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diminished sense of taste. We received a gift basket of Canadian chocolate bars, maple<br />
sugar and shortbread cookies from Gary, Dana and the girls. The Nestle Crunch bars<br />
tasted almost as good as I remember them.<br />
I have been feeling pretty good this past week, so I am not looking forward to round 3. It<br />
starts <strong>with</strong> labs and an examination by Dr Flam. <strong>My</strong> hemoglobin remains at 11 grams. <strong>My</strong><br />
WBC are 9,900 again normal and my platelets are 166,000. This is also normal. So far I<br />
have tolerated everything well, <strong>with</strong> only complaints of dry mouth, decreased taste and<br />
some tenderness of my gums. No hair loss although the hair on my head and my beard<br />
are growing only very slowly. I guess I got the buzz cut prematurely. I don't think I am<br />
significantly worse today than I was after round 1.<br />
We arrive early, at 8:00 AM. I am done by 3:30 PM.<br />
I am not uncomfortable during the chemo although I am running to the bathroom every 20<br />
minutes towards the end.<br />
About a week ago, Bert, my bridge partner and good friend suffered a stroke. He lost the<br />
ability to speak, but no other functionality. He was in the hospital for a few days and is<br />
expected to make a full recovery.<br />
I spoke <strong>with</strong> him on Saturday and he was quite lucid, although he was often still unable to<br />
find the words he needed. We had finished first and second the two last times we played<br />
bridge. I played <strong>with</strong> Jill Friday and we won. I played <strong>with</strong> Byron yesterday and we won.<br />
I will wait to play bridge again probably until a week from Friday, hopefully <strong>with</strong> Bert.<br />
Our dear friend Bonna came for breakfast on Saturday and she brought us a chicken<br />
noodle cheese casserole which we will have for dinner tonight.<br />
Eva slept here Sunday night. She will have her hair cut tomorrow and donated to Locks<br />
of Love to make wigs for cancer patients in my honor and also in honor of her<br />
grandmother on her mother's side who died of lymphoma and/or breast cancer.<br />
We had dinner <strong>with</strong> our good friends Carol and Larry Saturday and then they came here<br />
to play some bridge. I see significant improvement in their game.<br />
That's the news from here. We are trying to keep busy, but I am not looking forward to<br />
the next week.<br />
Go Giants.<br />
Posted by David Shuster at 05:19PM (-07:00)<br />
<strong>My</strong> Hair's Still There!<br />
Wednesday, June 15, 2011<br />
<strong>My</strong> tongue is so dry<br />
To my palate it's stuck<br />
And the taste of food<br />
Makes me want to upchuck<br />
But my hair's still there.<br />
I get so tired<br />
I could sleep on nails.<br />
<strong>My</strong> skin gets so dry<br />
It's as if I had scales.<br />
But my hair's still there.<br />
For a week, I feel<br />
Like I want to throw up<br />
<strong>My</strong> <strong>Battle</strong> <strong>with</strong> <strong>Merkel</strong> <strong>Cell</strong> <strong>Cancer</strong>
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