A great day, times two!

Today is my wife's 45th birthday. Happy birthday, Carla! We just finished eating her birthday coconut cream pie and sent the kids off to bed. They did well today. While Carla took me in for a visit this afternoon with my surgeon, the kids cleaned the house and decorated the ballroom with streamers and balloons. When we got home we had dinner, opened her presents, danced a bit in the ballroom and then settled in for a family movie. Not a bad night. Carla just told me that her best present of the day was having a tumor free husband. I'll explain.

Today makes three weeks out from the end of my chemo and radiation. This is when my colorectal surgeon asked to see me again. He's the one who did my rectal exam to stage the tumor in the first place—the infamous Dr. Bradford Sklow. See my Bend Over post for a description of that exam. So today was the follow up appointment to assess the effects of the chemo and radiation. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, I got an A+. Those 28 rounds of radiation kicked my tumor's butt right on out of mine. Take that, tumor, and good riddance!

Today I also got to ride the rectal exam table again. My surgeon went in to take a look around. He couldn't find the tumor anywhere. What is left of it looks more like an ulcer about the size of a dime. Since I started out with a two inch tumor blocking a third of my rectal circumference, that's pretty darn cool. Need I remind anyone that a dime is the smallest coin in the set? Doctor Sklow said he was very pleased with the effects of the radiation. It did exactly what they knew it could do. The results just can't be any better.

Today I am not cancer free, but I am tumor free. What an awesome way to finish phase one of my protocol. All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, family and friends. Thank you, everyone at Huntsman Cancer Institute. The rest of our appointment this afternoon was spent going over the surgery, the pre-surgery prep work, and signing all of the consent forms. I go in Friday morning, December 3rd, for the procedure. Let's git 'er done!