Hello there from Ojai.

It has been a wonderful year. It has been another year. I have been glad to be alive and doing lots of things that I wanted to do.

When I stopped doing chemo in May, I had a lot more energy. I tried to do a lot more of our normal home routines. But still I found that I was just wearing myself out day after day. I needed more help and Martha needed more help.

In October, we hired Katija, a dutch women, to come during the week which allowed us both some space to get our work done.

In October I attended a meditation retreat in Vermont. It was wonderful to sit and meditate in group during the New England Fall.One night during the retreat I had severe abdominal pain.

I did not have any meds. I was foolish perhaps but I had not used any pain meds since the Spring/Summer of 2004. I was a bit disheartened by the event but then I felt good for quite a while.

We travelled hard during Thanksgiving and saw my brothers and sisters who are in California. I felt myself tiring and was feeling more and more pain. I was taking one pill of opiates a day.

Then two.

But I felt pretty good and just required few meds.

We travelled to Seattle. The pain racheted up and I began to ITCH. It was so terrible. I enjoyed Seattle and my relatives but I itched 24/7. Thinking it was drug reaction we switched opiates and used bendryl.

Back to the Doctor.

Blood labs came back showing elevted "Billy Rubin". The oncologist used an ultra sound scan to discover that my biliary tract was being constricted. My liver was not draining so I was being poisoned. Thus the itching in all likelihood.

Time for an operation.

Tomorrow I go in for an endoscopic procedure. They will put me out and go through my mouth to the entrance of my liver tract. If they find a gall stone they will remonve it and cut away any scarring. If they find it is being pinched off externally (perhaps an unseen tumor) they will insert a shunt to prevent closure.

Later I will likely have my gall bladder removed to prevent a stone from lodging itself in the biliary duct (they can see alreadyl that I do have stones).

My tumor counts are rising, currently in the 300's. Soon after this procedure I will begin taking chemo again. It is processed by the liver so if it wasn't working the chemo would not have been an option.

Hoping to feel better soon and to be done with this particular episode of discomfort

Be well

Love John