Cycle one is in the books.

What at week. I'm sitting here on Saturday morning just relaxing and trying to rest (those of you who know me well know that I don't slow down and rest well). The kids are at my parents for the night so Joa and I are getting ready for The Wedding Dress party tonight at the Amway. I just picked up my Tux and Joa's dress still fits great so we are ready to go. Since I had a few minutes I thought that I would give you a quick update on my first week of treatment.

I checked into my oncologists office on Tuesday morning for my first treatment of chemo therapy which consisted of Rituxan and Treanda. We were underway by about 9:00 AM. First infusion was Saline and then some Benadryl to calm my immune system a bit. The Rituxan is a very aggressive protein that begins to eat cancer immediately so your immune system can "freak out" a bit without the Benadryl. All was well for the first hour or two but then I started to have some issues like rising blood pressure, stomach pain, nausea and a higher heart rate. We slowed stopped the drip and switched to more saline and a steroid to calm me down. After an hour or so we started the Rituxan back up again and slowly increased the rate every 30-40 min. I started to get the chills so I wrapped my self up in heated blankets but then developed a small fever and began to over heat. By about 4:00 I got the entire dose of Rituxan in and switched to some anti nausea meds followed by the Treanda. At bout 6:00 or so everything was down and I was feeling decent all things considered. Well enough that I could go to Max's choir concert that evening.

Wednesday morning at 9:15 was a quick bag of saline and a second dose of Treanda. This entire appointment was only about 2 hours. I felt good so I worked from my home office in the basement.

Thursday was a quick one hour appointment to have an injection of Neulasta (white blood cell booster). Since it has been my first time on Neulasta since 2005 I needed to make sure that I didn't have a reaction. I didn't so off I went to Shoreline for a few hours. I got tired around 2:00 so I worked from home for the rest of the day.

Friday I was feeling good so I went to the office for most of the day and felt pretty good all things considered.

This week has been tough but the outpouring of support from my friends, family, church, LLS teammates, customers and Shoreline has been totally humbling. The chemo is working quickly as the large mass of lymph nodes in my left axillary are gone after only 5 days. I'm moving slower than normal but feeling OK. My next treatment won't be until April 19.

Everyones prayers have been felt and the support appreciated.

God Bless,

Tim, Joa, Max, Liv and Charlie.