Feeling pretty good at the moment

I don't want to jinx it, but I'm feeling pretty good right now considering it's a Thursday. I felt alright this morning, even considered going to work, but I had this residual stomach uncertainty and some mild diarrhea still. Then at about 10:30 I decided I was tired and took a nap for a couple of hours. That seems to have done me a world of good. I'm hoping to get into to work for maybe even 6 hours tomorrow!

Also in the good news category (I think it was Laurie who mentioned these) are that I have gained weight (I think I weigh about 156 now). Also, my stent is being removed on June 30th.

Indeed, I am not going to be getting Irinotecan (Camptosar) anymore, which is supposedly the worst of the drugs I'm on. I still get to go in for some lengthy-ish injections though (still getting Avastin, Leucovorin, and 5-FU through IV). That also means I get to have the pump for 48 hours still, which is a real drag (hauling it around, not being able to shower... especially in the summer, doesn't help my acne problem). I'm going to stick with this for a couple of doses and see how the side effects are. Then I plan to try Xeloda, which is an oral form of 5-FU, so I don't have to have the 48-hour pump. It has different side effects, so I'll see how I feel about those. Then whichever is better is what I'll stick with.

I'm on a new car kick (again). Periodically this comes back and goes away as quickly as it came in. My shortlist now appears to be something like:

• Honda Fit
• Subaru Outback
• Volkswagen Rabbit 2-door S
• Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI
• Mazda Mazda3

Unfortunately all of those except the Fit (and maybe the Rabbit) are way over the amount I initially wanted to spend. The SportWagen TDI looks super duper sweet (and expensive), but you get a $1300 tax rebate because it's a clean diesel, on top of the sales tax rebate for the purchase of a new car. It might make it palatable to spend $24,000 on a car. That sounds like crazy talk. Maybe I still have too many drugs going through me. I want to go test drive one, but the closest place is a whole 10 miles away in Owings Mills and I don't want to drive there. There's a VW dealer literally like 2 miles away, but the TDIs are hard to come by (and they don't have any). But they're also a Mazda and Subaru dealer, which is convenient for other reasons.

Also, I have been playing around with my VoIP server (internet phone) and managed to get a free phone number that if you dial, will ring for 12 seconds, and shunt straight to a voicemail which then gets emailed to me. I can give this number to annoying car salesmen and then never be bothered with a ringing phone. Excellent. Setting up Voicemail was much easier than I expected, given the effort I've had to expend getting the rest of it working. I still have yet to bail on my $50/month cell phone plan and go pre-paid, which was the whole idea from the beginning. There is yet more loose talk afoot of having a big family plan. I doubt it will ever happen, and I'll just continue paying $50 a month ;)