Heading to Phoenix tomorrow

I leave on an early morning flight to Phoenix to meet with a couple of colleagues at ASU to talk about developing a proposal for NSF. It should be interesting and a nice change of pace. I resisted going because I felt too busy with work stuff and preparations for surgery, but I sorta feel on top of things, so now it's okay.

Plus, I'm heading into sunny warm weather - temps are expected to be 72 on Fri and Sat. I'm bringing my capris and my sandals.

Woo hoo!

I'm only staying for the night on Friday and come home again Sat evening. I'll stay with Scott in Portland Sat night and come home early Sunday afternoon to pick up Eddie.

A busy week-end. I figure that time on the plane will be spent doing some prep work for my classes while I'm home recovering. I also have a recommendation letter and some "homework" for the meeting tomorrow.

All in all, it'll be a good week-end!

Good Docs

I feel very fortunate about the doctors who care for me. Today, I met with my ob/gyn, who will be performing the oophorectomy. She explained the procedure and the side effects - which pale compared to the ones I'll experience with the TRAM flap. Basically, it'll be the TRAM that'll keep me down, if it does.

I gave her a copy of Bernie Siegel's pages that describe how patients have awareness even when they're under anesthesia. She was intrigued and said that she'd be more than happy to say positive things while I'm under and to give healing instructions "you won't bleed a lot, you'll heal fast, you'll wake up comfortably". She even said that it certainly can't hurt and if it helps, all the better. She might even change the way she approaches surgeries.

Cool.

I'm lucky!

I also wanted to give another huge thanks to everyone out there reading the blog. The other night, a colleague told me that she prays for me every day. Another colleague yesterday offered to organize meals for me and the one I met with today said that she'd be happy to help as well. I found out last week that there was another individual constantly keeping me in their thoughts. Thank you all, again, for that. It really does make a difference! The knowledge alone that you're all thinking of me gives me warm fuzzies inside.

A Good Busy Day

I had class this morning, then met with my grad assistant. Then, I met with Dr. K. He was happy about the tumor marker and then I came clean and told him that I hadn't had Xeloda for about 6 weeks.

Then, amazingly, he said, well, I guess we could think about taking you off some of the meds. Before he does that, though, he'd like to know if there was anything going on of concern - he wondered if Dr. Havard could take a look at my liver while he's got me opened up. Not sure if he's going to follow up on that. But we talked about me having a CT scan after I've recovered from surgery, around April sometime.

In the meantime, I told him that I'd be okay with going back on Tykerb two weeks post-surgery. I stopped taking Tykerb last Friday, because in general, it's better to be off the chemo two weeks prior to surgery.

Work has been busy - I'm not only prepping my daily classes, but I'm starting to plan out the powerpoint lectures for several classes while I'm home recovering from surgery.

In the meantime, I'm giving the first mid-term in one class tomorrow. Mind you, I've been posting my powerpoints for almost every class. I generally just give broad general outlines in them, but the students want them to study. I feel like I'm spoon-feeding them information. I mean, do your reading, listen to the discussion and take notes and you should be fine. It's not rocket science, here. I thought I'd posted them all, but a student tonight asked me to "post the missing powerpoints". I forgot only one of them. He looked for them around 5pm. The exam is at 10am tomorrow. I don't have them with me. They're in my office computer. So, he's just going to have to wait. I suspect that he's not done the reading. Sigh.

Okay, that's my rant for today.

Afterwards, I went to a community dinner at the Longhouse and then played volleyball. We lost the match - 21-15 and 21-16. We beat ourselves. We only had five players. Bummer deal. We're now 1 and 3 for the season.

And this month's tumor marker was . . .

Drum roll, please!!!


15.4!!

Now, that is the CA15-3 tumor marker. That's the 7th month where that marker has been below 20!

Very cool, huh?

The history is:

Sept 2007 - 23 U/mL
Jan 2008 - 31 U/mL
Mar 2008 - 36 U/mL
June 2008 - 23 U/mL (started radiation that month)
Aug 2008 - 18 U/mL
Sept 2008 - 14.5 U/mL YAAAAAAY!!!
Oct 2008 - 19.6 U/mL
Oct 31 2008 - 15.3 U/mL
Nov 28 2008 - 19.5 U/mL
Dec 30 2008 - 16.0 U/mL
Jan 22 2009 - 15.4 U/mL

Pretty stable. We like stable tumor markers.

