Today will be another day off the chemicals and I must build up my strength. Somewhat nervous in advance of Monday when I will again get vincristine, and methotrexate both intravenously (IV) and intrathecally (IT). We’ll see how I do. Then I get to recuperate again with healthy doses of leucovarin to counteract the methotrexate. Per the schedule, I get to go home for a few days beginning day 14 (December 9). I rest up and when ready I come back for the biggest broadside yet when I move to IVAC. (The current regimen is CODOX-M). You could liken this to an 1800’s naval battle, with IVAC and CODOX-M wearing and throwing huge weights of metal at the enemy ship Lymphoma. I hope their aim is good and they hit the right things because I’m also on that ship.

My mouth continues to be very sore, but twice now over the last two days I’ve gotten a tingle in it, reminiscent of the earliest sign of the disease, which leads me to hope that it will eventually get back to normal. I wish, of course, that I had immediately reported the original tingling in the jaw to my GP, but I also had not recognized the significance of the night sweats. At any rate, I am sure that most GPs are not equipped to recognize the symptoms of this particular lymphoma. During my admission he finally realized that my cranial nerves had been affected, but thought perhaps that I had had a stroke.

Had a good visit with Mo yesterday. She is looking tired but beautiful. She got her walk with Diggory yesterday, with Martha and Iona too. Martha lent me some books that I have not started since I am now on to “The Fortune of War” in the Aubrey-Maturin series.

Grandma and Granpa visited Bradley Lane yesterday and brought a foosball machine. I talked to both Norm and Gerry on the cell phone. They are staying over night. It is times like these that help families grow.

I have pretty much mastered the cell phone [Motorola e815] and added a bunch of sites to my mobile web favorites. The one site that Verizon doesn’t list that everyone should have is the BBC site [www.bbb.co.uk], which works great on this phone. I’ve also got VCAST and spent time yesterday watching segments from “The Daily Show” and the “Colbert Report.” I love the feature where you can rotate the picture 90 degrees and can watch it like a mini-TV. Of course, I’ve got the phone fully loaded, whereas Mo doesn’t. I guess I was always a little scared of cell phones before, because they loaded them up with features that I didn’t know how to use. Input is still clunky and non-standard among the various apps.

Miranda, of course, still wants her own cell phone, but I think we are right to continue to deny it to her. She’ll get one in a couple of years, by which time it’ll be essential, much as a desktop is essential today for doing research and writing papers. Give her one today and she’d be playing too much texting her friends. Better to develop social community face-to-face.