Great treatment news and Shreveport Winnings

Well it�s been a while since my last entry. I had my 3rd chemo treatment yesterday. All went well. I had no bad reactions last time so the nurse started the pump out at a higher setting. The infusion itself only took 4 hours this time, which is the quickest it will ever be, according to the nurses. I was at the Doctors office for about 6 hours though, since I have to do a pre-Chemo blood test and meet with the Doctor before they can start the infusion.

I went last Thursday and had an MRI and CTSCAN done. The doctor gave me the results of those yesterday. They showed that I have no signs of Lymphoma in my brain and the Tumor has shrunk from Cantaloupe size to slightly smaller than a tennis ball. That was really great news. That means that not only is the Chemo working but the Tumor is no longer putting intense pressure on my heart and lungs. The Doctor said that was more reduction that he expected and that it might not change in size anymore until we do the radiation. He wants me to go have another PET scan next week. In the first PET Scan, the couldn�t really see anything as the tumor was so large that it was blocking the lymph nodes. Hopefully, now that it has shrunk significantly, they can see exactly which lymph node(s) have the cancer in them.

In some other good news, some of he Blogosphere (Ninis, Phlome, Halo, Zero, and a few other friends) headed up to Shreveport this weekend to celebrate News Years. We hung out at �Chicago�s� Friday night for New Years Eve, which is apparently the only decent club in Shreveport. They were playing pretty cool 80�s music till the club got full then they switched to Hip-Hop, which was not so cool. I didn�t make it much pas midnight myself.

Saturday we hit the Casino�s. I walked around Hollywood for awhile checking out all the gaming tables, and saw an area that said �high roller slots.� I really don�t like slot machines but I thought what the hell. I�ll put $20 in a $5 machine and even if I hit something little the payout will be worthwhile. My first four pulls netted me $25 profit, so I let that ride. My very last pull the machine went nuts beeping and I looked down to see I had won 120 credits. My first thought was WOW I just won $120, then I remembered it was a $5 machine. I had just won $600! Well I immediately cashed that out and walked away. Then we decided to go next door to the Sam�s town casino, in search of cheap blackjack. There was no cheap blackjack to be found but I put another $20 into a $1 machine and won $100! Of course, I immediately went and sat down at a blackjack table and lost it in about an hour. No big wins the rest of the weekend won a little at blackjack, lost a little at roulette. I really wanted to play Texas Holdem poker but there was a 5 HOUR wait. By the time my name came up it was 9:30 at night and I wasn�t up to playing poker for 4-5 hours. Probably for the best, Overall I walked away with about $500 in winnings. I bought gas logs for my fireplace with some of it and I�m going to spend the rest of it today on a fishtank!