Improving and doing much better

Troy's condition has much improved to that of a week ago. He went to Dr. Goldsweig's today and didn't have to be hydrated - he went twice last week to get fluids in him. He will see Dr. Riley next week on the 28th so he can determine the status of the tumor on the base of his tongue and then both doctors will determine the next course of action (3rd round of chemo or radiation/chemo combination). Troy can't stand the thought of the 3rd round of chemo. He wants to get on with the radiation. The 3 chemo drugs together have really been knocking him on his hind end. The radiation will be in combination with just one chemo drug. The fact that it's one step closer to the end of treatment is what is psychologically appealing to Troy as well. We'll just wait and see and let you know what happens next week. I just want to let everyone know that Mark Bleibtrey wrote a comment on the last entry and it sums up what we are feeling about many of the comments that we have received from people we grew up with. Although I don't have a chance to reply to the comments that come in, I just want you to know how surprised and happy we are to have heard from all of you. Some of them have come from friends we have had over the past several years and some of them have come from concerned relatives that perhaps we have lost touch with and some have come from former colleagues. However, the ones that have struck us especially are those that have come from former friends/classmates from some nearly 20 years ago that grew up with us in Whitehall. For those of you that don't know about Whitehall, it is a small town in New York on the Vermont border situated between the Adirondack Mountains of NY and the Green Mountains of VT. It houses a few thousand people. I still subscribe to the Whitehall Times and keep up with the local happenings and I see children in the paper who are now around 18 years old and are the children of my very good friends when I was 18! It is very heartwarming to receive such nice comments from people who are thinking of us and from people where so much time has separated us from them. Please feel free to email us directly at soothcage@bellsouth.net or troy.brooks@ge.com any time you want to speak to us personally. We are so grateful to all of you who are concerned about how Troy is doing. We brought Troy's Aunt Connie back to the airport today and we are solo here for the next week. It's a good week to be alone as Troy is doing very well and it gives us time to be alone with the kids. Pumpkin picking sounds like a good idea for the weekend!