Good Response

It turns out that bald looks good on Cleve, he's had some very nice and encouraging words about his new hair cut. We've also had some good ideas for Halloween costumes. Kim suggested he get a bunch of suckers and be Kojak, and his nephew Shane's idea was Jean Luc Picard...I second that suggestion, make it so.

And last but not least, the best response has been to the Temodar. We got the results back from his blood test and he is still expressing B-RAF so he will stay on the Zelboraf and he is N-RAS negative which means we dont need to make a trip to Houston in the near future....YAY!! After talking to Dr. Hwu, Cleve said he will stay on this combination of drugs with scans every two months, and, here it comes....Cleve could have a complete response to the medications. We dont have any statistics to go by, so we're just going to hope like crazy for this. Meanwhile, Cleve continues to feel pretty good with some aches and pains now and then that are pretty much taken care of with NSAIDS. There are more good days than bad though, and thats all we can hope for. So keep the prayers and good thoughts coming, we so very appreciate them!

Hair Cut

Since not having to go to Texas right away and getting chemo, we were hoping to be able to keep Cleve's hair for a little while longer. His current medications thought otherwise. Since starting the Zelboraf we have noticed a decrease in hair both on his head and body. Adding the second drug Temodar, we have noticed a lot more hair loss. That coupled with the radiation treatment to his brain has caused Cleve to lose patches of hair from the radiation beam. Cleve didnt want to see patients in clinic with patches of hair missing so we decided to cut it. Here are some pictures of before the cut, you can see the patches missing in the back mostly on the right side.

So to ease ourselves into it, we decided to just buzz it at first to see what that looked like.

Looking head on, we thought he looked even more sick with it buzzed. Also, on the right side you could see the bald patches more distinctly. You can kind of see one starting above his left ear, its lighter than the other areas. So, I used the electric razor to shave the rest off.

Then I lathered him up for a good close shave.

And here is the end result of our newly shaven boy. I think he looks good, someone you don't want to mess with. The middle picture is him making a tough guy face in the mirror.

And here he is trying on a hat so his head wont be cold.

Doesnt he look handsome? I went out and bought him some more hats today. Especially as the weather gets sunnier he's going to have to take extra care to not get burned in the sun. We also had to tell the kids that daddy is bald now. Walker did really well with it, Gavin was not too sure in the beginning but warmed up later. Pretty soon we all will be used to it, including Cleve. We are currently taking ideas for halloween costumes. So far, Mr. Clean (or Mr. Cleve, it would be), and his boss David suggested a guy from the blue man group. Both very good suggestions. Any more out there? post 'em.