"Cancer has given me a new outlook on life."

Since Steve and I had 'The Art of Surviving' seminar to attend yesterday and Steve had to be at the hospital at 6:30 am, we decided to stay the night at The Rotary House.  The Rotary House is a hotel owned by MD Anderson and operated by Marriott and is connected to MD Anderson by a sky bridge.  The hotel is only available to MD Anderson patients.  After the seminar, we were too tired to leave for dinner so we had a nice dinner at The Oaks Grille inside The Rotary House.  After dinner, we turned in early to get some sleep before our 6am wake up call.

We got up at 6am and got ready to head over to MD Anderson.  Since it was so early, the shuttles that usually run between the Main building and the Mays Clinic were not yet running. So, we had a nice 1/2 - 3/4 mile walk to Steve's first destination.  Along the way, we were able to stop and let Steve take his picture with his "survivor" banner.  It is survivor week at MD Anderson, and Steve was asked to provide a quote and join other survivors on banners throughout the skywalk/hospital.  What an amazing honor!!  Unfortunately, with melanoma you are never "cured".  We consider Steve a survivor everyday!! 

Steve with his banner and quote.

The skywalk with survivor banners.

Dr. Bogler from The Art of Surviving seminar.  Dr. Bogler has male breast cancer. 

Marisa Mir and her husband.  Marisa works at MD Anderson in the communications department and is a cancer survivor.

Steve's first stop was to have his blood drawn at the blood lab.  At 6:45 am there was no wait and he was in and out in minutes.  Next, we headed upstairs to check in for his abdominal CT scan.  There was a fair amount of people for a Sunday, but Steve was out by 9am.  His CT was scheduled for 9 am, so we were pleased to get out of there early.  After breakfast, we headed to our house and got the last of our things and cleaned up.  Today was the last day at our house and the first of many nights at our apartment.  We are having a new home built and should be in the apartment 6-7 months (sounds fun, huh?)

Breakfast at The Oaks Grill

Good Bye, Glade Bridge Ln!!!

We have been trying to get the apartment in order all night.  Things are everywhere!!! It is a nice distraction from the "scanxiety".  Steve will have a head/neck CT in the morning and then meet with Dr. Kim at 11:15 to discuss the results.  Our hopes are that the cancer is gone!!  We will also accept stable or shrinking tumors.  And, if worse comes to worse and the scans show something new, we have a few clinical trials we are interested in. 

Results tomorrow.............breathe.