Now, don't tell Dr. K., but I haven't taken Xeloda since the week before Christmas - around Dec 19. So, I have about 5 or 6 weeks where I haven't taken one of the tumor drugs and it doesn't appear to have affected that number.

That's even cooler!

Plugging Away

No big news, other than I did indeed catch a cold and I'm hoping that its duration is cut in half by taking Zycam - we'll see if it works. I did feel better today than yesterday and I took it all day yesterday.

Gradually crossing things off of my "to-do" list at work. Feels good, but it seems there's a lot more to go . . . job security, I guess.

I had an acupuncture appointment on Wednesday and it seems to have lessened my anxiety about the surgery. On the other hand, I've been fairly busy at work and haven't really dwelled on it.

Just plugging away, I guess you might say. Happy Friday!

A Productive Work Day but Some Bad News, Too

My lecture was fine today and then I was able to get a lot of paperwork done at work - letters of recommendation, posting powerpoint lectures on Blackboard, getting a mid-term study guide uploaded, setting up groups, copying stuff off, completing my assessment rubric, etc. I'm still working on a couple of things, namely reading abstracts for the Arctic Science Summit Week in March and starting to put together my powerpoint presentation for our department's Tan Sack lecture.

But this morning, I started to feel a bit of a sore throat. My nose is starting to run. I sure as hell hope I can keep this cold from getting worse - one of the last things he told me was to stay healthy and try not to catch anything from anyone!! So, I'm laying low tonight and taking Airborne. Gonna try to go to bed early.

I just found out that Oregon's unemployment rate is 9.1% or something - one of the worst five in the nation. My partner, Scott, is now part of that statistic - he was laid off from his job today. We're both worried, of course, but now it seems that it's time for him to make a career move and go back to school. We'll keep you posted on that end ...

Prepping for New Boobs

The surgery for my TRAM flap, insertion of an implant, and the oophorectomy (removal of my ovaries) is now 17 days away. But who's counting, eh?

I met with my plastic surgeon yesterday for my pre-op appointment. He showed me graphic pictures of the process, which was a bit daunting, but now I can visualize it better. I am trying to talk to those tissues so that the shock of the incision won't be as bad. My acupuncturist said today that it was good to prepare my wei chi (I think that's spelled right) or the fighting chi for the surgery so that maybe it won't react by fighting but will go along with the process and begin healing. In other words, by visualizing the surgery and preparing my tissues for it, I'm hoping that instead of reacting with fear and anger at the insult, it accepts the surgery as something needed and then does what it needs to do for healing. Does that make sense?

I'm starting to get anxious about the surgery. My acupuncturist asked me if I was worried and I had to say that I wasn't really worried, but more apprehensive about feeling the nausea after the anesthesia and the painkiller narcotics and also about the pain. She gave me tips for the nausea (magnets on pericardium 6 - near the wrists and also ginger tea) and then said that there were some herbal remedies for the pain if I needed them. She also gave me a movement from the Thousand Hands Buddha form that will help calm the anxiety. I will see her about 10 days post-op and she said that she'd do what she could for me at that point.

I also talked with Dr. H (the plastic surgeon) about saying positive things during surgery - his staff read the excerpt from Bernie Siegel's book "Love Medicine and Miracles" about giving instructions to patients while they are under anesthesia and thought it was cool, so I'm hoping they reinforce what the reading said to him. He has agreed to say positive things. I also mentioned it to one of my friends, Lynn, who is a surgical nurse at the hospital. I asked her to tell her coworkers about this. She seemed really interested and wanted to read the excerpt. She says if it makes a difference, maybe it's a practice they can implement during surgeries all the time. I would love it if this is something that would make a difference in peoples' lives!!

I asked Dr. H what music they listened to while they perform surgery and he stated rock/pop. I plan to call his office tomorrow and ask if I can give them some music CD's to use during my surgery. I hope so. I spent some time this evening putting together mixes entitled "New Boob Tunes" and "Dee's Boob Tunes"!! I chose my favorite songs, including some with positive messages and songs that have lots of good, fun energy and also some with a bit of fight in them - a bit of attitude, and a couple Native American/Alaska Native songs. I hope they use them! If any of you have suggestions for songs like that, I'd love to hear them!

