"Good News": Just received an e-mail from Dr. P. in Bethesda with those two words as the subject line; she said that there are four good populations of cells found during the screening process, i.e., "good" as in tumor-recognizing. I was told that there was a slight chance that they wouldn't find any strongly reactive T-cells during the research, so this is both welcome and positive news, putting it mildly.

I was trying to keep my wits about me and be patient, but the length of time from the "tumor harvesting" (i.e., the liver resection back in August) and hearing whether the team found usable cells...well, between my aching back and this, I've had more than a few sleepless nights in the past two months. Learning this is a huge relief.

The next step is expanding the cell count to the 100 billion level (yes, you read that correctly), with the infusion start date tentatively beginning in the third week of December.