Just got back from my first Drs appointment at Vanderbilt today. My doctor is really cool there. His name is David Morgan and he is very laid back. His teaching fellow is really great and personable too.

He loves musicians and tries to play the cello... admittedly not that good. He says that everything from MD looks great and wants to start me on my first RCHOP chemo treatment this Friday. I won't be getting a shunt as of now, so they will just administer the drugs through 6 IVs as I sit there and surf the web, watch DVDs, etc for 6 hours. I am so thankful for my colleagues at Belmont who have generously agreed to cover my Friday classes. I owe you guys one!

My doc also told me I have been going through steroid psychosis the last couple of days. I described to him that I have been really worn down as I haven't slept but 3 hours each night for the past 5 nights. I have literally been running around wired, like I am on speed. I even have been having some hallucinations*!#. He asked me if I had thought of buying expensive things and I told him went into the guitar store and was pretty close to buying a $2800 Sadowksy 5-string bass this morning.

He said I definitely need to tone down the steroid dosage. So hopefully I can sleep and think more clearly sometime soon with a new taper down dosage.

The bright spot of the day with all this cancer cloudiness? I opened my mail tonight and received a sizable royalty check for licensing two songs from my last CD to a commercial and a training video for a company out of Portland. I guess God is giving me a little encouragement to climb this mountain!

-Dave