I also saw the wound care nurse, L., for the last time. I will miss her. I need to bring or send her a thank you card.

Tomorrow, I will get some blood work done in preparation for the surgery.

Whew. I've got lots to do at work beforehand. I am also trying to remember what my fellow breast cancer survivor told me last week: 1) getting her TRAM flap was absolutely transformative for her (i.e., which means that I should focus on the positive); and 2) that as bad as the pain is at the moment, it will be less the next day. So, I keep thinking that one thing that will be good is that I will no longer have an open skin wound. The other thing is that it will be the first time in 14-15 months when my shirts fit correctly!

Happy 45th Mom and Dad!

Tonight, my family had a little anniversary dinner for my folks at my sister's house. Today marks the 45th anniversary of their wedding.

Pretty cool, huh?

Otherwise, no other real news. Just hanging out at home. Scott is helping me with a few house projects.

Happy Anniversary!

Date Night with My Son

Tonight, Eddie and I decided to see the movie, Hotel for Dogs. It was cute and funny. I enjoyed it and so did Eddie.

It was a good evening. : )

Volleyball News

Yay! We won our match last night! 21-14 and 21-11, I think. We had a full crew there and I think it made a big difference.

That's my fourth post today. Didn't realize that I had so much news!

New Year's Resolutions

Laurie, at Not Just About Cancer, just posted about her New Year's resolutions, particularly ones regarding her health. I thought about what my own would be - even though I don't generally do New Year's resolutions - and here is what I came up with:

1) Manage my money better. See the post I just wrote a few minutes ago about refinancing my house. In general, I've been trying to get better about my spending in the past few months. In part, it's because I used a HELOC (home equity line of credit) to make up the difference between my sabbatical salary (which is only 60% of my normal salary) and my regular salary. I used more of the HELOC last year because of the medical expenses I incurred from the cancer treatment - I have at least $1000 each year out of pocket expenses and alternative treatments like massage and acupuncture are only reimbursed at 70% and classes like qigong or yoga and the chinese herbs are not paid for at all and I somehow had to pay about 20% of all my wound dressings). I must also admit that before my sabbatical, I'd become accustomed to eating lunch out every day, buying books whenever I felt like it, buying games and books for Eddie without really paying attention to price and taking him to county fairs and amusement parks, and going out at least once or twice a week with Scott or other friends on the week-ends. So, I maintained that kind of lifestyle when I could after learning I had breast cancer for the second time and then learning it had metastasized. I just didn't want to have to worry about budgeting when I had bigger health issues to deal with. But now that I'm back to work full-time and have six+ months of good tumor markers, I've decided that I need to start paying down the HELOC and saving more money. I really need to tighten my belt and not do so much discretionary spending. It's doable, but I think I'm going to find it hard. (Also, there are some members of my family who make a whole lot less money than I do - and one is unemployed in this economy - and so I try to help them out because I do get opportunities to work and they aren't able to.)

2) The other thing I really want to work on this year is learning how to accept people (both colleagues and friends) as they are. I mean, there are a few individuals that I have decided to never be around just because they are difficult. But there are people that I need to learn to live with and just realize that they are the way they are and not much will change them. I can only change how I react to them.

It's a tough lesson for me to learn. Part of the reason why it's hard for me is because I've been able to accomplish a lot in life by learning how to control situations so they don't control me. I've become very decisive and take action once I learn enough about a situation, so much so that I have started to think that my course of action is the only course of action and when others move more slowly or don't take action at all, it drives me nuts and I get frustrated and even angry. For instance, over the past couple of months, two people that I love - my partner Scott and my dad - have told me that I'm too controlling.

Anyway, those are the activities I want to work on this year - to accept that other people operate and resolve issues differently than I do and to manage my money better.

Happy New Year!

And, in other news ...

I posted a few weeks ago that I decided to refinance my house. Last week, I received the unfortunate news that the refinance with my credit union wasn't going to happen because the appraiser gave an appraised value of my home at $33,000 less than the property tax assessment.

$33,000!!

When combining the outstanding balance of my first mortgage and the home equity line of credit (HELOC), I was just over the 85% threshold for refinancing. I used the HELOC last year to make up the other 40% of my salary that I lost because I was on sabbatical, especially since I had more out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Crap. I tried to figure out if I could dispute the appraisal, but the credit union said that the only way to do so was to pay for another appraisal and then they would average the two.

