Milestones

Congratulations to our grandson, Eric, who graduated from Pacific U this morning with a degree in History. He plans to teach high school and coach baseball after he gets his teaching certification from the local Concordia University. That will take one more year. The graduation ceremony was nice, if a bit early (9:30 am) complete with band and bagpipes for the processions in and out of the stadium. Pretty neat. Years ago I completed my degree requirements at the end of a summer and so didn't have a formal ceremony. I marched down to the mail box and back when my degree arrived.
 Pomp and Circumstance.

Yesterday was the step-daughters last day at her job, finally. They had asked her to extend her final day for several weeks to help with her final "Month End" closing of the books and to train her replacement. But that's all done now and she should be arriving in Boise this evening. She's already exploring job leads and is ready to look at houses. She will be staying with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter until those details are worked out.
 The beginning of a new chapter.

In other news:
I went through nivolumab treatment 3 of 26 last week. Once again no side effects. We met with the oncology RN the day before. She wanted to know about our experience so far and assess my health to see if any adjustment were necessary. Not this time. We'll see her every couple of months. I will also get another PET scan in early July to make sure no more "hyper-metabolic" sites have sprung up. The CT Scan to check on the kidney tumor growth/no growth will be in early August.

In the mean time its "Steady As She Goes!"

Guests and Expert Opinions

These guys showed up for breakfast last week. This picture was taken before the dog noticed them...

They came up from the river to munch on some tasty leafs and buds.

In other news, we saw the Urologist last Friday. He's never treated a patient getting immunotherapy for a different type of cancer. His main concern is if it will hurt the healing process were he to do surgery. Normally he wouldn't fool around the tumor. He would  just go in and remove the offending mass, no questions asked. My Oncologist told him that it would have no effect on healing and should keep the 5.3 cm mass on my left kidney from growing.  The Urologist talked to us a lot about kidneys, renal cancer and options. That's what it comes down to, options. I am not experiencing any pain around the left kidney (much higher in the back than you would guess!) and do not have blood in my urine. These are major signs of tumor aggression. So, he is taking a wait and see position. I am scheduled for a CT Scan in August, three months. He said that if the mass hasn't shrunk at all by then, if it is the same size or has grown at all he will remove it. Depending on exactly where the tumor is on the kidney and how involved and attached it is to the kidney he will remove the mass or, if deemed too risky because of its location in relation to the major blood and lymph system connections, he may simply remove the whole kidney.

Possibilities for the future.

In the mean time I go back for my third infusion session next Wednesday.