From Dawn till Dusk

We left the house a little after 6am and returned a little before 5pm. So it was a typical Vanderbilt day...LONG! We did get into rush hour traffic so it took a bit longer than usual to get there, but he was still early for his lab appointment. Tonight's photo shows some of the low lying fog that covered some of the fields this morning. Woody got called in for his labs right on time and everything pretty much stayed on schedule until Dr. Sosman. It wasn't a long appointment, but it took a while for him to come into the exam room. A medical student saw Woody first and then went out to report to Dr. Sosman before he came in to talk to Woody. I guess the word, about Woody's surgery, that I sent to the nurse practitioner didn't get all the way to Dr. Sosman as he seemed to just be finding out about it today. They really checked Woody out even to the point to make sure that everything was okay with his incision from the surgery. So here's the scoop: Woody will go back in three weeks to get the fourth Keytruda infusion to finish off this group of four infusions. Then he will go back three weeks after his next Keytruda infusion and have a PET scan and the plan is if this PET scan is as clear as the last (or better)then he will stop getting the infusions. At that point he will be scanned every 12 weeks to make sure that the melanoma is being kept at bay. Dr. Sosman made the statement today that all tissue areas of Woody's body show clear of melanoma. And, that the only "hot" spots are in the area where he had bone surgery (his shoulder) and where he had radiation on his leg...AND that those places may not be melanoma at all just the way the PET scan is reading all the hardware in his shoulder and the way the PET scan is reading the area that was radiated. PET's aren't the best for bony areas of the body. Anyway, Dr. Sosman was indicating that there was a good possibility that Woody is free of melanoma!!!!! But like I said, they will be keeping a watch every 12 weeks to make sure that everything is staying free and clear. If something should show back up, then they will just start the Keytruda back up. So perhaps the Keytruda infusion in three weeks will be his last. Woody got called into the infusion room pretty quickly (before I got back from making his next appointments). But then things slowed down due to it being close to lunch time. Luckily his IV beeped and another nurse came in and realized how much of the bag of saline that he had already gotten so went to check to see if the Keytruda had come up from the pharmacy...and it had so he quickly got Woody hooked up for it. It is only a thirty minute infusion. We were both pretty hungry by the time everything got finished (and no snack cart was brought around today)so we decided to go to Olive Garden. We enjoyed our late lunch and then stopped at two stores in Murfreesboro to do a little Christmas shopping and then we were on our way home. Woody has driven to the prayer room at church. I am trying to motivate myself to make a Christmas ornament, but...not sure that is going to happen. 'Tis the season!