Paul Wojcik

Welcome to our CaringBridge site. I confess that Paul and I have been reluctant to set up a web site, preferring instead to try to call or write people personally.  However, we're finding it difficult to keep people updated, and it's taking up a lot of time, although we truly appreciate and welcome all the support.  It's a good problem to have, and we are grateful every day to have the friends and families we do.As many of you know, Paul was diagnosed in early May with urethral cancer, a rare and invasive cancer.  It's so rare that we had to go to Johns Hopkins and Sloan-Kettering even to get a diagnosis beyond "malignancy that has migrated."  We opted to get his treatment at Johns Hopkins, and they arranged for a local oncologist to administer chemotherapy, which has cut down considerably on the number of trips to Baltimore.

After four rounds of chemotherapy this summer and early Fall, Paul still looks and feels terrific. (We joke that people probably think we have Munchausen Syndrome, and we're just doing this for the attention.)  He suffered no side effects other than some fatigue, which put his energy level while on chemo roughly equal to mine on a good day.  

The next step is surgery, scheduled for Dec. 3. Paul will be in the hospital about a week, followed by a month to six weeks of recovery.  As you can imagine, he has a lifetime's supply of books at the ready, and we're looking forward to catching up on all those shows everyone is raving about-- "Downton Abbey," "Homeland," "Breaking Bad," "Treme."  Six weeks is probably not long enough . . . 

If you're the praying type, we appreciate your prayers.  If you're not, we appreciate your positive thoughts.  I'll post again following surgery to give you an update.