Food, glorious food--and good news about Joan

Chicken broth with crushed Saltines, jello with Cool Whip, Cheerios and milk, yogurt, Ensure, creamy mashed potatoes with gravy--not exactly a gourmet menu, but Ed is eating again. Hurrah! On Wednesday his mouth sores were obviously better and he actually felt like eating. Oddly, swallowing water is still a chore but the jello and mashed potatoes and broth went down just fine. Although he still slept a lot, he took short naps rather than 3-hour long ones and was up, alert, and conversational far more than anytime since May 1. I never thought I would say I'm glad he's not taking Nexavar, but it is such a relief to see this improvement and to not have him suffering so. We are going to enjoy this 2-week reprieve before he tries the drug again.

Now on to something very few people know about. I've debated with myself since March 7 about whether or not to let everyone know about my own health issues, but now they are resolved so I'll briefly fill you in. On that date, the same day Ed had his first hip pain that started his ordeal, I had a physical that sent me into a series of tests and biopsies. The end results for me turned out fine in the two questionable areas: Indications of possible cancer of the endometrial lining of my uterus turned out to be a benign fibroid tumor that I don't need to do anything about and a slight thickening of the endometrium that will be monitored via ultrasound in the future but is not so unusual in someone my age. (That's right, the gynecologist basically told me I'm old.) The other issue is that I have an enlarged thyroid, technically called multi-nodular goiter. The first good news is that "multi-nodular" almost always means no cancer, but I do have one large node. It was biopsied on Tuesday, and Wednesday I got the good news that the node is benign. Since the large node and enlarged thyroid do not impede my voice or swallowing or bother me in any way other than not liking to wear turtlenecks, there's nothing to be done about that except ultrasound in 6 months to make sure nothing has changed. Once again, what a relief! Ed didn't need this extra worry on top of his own problems.

For a change I feel like I've delivered good news all around. My cousin Carole said there would be some good days mixed in with the bad and we are currently having a few better ones. Thanks to all for your words of encouragement.
Joni