"Yew trees and Steroids-more good news".

As some of you know, Elspeth my wife was treated for breast cancer and she too was/is involved in a drug trial. She was given Taxitere in addition to her other chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. As we understand it, Taxitere is derived from the yew tree. To cut a long story short - we were back at the WGH( this time for Elspeth!) on Friday as part of the ongoing trial monitoring and she has been told she no longer needs to be monitored as she is as clear as anyone can be. Great news and another box off the checklist. She is still taking Tamoxifen but that is also to be reviewed shortly. Given she/we had a scare in January about possible return of the cancer this is great news.

In terms of the lenalidomide trial, decision made- even before I asked about it, that I remove one of the four day blocks of steroids from my 2nd cycle. This is all within the protocols of the study though as I understand it once there has been a dose reduction, it can't be increased again. Given the very positive result from the first cycle I have to confess that reducing the steroid dose is pretty welcome given what it was doing to my BMs etc/. The crash days were getting harder to recover from and also getting harder to keep my BMs down despite additional insulin dosage.

Great weekend in the Highlands and made it to the top of Cairn Gorm ( by the mountain train I hasten to add !). Also went to Perth to see the football -St Johnstone v Queen of the South. So again- whatever else- the lenalidomide hasn't stopped me getting out and about.