Foggy Start to A Keytruda Anniversary!

Our morning started out foggy but other than fog and a slight slow-down a couple of times on the interstate...the rest of the day was smooth sailing. We got to Vanderbilt about an hour before Woody's first appointment...and all the appointments continued to go ahead of schedule. Once again shortly after we sat down in Dr. Sosman's outer waiting room, someone asked if anyone in the waiting room had an appointment with Deborah Wallace (Dr. Sosman's nurse practitioner). Woody's appointment was with her so he was taken right back. She told us that his PET scan showed that everything was pretty much the same...nothing new = good news. Dr. Sosman hadn't discussed with her the possibility of Woody stopping Keytruda either at the end of this 12 week time or after the next 12 weeks. She said that she would check and let us know if a decision had been made when we come to the next appointment in three weeks. We were out of that appointment so quickly that Woody decided to go check if a church friend was still in the hospital at Vandy. She had been discharged so we headed back to the infusion clinic and he signed in there. He got taken in thirty minutes early for that appointment and the Keytruda infusion started about five minutes before his actual scheduled appointment. Shortly before the infusion was finished, a nurse from Dr. Sosman's office came in and had him sign some papers as it is time to get reapproved for Keytruda. Guess what that means...he has been taking Keytruda for an entire year. I checked in my running notes from all his Vanderbilt appointments since his return to Vanderbilt after his time at National Institutes of Health...and...sure enough his first Keytruda infusion was November 6, 2014. Time marches on...swiftly! We were waiting on our car to be brought to us just a few minutes after noon. So a very smooth day of Vandy appointments. We did stop for lunch at Steak and Shake. We hadn't done that in a while. We enjoyed our hamburgers and fries and Woody also enjoyed a strawberry shake. Then we headed on down the road for home. Woody stopped for me to take some pictures of the most beautiful ginkgo trees in town. Wish that the sky had been blue behind it...we stayed cloudy all day. Here are a couple of pictures to see it...it still hasn't taken on its really bright yellow hue...still a bit of green in the leaves...but a really breathtaking tree...the trunk is also so unusual...I was told one day that the reason that it had so many trunks was that it was run over by a lawnmower in its early days and it came back multi-trunked.

We got home and Nathan, Kathy and children were out working on the "clubhouse" out back...getting the foundation and floor underway. They decided that they had better take advantage of the mild and dry weather that we are supposed to have for the next couple of days. After supper Woody walked to and from the church prayer room. I sat down in my comfy chair and fell promptly to sleep...reason that the blog is a bit late tonight. Our Vandy trips always wear me out no matter how smoothly they go. But the Vandy patient sails right through hardly affected by the day and he is the one being treated!