October 31, 2013..  Happy Halloween!! We are pleased with my new doctor. We met with him for 45 minutes today discussing what the plan is for the near future. We were also pleased with his nurse who spent at least an hour with us when the doctor was not in the room. We were at the hospital today for 4 hours. I am now scheduled to continue with the third round to collect stem cells. Dr. Zangari said there was no reason why I could not easily collect 20 million cells. I was really thankful to hear him say that I was stable compared to the previous tests 4 months ago. 

I get the ports installed tomorrow at 10am. That will allow the chemo to be pumped in as before and will also allow blood samples to be taken easily. I posted this illustration in the blog I did in our previous visit here but I will post it again showing the positioning of the port. 

 I will start on the chemo Saturday and it will continue for 4 days. The chemo is nicknamed VDT-PACE with each letter representing a drug that is in the mixture. As before, I will carry the pumps all the time during the 4 days and they pump continuously.

I want to thank each person who has said prayers for me during this because they work. I sincerely appreciate it.