Hi Joanna --

Barry's (and his MO's) concerns with the Taxol was since some peripheral neuropathy occurs in over 60% of patients, and he has benign essential tremor (a hereditary, progressive condition that his dad and unfortunately, his daughter, also have) -- they could not be sure that the taxol might not exacerbate or hasten the deterioration. Since the trembing of his hands and arms (now controlled somewhat by medication) greatly interfers with his ornithological work he opted to forgo the taxol with MO's concurrence. She also said she had no hard data to show it gave a significant (that it, statistically significant) improvement. He is getting 7x carbo treatments and like you, has had zero nausea!

When he told his 98-year-old mum in England about his illness and upcoming treatment, she took it very coolly, first asking "are you going to lose your hair?" She is 100% "there" mentally and so asked about radiation damage to other organs and what his overall prognosis was -- she said, "well you are in good shape and have never smoked so you should do OK" We were very worried about telling her but Barry conferred with his brothers and they all decided she needed to know. She was suspicious anyway -- about the tonsillectomy - you know how mothers are...

Gail