YAO-ZA!!!

Hey all,

Good news from Dr. Yao--or rather, Dr. Tiffany Avery, our new favorite doctor on the PLANET. Dr. Avery is running Yao's interference, we guess. She's on a fellowship at MDA and she came in before him to give us the run down on everything.

She said mom's labs were "perfect" (perfect!) and that the radiology reports were "stable overall" showing maybe only "1 or 2 millimeters" growth since January. When she percieved our slight discomfort with what felt like a somewhat ambiguous report, she says, "Do you want to see it?"

WHAT?

This is the moment when today became our coolest visit to date. Dr. Avery pulled up mom's scans, one from today, and one from August. She clicked through them and showed us mom's INSIDES, from her lungs down to her colon, pausing on the liver and demonstrating how they measure the tumors. Sure enough those pesky spots were still there, but we also got to see how much healthy liver mom has, which was (in my humble opinion) a reassuring blessing. Dr. Avery says, "Overall I think you're doing great."

Enter Dr. Yao, who becomes more friendly every time we meet. Here are the highlights of the notes I made: "Everything essentially looks good," "I don't see any significant change since January," and "Since you don't have any new symptoms, we don't need to scan as frequently." Now that we've completed a full year's worth of measurements, we get to scale it back. And with that, we were given six whole months until our next visit! (Notice how I use "we" like Carrie, Dad and I do anything at all.)

So that's the news from the highway between MDA and the airport. Carrie and I fly out in about an hour, and Kim and Dicky will hit the road. Pray for all of our safe travels, if you will, and praise praise praise the Lord for no significant growth!

Christmastime in Houston

Well, the halls are decked here at M.D. Anderson and it is just so darn cheerful that we've almost forgotten why we're here! (Trying out an exercise in extreme optimism...) Abby flew in from Boston late last night, and Carrie arrived earlier today, so we're all assembled and settled comfortably in one of this hospital's seemingly infinite waiting rooms. With twinkle lights, of course.

As we speak mom is choking down here favorite quarterly meal: milk of magnesia, the chemical edition. She's only on the first bottle of two she has to drink, so if anyone is reading this between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, please pray that God--in his great mercy and kindness--will strike her tastebuds temporarily dead. For those of you who are wondering if it's really that bad, I'll simply tell you that under her breath, mom just said, "Gotta get my head game on." To fight the tumors on her liver? No. To get the Barium Sulfate down. Mmm, mmm, good.

By now we've got the schedule down pat. Blood tests, then beverage hour, then CT scan on Tuesday. Then we wait for Yao to give us the good news on Thursday. In the meantime, all four of us are incredibly grateful for your prayers, encouragements, and kind words. (Seriously, y'all should see her face right now with the Barium. Keep 'em coming.)

We'll let you know when we have more.
Love, love, love, the Loves (and the Love-Smith)