back!

Woody walked four miles early this morning.  Then mid morning we headed off to Nashville for his appointments at Vanderbilt.  Everything went like clockwork.  He was finished with his labwork five minutes after his appointment time.  We were called in pretty quickly to the clinic and taken to an exam room right away...so only two waiting rooms this time.  The nurse practitioner came in pretty close to the appointment time.  She spent quite a bit of time with us going over his scans, etc. They see quite a few places (hot spots on the PET scan) that indicate metastatic melanoma (recurring melanoma).  All are very small and all are subcutaneous (just under the skin).  There are a couple of places that do show up on his shoulder where he had surgery and now has a plate...not sure it it is the hardware or if it is melanoma that was showing in that place.  Also the place that was radiated on his leg continues to show quite brightly...again can't tell if it is just due to the radiation or if there is still melanoma there.  We got to see some of the images from the PET scan...pretty interesting.  And, his brain MRI was clear.  He will go back in three weeks for more lab work, see Dr. Sosman and have his first Ipilimumab infusion (I will learn the name that it is now called eventually).  I just got the spelling down for Ipilimumab and now they are calling it by whatever the drug company has named it.    The infusion takes 90 min. and then they have him wait around for an hour to make sure that he doesn't have any reactions to it.  We left Vandy a little before 2:30pm and headed down the road a piece.  We decided that we would stop and have a late lunch.  We were heading for Olive Gardens but we saw a Steak and Shake and it called out names!  Plus we were at the time when their shakes are half price...so Woody was happy with another strawberry shake and a hamburger and I was very happy with a hamburger and their yummy fries.  We were back home a little after 5pm...so gone from the house around 7 hours.  Even though things went like clock work...it still takes a big chunk out of ones day...what with travel time added in.  We're glad to be home...again!  Smiling a little like this hyena!  I told Melany about the hyena just standing and posing and staring at me...and she said that he was thinking about eating me!   He wasn't laughing so maybe that was exactly what he was thinking!  But, whatever the reason, I appreciate that he did such a good job of posing for me!