Vince's Journey

Treatment #4 went very smoothly and now I'm in a holding pattern until I have new CT scans on June 2nd. I'll then have a follow-up appointment with Dr. leming to go over the results and decide how to move forward. So the next month will be a bit tense. you have to give the Rituxan some time to do it's work and I'm optimistic that it will. Based on research, studies and clinical trials a 4 week course of Rituxan is the standard way to treat follicular lymphoma uprisings and in many cases the results are almost immediate with the first infusion. Now that I've had 4 infusions I doubt the lymphoma had a chance! So I'll let you know when I know something new. I feel fine (if you ignore the cold or allergies I'm dealing with now). I've never really been effected by allergies but nose has been constantly runny for about 3 weeks and the nurse at the doctors office said this has been a bad spring for allergies so who knows. I don't have a fever or anything so I guess it's something that just needs to run its course.

Judd finidhed up his junior year at UD and I went and picked him up last night. We immediately got stuck in a traffic jam on I-75 and it took about 90 minutes to get home - it typically takes 45 minutes. He's going to Florida on Tuesday for a week of sun and then he'll start a summer internship at Cincom, which is where Julie works. They should have a wonderful summer carpooling to work together!

Tomorrow, Abbey and her cousin Lauren will be running in the Flying Pig Marathon - they will be running the half marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. I'm really proud of them - I think Lauren has probably trained a little better than Abbey but they ran 12 miles a couple weeks ago in the final tune-up so they should be ready to go. Together they raised over $1700 for the LLS which is very impressive and tomorrow at this time they'll be able to say they've run 13.1 miles to help fight blood cancers; great job Lauren and Abbs!!!

Aaron is heading into finals week at SLU. Here's hoping he finishes the semester on a solid note. He's had an interesting first year away from home and it would be great for him to finish on a strong note. He's also in need of a summer job that can provide him with plenty of hours so if you have any ideas or leads, please let us know.

Of course, I continue my training for the Ride to Montauk in June. Our ride was canceled this morning due to the heavy rain so I'm hoping it clears out by tomorrow afternoon so I can get in a long ride after going down to cheer on the 1/2 marathon girls. The schedule called for us to ride 72 miles this weekend and that's not something you can fit in in a couple hour;' I'm guessing we'll need about 5 hours to get close to 72.

We've also had a few additional medical issues pop up within the family. Julie's mom has a viral infection that's knocked her down pretty good and our nephew, Connor, had a flare up of a situation that first appeared last summer. He has Krohn's disease and one of the side effects of this is he's had a couple issues with blood clotting around his brain - obviously very serious stuff. He's in the hospital now and they appear to have the situation under control but it is tough for him to go through this. Here's hoping that they get his situation under control in the very near future.

I'll end for now. Hope all is well with everyone - I will keep you posted on all the latest news from the Hopkins family!