Turtles adapt, too! When I started to tip him back into his clean aquarium today, instead of scrambling to stay at the bottom of the bucket like he’s done in the past, Survive-E walked to the bucket opening and slid into the water. He knows the new routine.

It’s a good thing Ken called about his rash because it’s a fungal infection at one of the tumor sites. According to the doctor, since Ken’s immune system is compromised, these kinds of things will pop up.

Thursday was our “short” treatment at the cancer center. Ken received an infusion of Erbitux (which is a monoclonal antibody, not chemo). Unfortunately, the nurse couldn’t draw blood from his port and had to give him a clot-buster (the nurse called it “Drano for your bloodstream”), which takes about 30 minutes to loosen things up. Once she drew the blood, we had about an hour wait for the lab results. After that, of course, the pre-meds were started; and finally, the actual treatment began. Overall, life being what it is, our short day was a mere hour shorter than our long day.

We learned on Wednesday that Ken has 4 more chemo treatments before the next PET scan. If you’re looking at a calendar, that means it will be May before we know how much more chemo he’ll get before the surgery.

Ken says that life is a series of learning experiences and in this case, his diploma is a colostomy bag.  At some point, we might even find that funny. Right now, however, colostomy bags are not very humorous, though we’re occasionally able to laugh about cancer and chemo. Most of the cancer “humor” that I’ve read is just terrible. However, Ken did discover a great website, cancerowl.com. It’s a funny, honest portrayal of life after a cancer diagnosis.

We cut Ken’s hair — though not his beard yet — this afternoon since it’s starting to fall out in patches. I had been planning to shave my head too but Haley and Ken both said it would be too sad, a constant reminder of Ken’s cancer. Not that we ever forget.