Our trips to Johns Hopkins for the melanoma GVAX vaccine trial have almost become routine now that we are half-way through the trial – two injection visits done and two to go. But I did have another indication yesterday that our efforts to fight off another attack of this dreadful disease are only just beginning.

Like lots of other things, Thanksgiving is different for me this year. I’m much more easygoing, and I can’t imagine letting anything take that away. This, I say, despite the fact that big family get-togethers are always fraught with possibilities for misunderstandings, hurt feelings, unintended slights – the whole schmear. But I’ve had so much else on my mind these last few months that I haven’t had a chance to get hyped up about the upcoming holiday. In the long run, that’s probably going to make it more enjoyable.

However you look at it, yesterday was not a normal day for Robert and me. We had already cast our ballots, thanks to the early voting offered by D.C. I did an early run to the park with Chewey, and we were off to Johns Hopkins at about 8 a.m. to get the first of four doses of the GVAX melanoma vaccine that will be administered for the clinical trial Robert is enrolled in. It was the start of another one of those days that didn’t go quite as planned.