From: Rachelle Miller [pcm@teleport.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 10:04 PM
To: Aileen Franz
Subject: Update on Peter and Mom

Whew! what a couple of weeks this has been.  Thank you for all of your
prayers and support.  I've needed them ALL.

Peter got out of the hospital Tuesday evening.  He indeed has tumors
pressing on his spinal cord as well as having some compression fractures
of the vertebrae due to the cancer.  These are all metastatic prostate
cancer tumors.  The docs have decided to give him a 3 week course of
radiation to kill off the offending tumors and then see which
compression fractures might be causing trouble.  In the mean time they
will hold off on any chemotherapy until he has finished radiation.
Makes sense to me!  There is no reason to totally deplete his system all
at one time.  He stayed home today, but will go back to work tomorrow.
To add insult to injury, he pulled his groin muscles on Friday so
getting around is much more difficult than it had to be.  Poor guy!  But
I'm glad I came home.  It seemed to settle everyone down.

Mom is doing quite well after her first chemo at least IMHO!.  She tires
easily and has felt a little "ishy", but the meds seem to have handled
most of the nausea.  Many praises!!  Keep her on your list for prayers
and good thoughts, though, because this treatment is long and strong.
Hang in there, Mom, you're doing great!

Off to have some dinner.

Hugs to all,

Rachelle