October 14

Happy Tuesday!

Things seem to finally be turning around. The brain scan today showed a remarkable reduction of edema (Steve said he could see the improvement from across the room when he went in to view the scan,) so the steroid dose has been reduced by 25%. The plan is that next Tuesday it will be reduced again, and thereafter Den will be weaned off of the remaining 8 mg. very, very slowly. That way his own adrenal system will start making its own cortisone and things will be back to normal. If all goes as expected, the doctor will schedule Den for an MRI in two weeks. He'll have that here and Steve (Howard) will be able to determine when we'll head to Madison.

The other good news is that Den's blood tests are all normal except for the elevation with the liver function test and that, too, has improved since last week. I am picking up a different type of anti-fungal medicine that must be taken when a person is on steroids. Hopefully, that will make a difference with the liver enzymes.

All of Denny's strength and function tests were fine today, so tonight he will resume the chemotherapy. He will take that medicine five days of each 28 day cycle. It's double the amount he took last summer, but at that time he had no side effects, so we hope he will tolerate it as well this time.

So, as I type, Den is reading and correcting tests and essays. He won't return to work full-time until the doctors give him the okay, but his goal is to be there for term 2. In the meantime, a former student, Connor McKnight, is now teaching all of his classes, and Den goes in for blocks of time several times a week. This is such a perfect solution for Denny and his students. Connor is such a wonderful young man. He will be a great role model for the kids and seems to be a natural in the classroom.

Thank you for the concern and love you have shown these past weeks as we struggled through some scary days and nights here. Your prayers sustained us.

Today please keep Barb Craghan in your thoughts and prayers as she goes through her eye surgery. She did a great job taking over Denny's classes and we hope that she can go back to a relaxing retirement. We also hold Mary Beth Meehl and her children in our hearts today as we mourn the loss of her husband, Tom. He has been a great friend to us and we will miss him very much.

Thanks for everything!

Love,
Carla