In the meantime, the 30-day lock-in for the interest rate (5.5%) expired on Sunday, Jan 11. So, when I asked if I could get the lower interest rate (it was 4.625% last Friday), the answer was no, the credit union has a policy of using the "worst case" - so they use the higher rate between when I originally applied for the loan and what the interest rate is now. So, if the rate goes down, I use the 5.5%. If the rate goes up, I use the new higher rate.

Figures, huh?

So, I started looking into other mortgage companies. I did some searching online and found that many of those online companies have consumer complaints. They include Quicken Loans, Lending Tree, Paramount Equity, among others. I settled with Nationwide Lending Corp. as I couldn't really find any complaints against them. The person I'm working with is trying to work with the current appraisal (who just said on his voice mail that he wasn't going to do any business until Jan 21) so that I don't have to pay for another one. That's kind of a good sign. And, I'd be able to get a 4.75% interest rate. My current rate is 6.5%. I'd save over $400 a month if the loan goes through, a lot because of the interest rate and also partly because I'm going from a 20 to a 30-year loan. But the appraiser needs to send the report to Nationwide as well as tell Nationwide why he appraised the property so much lower (Zillow.com gave a value of my home that was $10-15,000 higher than the appraisal I paid for).

It's all kind of a major pain in the ass. But once I got used to the idea that I'd have a much smaller mortgage payment, it was hard to give up. I was also refinancing with cash out so that I could have my friends and brother-in-law build a new fence and do some other repairs to the house. I also spent more cash in Las Vegas thinking that I was going to get the cash out, so now I'm kicking myself because I counted my chickens before they hatched. It's created some financial stress. I think I've got it figured out, though, so I'm okay.

So, we'll see what happens with Nationwide Lending ... I'll keep you posted!

Marfan Syndrome

Today, my son's father, Tim, took Eddie to Doernbecher's Children's Hospital for a Marfan Syndrome evaluation.

From the time he was born, Eddie has had long limbs, fingers, and toes. He had a traumatic birth - he had a low Apgar score because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice and they put him under oxygen for a couple of hours before we could see him. While we stayed in the hospital, it was hard to get him to eat; he slept a lot. He finally ate a little bit and then on his second day of life, I noticed blood in his diaper. He was bleeding from his rectum. He apparently lost a lot of blood (well, that's what they told me, but I was never told how much) and was transported to the Hartford Children's Medical Center (we were living in eastern Connecticut at the time) after they hooked him up to IV fluids. After a nightmarish few days and many evaluations and tests, the docs decided that Eddie had an "ischemic bowel", which means that his large intestine (or was it the small one? can't remember) was not getting oxygen. As near as the docs could figure, the lack of oxygen at birth caused his body to send what oxygen there was to essential organs and not to others, including his bowel. Some of the bowel tissue died and then when the milk/food passed through, it was like sloughing off a scab and caused bleeding. After 16 days in the NICU, we were able to bring him home. He had to go about 10 days without eating anything - his only nourishment was through the PIC-line. But when I was able to start nursing him again, he no longer had bloody stools, so the bowel had healed. It was a very scary time and we are just thankful that it all turned out okay.

But among the evaluations they conducted was one for Marfan Syndrome. Marfan Syndrome is characterized by a genetic mutation that affects the connective tissues in the body. Characteristics of someone with Marfan Syndrome include elongated long bones, lax ligaments, flat feet, potential heart problems, particularly with the valve in the aorta, problems with lens dislocation in the eyes, maybe problems with lungs collapsing, among other things.

At the time, they decided that Eddie didn't have Marfan Syndrome, but his doctor at Shriner's thought that he should be evaluated again (we've taken him to Shriner's because he walks on the inside of his feet so much that his physical therapist thought it might cause problems in his bone/muscle development in his feet; he was seeing a physical therapist to help strengthen his long muscles). The appointment was today.

The verdict? That Eddie does indeed have some of the Marfan characteristics. They want him to have the ophthalmologists at the Casey Eye Institute in Portland evaluate his lenses in his eyes (after I finished my undergrad, I worked at the Casey Eye Institute before it became the Casey Eye Institute and I still know folks there) and they also drew his blood to see if he has the genetic mutation. He had an echocardiogram, but they didn't see any problems there.

