Thanks to all for your advice and suggestions. Right now, I'm just so frustrated and P O'd about this damn cold! Which I caught in the hospital, by the way! I guess this must be what a rain delay for the World Series feel like. I am ready, prepared and psyched for the games ... only to be put on hold.

Gail Mac, as for my PEG, it is my hope and intent to not have to use it at all (I'm an optimist by nature), but because of my reading here on this site, I wanted to have it put in before the start of treatment and before it was needed. I am a foodie - as evidenced by my girth. I love good food (I fancy myself as a pretty good cook), and good wine. I also happen to live in a serious wine region. So, among my major worries is preserving the ability to swallow and my sense of taste. That being said, I will not hesitate to use it (the PEG), or whatever necessary to get through this and to recover as fully as I possibly can. As one friend said to me, "Just maintain that 'Tough Broad' attitude and you'll come through this fine".

Simple Gifts, I'll be following your posts and thinking of you as you and I will be traveling similar paths on opposite coasts.