[stanford_status] Dec 14, Thu - More time awake, pain is low

[John R Larsen]

Hello Everyone,

Stanford has been awake a lot more today than previous days during 
the daytime.  His pain levels have also been very low.  A massage 
therapist gave him a thorough massage today that helped him relax 
all the tense spots.  This afternoon we finished watching the movie 
"Freaky Friday".

Fluid build up is continuing.  The nurse explained that in advanced 
cancer patients there is fluid build up.  The liver is getting very 
large and it puts pressure on the lymphatic system so that it can't 
drain properly.  This results in fluid being trapped in the 
extremities and the groin area.  There really isn't much that can be 
done other than positioning his body to allow these areas to drain.  
He had a two hour nap this afternoon with feet higher than his head. 
This helped a lot draining those locations.  

The words "advanced cancer patient" are scary sounding.  We keep 
praying and depending on the Lord that Stanford's body will hold 
together long enough for the cycles of gemcitabine to start killing 
the tumors and reversing this whole process.  We know a young man 
who also has "small round blue cell tumor" (in his case it's Ewing 
sarcoma) who received gemcitabine earlier this year.  It took 4 to 6 
weeks for a marked response to show up and his tumors have all 
disappeared.  As you may remember, Stanford's cancer is of unknown 
type, but it is in the "small round blue cell" category.  Stanford's 
second round of gemcitabine will be Monday morning, Dec 18th.

He was up during the night for an hour at 1:50 AM.  He was up again 
at 4:37 AM for about 70 minutes and got caught up reading all his 
email.  It had been several days since he went through email.  He 
appreciates the emails he has received, but probably won't be taking 
the time to answer them personally.  He was up at 8:30 AM for his 
medications and stayed awake until 3:30 PM.

Joyce was running an errand at Target yesterday and also checked to 
see if they had any Wii remotes and nunchuks.  Finally success!  
This is the first store that has had any.  She bought three and 
Stanford got them as an early Christmas present.  This morning he 
got them out of the packages and now we can play 5 player bomber 
man!  Pictures of Stan preparing the Wii remotes are at 
http://StanfordLarsen.org along with pictures of the gaming club 
yesterday playing Magic with Stanford in our kitchen.

As always, we thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, 
encouragement, and support.

John

_______________________________________________________
John R Larsen <john at larsen-family.us>
http://larsen-family.us