So, what does this mean for Eddie in practical terms? Generally, the scariest problem is the problem with the heart and so far, it's fine (although the muscle there can deteriorate, so it means that he should be monitored for the rest of his life). If he does have dislocated lenses in his eyes, I think he could get a lens replacement or maybe just get eyeglasses to help him should he have vision problems (the lens might be off-kilter, causing vision distortions and the glasses can help that). He will need to avoid strenuous, contact sports - he's not too interested in them anyway, so not a big deal there. He may need some adaptions at school, such as typing things instead of writing because of the lax ligaments in his fingers. Otherwise, he should be able to live a long, healthy life.

I'm still digesting the news. I'm okay, for the most part. It just means that there will have to be some follow-up and on-going check-ups to make sure the worst problems, such as the heart or lungs, don't become major. It's doable. It is what it is. He's okay. He's happy. He's doing well in school.

Can you tell I'm taking a deep breath?

A Productive Week-end

Spent most of my week-end putzing around and trying to clean up, both at home and in my office. Friday night, I paid bills.

Saturday, my folks came over and dad did most of the yard work and I helped - I finally used the leaf blower for the first time. I usually let those testosterone-types used it. Now I know how that Tim Allen on Home Improvemehn felt - the leaf blower was pretty cool! My dad blew the leaves off the driveway at my neighbor's house and then I took the thing across the street to my other neighbor (another Deanna) to blow them off of her driveway. Deanna broke her elbow a couple of months ago and she was much appreciative as the needles, sticks and leaves in her driveway were driving her nuts. All the leaves and needles were there courtesy of the barrage of storms we got a few weeks ago.

I also spent THREE hours in my office putting away books and filing away files. I'd brought in a bunch of books and files that I'd had at home for a few years, thinking that I'd be working at home, but I never did. So, I brought them back into my office. I've bought books lately so that meant spending some time rearranging my shelves and also files in the filing cabinet. I also filed away things in my home office area. Mom helped me put away Christmas decorations. Dad and I took the last of the Christmas lights off the house.

Kinda hate to put Christmas stuff away.

Today, I went to Portland to hang out with Scott for awhile. We got a good chat in and spent some time at Powell's Bookstore. I sold a few books that I had to them. Eddie needed a couple more books in the series he's reading, a detective named Chet Gecko. I picked up Eddie at his dad's house and then went to my sister's for dinner. It was fun visiting with them - plus I didn't have to cook!! In the meantime, my brother Scott made repairs to Eddie's 'novelty slot machine' that he got in Vegas, so we stopped by their house to pick it up.

I've also spent some time the past couple of mornings trying to meditate about my upcoming surgery - visualizing what the surgeon is going to do and trying to "talk" to the tissue so that the surgery goes well and that I heal quickly afterwards. I told Scott about my visualizations - I basically talked to the tissue cells as if they were neighbors on the street and that some of the neighbors have to relocate to another area. But even though they're going to miss their old neighbors they can still stay in touch via email and that they will have new neighbors. I told them all that it's all for the greater good. Scott just chuckled. He thought it was funny, but he also said, "hey if it works for you, more power to you!"

Well, got to get ready for bed. Another day, another dollar, right?

Las Vegas

As you all probably read last week, I went to Vegas from Jan 1-4 with Scott, his daughter, and Eddie. The weather was very nice - especially after this latest round of winter storms here in the PNW - with sunny blue skies and highs of 50 or so. Eddie got to ride the Manhattan Express roller coaster, plus the splash ride, the pirate ship, Disk-o, and several other rides at Circus Circus. We went up to the top of the Stratosphere and looked over Vegas while Scott and his daughter rode the Big Shot. Eddie also played in a couple of arcades and won prizes. We also spent an afternoon at Hoover Dam and got a tour of the power plant. Very cool and impressive the many different engineering challenges that they had to overcome. (On the other hand, I noted the low water levels at Lake Mead - granted Lake Mead was created by the dam - but still the guide said that the water goes to communities below Vegas. The power generated by the dam is used on the Strip, of course. But the guide said that Vegas was considering buying its drinking water from the Great Lakes region because they don't have enough water for all the new people and swimming pools going in each year.) We also enjoyed the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas. We stayed just outside of Henderson at a place called Lake Las Vegas resort. It was quieter out there with less lights and the hotel we were in was very nice (if a bit expensive). Eddie enjoyed the treadmill there.

