Tuesday was my well-baby visit for Revlimid Cycle Six--the last Revlimid Cycle. After being marked fit for duty by Dr. Cheson, we talked about next steps. Apparently--as far as the trial goes--this is it. We do 21 days of Revilimid then go into monitoring. If my next bone marrow sample still shows CLL, we monitor. It seems this drug can take a while to work. One trial member finished with relatively little improvement. He was tested for several months with no change. Finally, Dr. C. was bringing the gent back in to determine next course of treatment when his tests came back "CLL totally gone". He was all the sudden in full remission and has remained so for a year. Caveat: this guy was a Jesuit priest, so he may have had other factors working for him.
After my well-baby (and with Liz's full knowledge) I rendezvoused with Ms. C., a high school friend with whom I had reconnected through Facebook. C. graduated a year behind me and we hung out periodically afterward. While at the time I desperately wanted to call what we were doing "dating", it is probably more accurately described as "her letting me buy her dinner, but in an entirely platonic and non-mercenary way". We corresponded for much of my freshman year at LSU, then drifted apart. She did hold the record for quite some time for "most expensive meal I've ever bought a girl" and is still the "first girl who ever talked me into eating a raw oyster". I didn't know. I chewed. I don't like to think about it.
In the interim, she has finished college, finished law school, gone to work for a major corporation whose name you would recognize in a heartbeat, married what sounds like a cool guy, and now works as a lawyer and lobbyist for the aforementioned corporation. The HQ of the corp. is just a few miles away from Georgetown, so after my doc visit I drove over and we had a late lunch at Panera. It was great catching up and even greater that the conversation consisted of things other than 'remember when such and such..." (though some of that did happen). We both agreed that social networking is fabulous and that we can't understand the great reluctance of some of our peers to take advantage of same. We've lived in close proximity for fifteen years and only discovered it about two months ago. Love that Facebook. Anyway, we ate, we talked, we laughed, we promised to stay in touch. I walked her back to the door of her building, where she gave me a quick hug before heading inside. It was just like the old days. [This is where if I used emoticons in the blog, I'd use a smiley.]
Anyway, all continues to go well, but remembering that last year around this time I was saying similar things, I ain't getting cocky. No part of me misses being fed through a tube in my nose and I'd just as soon avoid it. I figure I've got two birthday parties coming to me this year, but I'm not bitching about the present I got last year and the 'present' I continue to enjoy today.
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