Results of the November CT scan

On Monday morning we had another exciting meeting with a doctor at the hospital. For the first time after my diagnosis we met a doctor we have met once before. He's a very nice guy and also very knowlegdable in his field. He is actually this one doctor that attended the Nordic conference in September. I was a bit nervous again when walking into his office. Was the fact that they had scheduled me for meeting this particular doctor a good or a bad sign?

He started off quickly saying the results of the scan were good and that the tumours in the liver and in the surrounding lymph nodes had shrunk further compared to the scan in September. This means the drugs I'm on are still effective and will be continued for three more rounds until next CT scan in January. Mr. Big was now down to 7,2 cm x 5,0 cm compared to 8 cm x 5,2 cm in September. I was at first a bit dissapointed hearing the measures as I expected the shrinkage to be much more, especially taking into account the dramatic drop in the CEA value. When we discussed more about this I realised it is not that straightforward as that of course. Our understanding about what he explained is that the bigger tumours in the liver have more connective tissue in them, supporting the structure of the tumour. These are not cancer cells so they won't be destroyed by chemo. The doctor, anyway, emphasized not to worry to much about the measures but focus on the direction which is still good. I figured I should maybe be happy with this as the doctor said these are good news. I may write more details about the discussion and CT results later.

I spent the next four and a half hours in a hospital bed getting the seventh round of IV. They're putting the drugs in faster now. There was a guy in the neighbour bed who was starting his third round. I felt like a senior "drug addict".

Winter has come to Tampere. Lots of snow and exciting days for the kids. We've been on skis and sledge every day.

Riga

A childhood friend of mine from Norway paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago. We have a common passion for playing backgammon. It's a game with a good mix of luck and skill. We spent most of the time in cafes downtown Tampere drinking coffee and battling for the points of the game.

While my friend was visiting us our younger son became ill with what we first thought was a common flu. When we phoned a nurse he said that it sounds like hand foot & mouth disease, there's an epidemic around in Finland. It is a very common children's viral infection where you usually get blisters in your mouth and throat. That explained why he started crying every time he tried to eat! Other than that the disease luckily usually goes over quite fast, but it is very infectious. Our older kid got it on Wednesday. And my wife on Thursday. And I, who was told to be very careful with all kinds of infectious diseases, as with chemo I would have less resistance to infections, didn't get it.

Last weekend my wife and I jumped on a short trip to Riga in Latvia and left the kids home with grand-parents. The old town of Riga is pretty nice with a lot of good restaurants and cafes. We tried out a bit of the local cuisine. One evening we had an exciting dinner in Salve, a restaurant with real Latvian food. We also found some interesting and cheap self-service places where we had lunches, "Sefpavars Vilhelms" served a variety of pancakes and Pelmeni XL served the famous Russian pelmeni.

The weather wasn't too good though. On Sunday we visited the Saint Peter's church which has a tower with a nice view. The only way up (and down) is with an elevator operated by an elevator chauffeur. There was a sign next to the door saying the elevator only runs every 10 minutes. When we got out on top of the tower it was so windy and rainy that people just wanted to get back down. The chauffeur showed no mercy and the elevator was back 10 long minutes later.

On Thursday I had the CT scan. Tomorrow morning I'm off to the hospital to hear the results of the scan and start a new round of chemotherapy.

Home renovations

Lately I've spent some time at home doing renovations that we have kept on postponing for years. We'd like to have the walls of the entrance and hall areas painted. I spent quite some time ripping off the old wallpapers. Then we discovered some damp or possible water damage in a concrete wall. We had to call in some professionals to have it checked. The professional did some measurements and concluded the wall is fine and that the damp must come from the floor. More investigations and measurements are needed so the painting project is on hold.

We started a toilet renovation project instead. I took out the old furniture from one of our two toilets and installed new furniture. I needed to drill quite a few holes in a tough concrete wall so I borrowed a really good drill from a neighbour. The drilling went smooth. Maybe too smooth as my wife discovered the following day I had drilled straight through the wall and decorated the wall in the opposite room with huge holes. Great, now I need to rip off the wallpaper on that wall, fill the holes and put wallpaper back on.

We also want to change some old closets in the apartment. Finding the right balance between solution and price is pretty time consuming. At least for us. Then the challenge of finding time to visit stores with two kids in the family.

We're thinking of outsourcing the hall painting project to ensure that at least something gets done before Christmas.