12/5/20001 It's December. Hard to believe that we are 14 months post diagnosis and still on the right side of the dirt! My thanks go out to all of you, my gentle readers, for you patience and the many, many kind e-mails I have received concerning this web page and my health. No, I am not bowing out of the duties required to keep this web page going, but thought it a good point to say Merry Christmas and a joyous Holiday season to all.
Ok, that's out of the way... back to the reporting. Saw Dr. Yaffe (oncologist) on Monday and he said everything looks good. No films so it was just a poke and prod examination. He has me set up for an upper GI barium swallow next Monday and a CT scan on the following Monday. Just time for those diagnostic films to be taken, but it always increases the tension level when we do them since one can never be sure if anything ugly might show up or not.
Thought I would share this wonderful stuff I have to drink before the CT. As you can see, the stuff is called E-Z-Cat Dry... sounds more like something you would put in the kitty litter box than in a quart of water. Always gives us a chuckle when I come home with the Cat Dry!

Other than that, not much going on right now. Getting stronger every day and my weight is up to 155 pounds! When Dr. Yaffe walked into the examining room his first comment was "You're getting fat!" I no longer have that gaunt, haggard look I had for the first couple of months after surgery. Still a shadow of my former self, but I might get up to 170 pounds which, I think, would be a good weight.
We will be heading up to Columbus, Ohio for the Christmas holidays and really looking forward to that trip since we had to miss it last year.

I'll update the page after I have the barium swallow and the CT scan. Keep your fingers crossed that the news remains good!

12/29/2001 Haven't updated the page in a couple weeks, so here goes. At this time everything looks good! Barium swallow and CT scan all came back normal (well, as normal as anything can be considering my new internal layout!) We didn't expect the barium swallow to show anything unusual and it didn't. Dr. Kolla remarked that things pass through my stomach very quickly and that's probably why laying down for a few minutes after eating seems to make the digestive process easier. The CT scan is always scary since if anything ugly is goiing to show up, this is the place it will make itself known. Again, everything is normal! Dr. Yaffe doesn't want to see me again until April. I need to make an appointment to see Dr. Moore in January.

We spent Christmas with Candace's family in Ohio and a wonderful time it was! We stayed with her Mom in Columbus, visited her sister in Lancaster, Ohio (where we have our future retirement homesite) and then drove up to Cleveland to see her brother Mel, sisters Mandy and Gretchen. Lots of great food and good conversation!

I am going to stop the monthly updates as we move into 2002 (and you better believe I am VERY happy to get out of 2001 alive!) and just have a single page for the year. Medically, not much is happening and I really hope to keep it that way.

We wish all the gentle readers of this web site a most wonderful 2002.