Deb and I spent most of today (Monday) back at the Beth Israel for follow-up 
exams. It's been almost two weeks since surgery, and Deb is doing well. Her 
diet is completely back to normal -- we had our first post-surgical pizza 
tonight. 

The incision is healing nicely. Today a nurse practitioner removed the 54 
staples that have been holding it together. This is one aspect of surgery 
that is amazingly low-tech. Staples are removed with a tool that looks remarkably 
like a staple-remover. After the staples were out, the nurse put steri-strips 
over the incision -- these look remarkably like pieces of scotch tape. (I 
didn't ask what they cost.)

We also heard the size of the thing they took out of Deb. The largest 
dimension was 33 centimeters -- about 13 inches.

We got the prescription for Gleevec today, and it will be interesting to see 
how long it takes Rite-Aid to fill it. The type of cancer Gleevec treats is 
rare enough that nobody keeps the drug in stock. Deb is also waiting on the 
result of a blood test before starting on Gleevec, so it'll be a few days 
before she needs it. Dr. Lange continues to be optimistic. "Twenty-five years 
ago we talked about finding a magic bullet for cancer. Well, this really is a 
magic bullet."

The big question we had for Dr. Lange was "How will we know if this is 
working?" The answer is that we probably won't. If the remaining pieces of 
the tumor are big enough to show up on a CAT scan, we can watch and see if 
they shrink. But if not, we'll just have to take a no-news-is-good-news 
attitude. Deb had a baseline CAT scan done today. We'll find out in a few 
days whether they see anything.

She also had a chest x-ray. The left lung, the one that partially collapsed 
after surgery, still doesn't sound quite right. It may just need more time to 
recover, or some kind of treatment might be necessary.

If they ever make a movie of this, the comedy subplot will be my shopping 
trips. For some reason, even the simplest shopping list turns into a 
scavenger hunt for me these days. Today, I was in a drug store that had run 
out of extra-strength Tylenol. (Why were they still open?)

The next step, in addition to starting the Gleevec, is to start getting Deb 
out of the apartment and work on her stamina. At the moment she can walk 
about a block without getting too tired.