Back in the swing of it

Quite literally! As I type this update my Dad is out on the golf course hitting some golf balls around with his youngest brother, Robert. The last week has been better for him in comparison to how he was feeling a couple of weeks ago! He seems to have recovered from the bacterial infection and while he still suffers from fatigue, he was able to play in a golf tournament last week-end :) He is happy to be back out and about and his doctors always love hearing that he is feeling well enough to be out on the course. It's a good mechanism for gauging how he is feeling.
The results received on Monday from his latest MRI were positive. The last gamma knife treatment he received made marked improvement in attacking the new growth that had sprung off from the original skull tumor. It is hard to measure, but they could see lots of areas of tumor death and if they had to guess, they would estimate that it shrunk about 60 percent. The other two small tumors on his skull are still active, but have not grown any since the last MRI.
In the meantime, the second cycle of Sutent started this week, and so far he is handling the side effects okay. His white blood cell count is still not quite in the normal range and there was a slight drop in his platelets, both normal side effects from the Sutent. These are two areas that will be monitored closely over the next few weeks. We really, really hope and pray that this cycle of the Sutent doesn't end in chaos like the first cycle did!
The next measurement of how treatments are going will be a CT scan in late August. It will tell us how the Sutent is working and will hopefully show that the active tumors have shrunk. If not, it will be time to re-visit radiation options. But for now, a break from the radiation is much welcomed, and needed.
Next week my dad is going to see an Ophthalmologist who specializes in orbital surgery and treats both functional and aesthetic problems of the upper face and eye region. Among other things, he treats patients who have suffered from facial disfigurement and scarring from excision and reconstruction of cancerous lesions. It would be so great if he has insight into a way to treat all the swelling that my dad has around his left eye. My dad doesn't complain or say "why me" about the terrible hand of cards he has been dealt, but he does wish he could see out of his eye again. We remain hopeful that there is something that can be done to help him.
It's hard to believe that it is already late July! We are enjoying the summer months and the visits that we've been able to have with each other and with our extended family. All of my dad's siblings have either been to visit or are coming soon and my parents really enjoy these visits. They are such a nice diversion from the daily cancer grind. We know we are blessed to have such a close, loving family - and we don't take that for granted!
We hope that everyone is enjoying the summer and time spent with loved ones as well ~~ Tami and Family

Very Very quick update

Just wanted to take a brief second to bring everyone up to speed. Last week after the suspicion that maybe my Dad had lyme disease, and after taking mega antibiotics for that, his white blood cell count continued to plummet. This led to more tests and a blood culture on Thursday to determine what could be causing the decrease in the white blood cells. There is a long name for the type of bacteria that they found in his blood, that I can't remember how to spell or pronounce at this point, but once this was determined, he was put on yet another antibiotic to try and knock the infection back. He has had a couple of rough days, but we are glad to report that he is back on the upswing. While his white blood cell count isn't completely back to normal, its climbing in that direction, and his platelets and other counts are now normal. He will continue on antibiotics for another week and hopefully at the end of that he will have all normal blood work. Other good news is that he tested negative for Lyme disease, so we were very relieved to get that news today as well.
I just spent a nice couple of days with my parents and enjoyed being able to visit with them, watch fireworks from their back porch and help them out in small ways. Its always an honor to be able to be with them. Provided there isn't anymore drama in the next few days...we should have results of his July 10 MRI to share sometime early next week. ~~Tami and family