DMV, Avastin and Physical Therapy
Chemotherapy 3 Comments »Today I have the pleasure of feeling like I’m sixteen years old again and driving around with a DMV examiner sitting in my car, clipboard in hand and watching my every move to determine whether or not it’s safe for me to be on the road with the rest of the population. My toes on my left foot are paralyzed – this could present grave danger. Well, in all seriousness, I do understand the situation so it’s fine with me.
I was thinking about it and figured it will be a snap but after second-guessing myself, I decided to go out to youtube and search on CA DMV Road Test or something like that. Turns out they have a Top 10 Reasons You Fail Video list! It’s not so bad – silly things but errors we all make every day as burned-in drivers. Take a lane change for example - according to the DMV, if you don’t a) turn on your signal, b) check your mirrors (plural – rear view and side), and c) check you blind spot, you have commited the dreaded CRITICAL error. Regardless of how well you do before or after this tragic error in judgment, you’ve completely blown it my friend. Game over. Done. You have FAILED the test. Huh. I guess it’s not that easy after all? Do you think I might be able to just tell them I had brain surgery so I left one of the steps out accidentally and I’m sorry about that?! Probably not I suppose.
Quite seriously, I was astonished looking at this stuff because after decades of driving you just don’t think about everything in the way they really want you to. So, back to the drawing board. And, I don’t have a front license plate on my car but the list on the site says you better have one. I’ll find it I hope!
The avastin seems to really be showing some results. After my first infusion, I had physical therapy a few days later and we noticed that my gait was more improved. The session after that showed even more substantial improvement – improved heel striking, less rolling, etc. I’m walking more without the brace around the house and over the last week left the cane at home. That’s quite a change in a short time. My physical therapy appointment yesterday was also very good. I’m just making steady progress and working hard but I can now see that since I’ve started the avastin infusions, there has been significant improvement at a much faster pace.
As I posted previously, I had another infusion last week and will have another on the 30th. My oncologist said that if you are going to respond it will happen quickly – you will show improvement in ways such as this. When she first asked me how I felt after the first infusion I said fine – she asked me if I felt anything at all and I said “no?”. I thought she was referring to side effects – she was fishing for this info.
This is great news but also means we will have some decisions to make here soon. Since it appears I am responding so well to avastin, do you try to fix what isn’t broken? Probably not – meaning, do we pull avastin in favor of the vaccine. I think everyone would agree that we should not do that. So, the strategy would be to carry out the leukapheresis and use cryogenics to freeze this indefinitely if necessary. If Avastin fails, we can pull the vaccine and implement it – for those of you that have been reading you are familiar with this whole strategy.
That is really all for now. Today is Driving Ms. Daisy then I’ll finish up work tomorrow, hopefully with a driver’s license! We’ll close the office around Noon so it will be an easy day. I’ll be off for the holiday until Monday then it’s time for football.
The best Bowl game this year? The ROSE BOWL! USC vs. Penn State. My prediction? USC 31 Penn State 14. That one is for you John Estes because I know you will be watching
For the record, I think USC would hammer the Sooners or Gators. Too bad we can’t see one of those games happen – why can’t they come up with a playoff system? Could you imagine if at the end of the NBA season a bunch of computers decided that the Lakers and Suns should play for the “NBA Championship” and left out every other team in the NBA?? All based on a bunch of metrics like strength of schedule, points for, against, their opponents’ opponents? I could write an entire post about this, put up a system they could use, etc. etc. but alas, no time.
Cheers,
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