Other than the usual kinds of interpersonal kinds of issues one runs into, such as some people (i.e., Eddie) waking up early, and a teenager (Ashlee, Scott's daughter) wanting to stay up late and sleep in, I did suffer from some slight nausea, light-headedness, and general wooziness while there. I thought it might be because of the fact that my medication schedule was thrown off, or because I waited a couple of hours to eat breakfast because of later-sleepers, but on Sunday, Scott happened to look at the mattresses on the bed and noted that they were Sealy mattresses with the memory foam pillow tops. As you might also recall, I suffered from 10 days of dizziness, fatigue, motion sickness, nausea, light-headedness and low blood pressure just a day or two after sleeping on a pillow top mattress that I bought new in May 2007. I realized on my drive home from Portland that this pillow top mattress at the resort likely caused my dizziness and nausea.

So . . . now there's a new thing I will have to remember before making hotel reservations . . . I need to ask for a non-memory foam mattress!

V-ball news

We had a late v-ball game last night, but we only had five people. Alas! We lost the match, 21-13 (or something) and 21-18. We had to play with a "hole" and the other team always managed to find it.

Ah, well. There's next week!

Update with the plastic surgeon

I saw Dr. H yesterday and told him about my phone call from Dr. K about surgery. Dr. H assured me that he felt it would be okay to do the reconstruction surgery and my memory that bringing in good healthy tissue with its own blood supply might actually improve circulation on the right radiated side. He also said that there would not be an open wound any longer (YAY!) and that any wound that needed to heal would be underneath the skin. He did warn me about potential complications but I didn't ask for details - my thinking is that, in this case, the power of suggestion might influence my recovery and I'd rather not know and expect the best instead. He said that he'd talk to Dr. K and try to get to the bottom of his concerns. Dr. H said that if I were a different kind of patient, one that's struggled more, then he'd really listen to Dr. K's concern, but instead, he sees me as a young, relatively healthy patient with fortitude (I think is what he said) and felt that because of my attitude, I should do fine.

For some reason, last week in Vegas, I remembered a passage from Bernie Siegel's book "Love, Medicine and Miracles" in which he related several anecdotes about the power of suggestion while patients were under general anesthesia. There have been several studies that have shown that while patients have their eyes closed and they don't remember anything while they are under, they hear everything. In one case, a surgeon said a lot of negative things about a patient while she was under and she woke up crying and cold. So, Bernie stated that he started to give positive statements to patients - even saying things like, "you will wake up hungry, thirsty, and pain-free" and patients generally do a lot better post-operatively. So, I copied a few pages from the book and gave them to Dr. H yesterday and asked him if he would say positive things while I was under and he said that he would certainly be happy to do so.

He also said that I should certainly say something to the anesthesiologist prior to surgery about what happened to me and to see if there is anything else he or she can do to alleviate some of those side effects.

All in all, it was a good appointment. And, I got "pumped up" even more on the left side. It's finally looking around the same size that I was prior to the mastectomy.

It'll be nice to look normal!

Tumor Marker News!

I had my Z-day appointment last week and my blood was drawn as usual. Again, I had GREAT news! The numbers were

16 for the CA15-3 and

1.1 for the CEA!

Six consecutive months of numbers below 20 for the CA 15-3! Remember that anything below 31 for the CA 15-3 is "normal" and anything 3.8 or under is "normal" for the CEA.


Here's the CA 15-3 history:
Sept 2007 - 23 U/mL
Jan 2008 - 31 U/mL
Mar 2008 - 36 U/mL
June 2008 - 23 U/mL (started radiation that month)
Aug 2008 - 18 U/mL
Sept 2008 - 14.5 U/mL YAAAAAAY!!!
Oct 2008 - 19.6 U/mL
Oct 31 2008 - 15.3 U/mL
Nov 28 2008 - 19.5 U/mL
Dec 30 2008 - 16.0 U/mL

Here's the history for the CEA:

1/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
3/2008 - 0.9 ng/mL
6/2008 - 1.0 ng/mL
8/2008 - 1.1 ng/mL (need to double check this number, but it was in that 0.9 to 1.2 range)
9/2008 - 0.5 ng/mL
10/2008 - 0.9 ng/mL
10/31/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
11/28/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
12/30/2008 - 1.1 ng/mL

Very very cool, huh? : )