Hi --

Short but interesting meeting with our medical onc today-- Barry's at the half-way point Thursday (YAY!) although he will just then be hitting the 35 Gy cumulative dose at which a lot of nasty things start to happen (like salivary glands shutting down). So we are ready for things to start getting worse, maybe pretty quickly.

MO thought he was doing very well at this point, his weight is still above when she first saw him though he's lost maybe 6 pounds (depending on whose scales we use!). She confirmed that HPV-16 positive HNSCC patients do better than smokers after treatment -- a 2000 paper by Gillison found 59% better survival -- MO also cited a Swedish paper that showed some evidence of transmission of the virus between partners so maybe a reason to get myself tested.

Since Barry's blood counts are holding well we are going to have another chemo tomorrow rather than skip a week -- keep those cancer cells jumping! He's had no problems with the carbo at all, the ethyol is more of an issue. But today we noticed that he didn't have any residual queasiness afterwards which we thought due to 1) his getting a good lunch of soup and 2) being too darn busy with doctors' meetings to sit and think "hmm, I feel a bit off..."

Also, his thrush is really abated - thanks to the Diflucane and also, probiotic kefir which a friend ( a virologist) recommended. But it will probably be a constant battle as his mouth gets worse.

Gail