The debate continues.

Today marked the start of the last full week of radiation. I'm glad to see the end is in site, the end of radiation that is. Before I get into New York, I have to give a special shout out to the technicians at Duke. As I've told people, the folks at Duke are amazing from the doctors and nurses to the techs and the volunteers. It's the greatest place you've never wanted to be in your life.

This past Friday, Ashley and I made a day trip to MSKCC to speak with the hand specialist. As I have come to discover with all these doctors, he was an amazing individual who referred to himself as a "freak" when it came to "this stuff." Other than having a last name that translates "son of one who beats death," he was extremely impressive and straightforward. In addition to having a cool last name, he was quite optimistic about my having a significant degree of functionality in my hand after the potential removal of major muscles and nerves. If the second surgery requires this more intense removal, he could use nerves from my calf and muscle from my thigh to rebuild the forearm. Apparently this would have little to no effect on my sick dunking skills. I might have to lower the rim from 9 and a half feet to 9 and a quarter, but whose counting when you're 6'4" and can't jam a regular goal anyway?

After being so imprerssed by this doctor at MSKCC, it was very interesting and reassuring to hear him speak so highly of DUMC and the particular hand doctor there who would be involved with my surgery. It appears the DUMC doctor works on the cutting edge (no pun intended) and has had great success with innovative surgeries. We're going to meet with this hand surgeon Thursday and my original tumor surgeon the following Wednesday (when I have all the scans). At that point, I really feel like I can make the best decision, having spoken with all the potential doctors. Either way, I feel confident, I'm in great hands. Oh yeah, the pathology came in and as predicted, I have a Triton tumor.

After each appointment and definitely after the scan results come in, I'll report back. Until then, here are some stats for those keeping score....

As of this Friday I've:

had 23 doctors appointments
with 12 different doctors.

completed 22 radiation treatments
which is equivalent to 1,320,000 x-rays.

stumbled though 20-some Su Doku puzzles
and yes, they weren't all the easy ones. (and yes, I'm a dork for bringing up Su Doku)

watched more minutes of hockey that all my friends who don't live in NC combined.

Thanks again for all the support, kind words, letters, and prayers.