My recovery from the major abdominal surgery I had in early April was easy and uneventful. By May I was back walking the hills and streets of Brattleboro, every morning that it wasn’t raining. These walks I have kept up, interspersed with rest days or rain days once in a while.

In March I had had a Ct scan which had shown no metastases, so the surgery and bladder scraping and resecti was done on that basis. But in May I had my first PET scan and while the initial report was terrific, I soon learned that the experts at Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical center believed the report was in error. So I had to undergo a biopsy and they found one lymph node, the one closest to the kidney now removed, was cancerous, though not very big. Three months later I had a PET scan confirming what the biopsy had already told us.

Fast forward to August: I was not a candidate for most chemotherapy regimens, given that my one kidney was functioning only at 50%. One doctor suggested a chemo/immunotherapy combo, but the side effects would have been awful and frankly my quality of life matters to me far more than eking out a little more time. So I’ve opted for just immunotherapy with a med called nivolumab hyaluronidase, which can be given as an injection into the subcutaneous tissue of my abdomen. So far I’ve had 3 treatments as they occur once every two weeks. The first and second time I had some minor side effects, but the third injection, last Wednesday, has had no ill effects on me at all. I feel great! In fact I feel perfectly well, so it’s bizarre to me that I actually have metastatic cancer. Sometimes while walking uphill and downhill at 4mph I tell myself this, but it always feels absurd and unbelievable.

I need to leave for Bone builders soon, so instead of adding Inktober drawings quickly, I will simply post those in another post asap.

Would love to know who is reading this blog, if anyone is. Do think about commenting to that effect, if for no other reason.