Four month follow-up visit today at Ichilov

What can I say? It all feels so repetitive. I am in a funk at the moment... fighting off a migraine after a long, tiring day which started out with not enough sleep.

What is so repetitive?
Going to Ichilov (long travel day), waiting **hours** to see Prof. Meller, then having him tell me he will get back to me in a few weeks. He didn't even do a physical exam this time. He asked some questions, I answered them, I gave him my MRI. He popped it in for all of about a minute and a half, and said to me he has to study it, and he'll get back to me. He said the left side (Gapey/ PVNS side) looks like it may have PVNS, but he isn't quite sure with just a quick glance. The right hip & thigh seems to him that the pain may be from the herniated disks in my back, but again, he needs to study it better.

Basically, I could've sent him the MRI, and just had him get back to me. Again, I have a waiting period before getting any feedback.

Oh, we did talk about treatment options if I have to deal with more PVNS. He said, rather grimly, that there are no good options for me. It has to be thoroughly discussed with the team. I said that taking that into account, could we put the Gleevec (Imatinib) option back on the table. He said no. He will not give me "powerful medicine" that has anecdotal stories about how it could treat PVNS. There are side effects, blah blah. He said to me "it's not an aspirin, you know". I wanted to say that it's also not hip replacement surgery, but I was too intimidated. That's when I need Robert at these visits.

Anyway, again, I am in a holding pattern. But I hope to be able to ignore it until such time that the next call comes in. Sometimes I feel like a puppet on a string.

Robert & I have to figure out if/when/how we will get the family to America soon (end of January?) to see his father. His father is doing better, although he cannot talk yet (brain damage from the stroke). He is much more alert, however, and is communicative with facial expressions and and gestures. He is the most alert he has been since mid-November. We are considering options about what to do with travel plans. It would be a tremendous thing for his father to see all his progeny at this juncture in his life, and we all want to give that to him. Living in different continents doesn't give much opportunity to "honor your father and mother". We understand the opportunity here from Hashem, and we hope to live up to it.

It's not going to be easy, though.

I want a vacation... a real vacation... lots of trees, a small cabin, sunny and crisp fall-like days, chilly tea-drinking evenings... Just a few days of that, that'd be enough for me.

If I actualize it in my head, then maybe it will get transposed into reality. It's worth a shot, right?