Dana Farber

Back from Dana Farber. The scan and blood tests came up clean. I go back in October for a look over with the next scan three months after that!!

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The major anxiety of the moment is wh...

The major anxiety of the moment is where to go for batteries for my Logitech mouse. This is a level of angst with which I can live...

Why Does Hoot Suite Limit Ping.fm?

Why is Hoot Suite's interface with Ping.fm limit the messages to 140 characters for blog entries??

Hello June!

There’s been a dearth of entries because I am currently in limbo. 
The chemotherapy has stopped and I am slowing getting over the side effects. We are hoping the swelling brought on by the steroids will abate.

Next is the PET scan.  This is the limbo.  Until the scan I am in a state of not knowing.  Not knowing is probably the worst state someone like me, a confessed information junkie, can be in.

When we know something, you will know it.  Thanks for you continued support over this long-long process.
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Recovering on the Rocky Coast of Maine

The Memorial Day weekend could not have come at a better time.  It will give me another day of rest before returning to the work world.  I might be able to add to the plant photograph I love to do while up here.

Eagle Island, off Falmouth ME. Admiral Peary’s home.

We will start the weekend at the farmers market and then return to read, eat and be merry with the dogs and Amie.  -30-

Cake & Bubbly!

Chemo # six, the last of the series, was completed today at Dana Farber in Boston.  The most surprising thing was the standing ovation by patients and staff and the gift of a cake and bottle of “bubbly.
They were so sweet. 

I can’t say I looked forward to going in, the procedure itself is a difficult life choice to make and instantly transforms you in so many negative ways, all to save your life.  What I can say is, I didn’t dread it. 

I give most of the credit to my wife, who has stood and sat by me every minute of this ordeal, but, I have to give a good portion to Dana Farber, my doctor, her NP  associate and the nursing staff who poked me in the most humane way possible.

It isn’t over.  I go back in five weeks for another blood test and PET scan. This will be repeated over a period of time.  If the results are good, it will be knocked down to a CAT scan over a longer period of time until five years goes by.

Everybody, all at once, touch wood.

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One More Thing

You know, just when think, what else, else happens.  I was startled from sleep last night by what felt like an animal biting the big toe of my right foot.

The only animal in this house, by invitation anyway, is our orange tabby.  So, whatever logic in my mind that exists at three in the morning put together it was the cat biting my toe.
Mysteriously, once I was awake enough to make any sense of it, the complete nail of my big toe was sitting perpendicular from the now pulp surface upon which it once serenely sat.
Ouch applies here, big time.
Because infection is a major worry while undergoing chemotherapy, I quickly wrapped the wounded toe and dragged myself over to the local ED.
There a kindly physician everyone called Danny Boy shot my toe full of painkiller and very carefully ripped the entire nail from my foot.
Did I mention this was the big toe?  Did I mention ouch!!!
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Update – Chemo

This is picture of the tin man that welcomed us to our son’s school play on Saturday night.

I thought it reflected very well how I feel after the fifth of six sessions of Chemotherapy. 

Parts out of place.

While I probably should have just taken the weekend totally off, even staid in bed, I refuse to let my life stop especially if the eventual permanent stopping has in anyway be accelerated by this.

During a previous time when I was taken out of the flow of life by a catastrophic event information I had gleaned from a book by Dr. Jonathon Miller, A Body in Question helped me substantially recover.

In the book, Dr. Miller mentions how a person when placed in the medical environment becomes a patient. As a patient they assume they are sick and therefore succumb to what they believe are the inevitable results.

I took that advice to heart and determined through dress and manner to be a guest of the hospital, not a patient.  Using the same perspective, I am determined to be guest of this cancer and not its supporter.

To get to the grit of what is happening today, the effects are worse, more pronounced and extremely annoying.  Now it’s time to get on with living as best I can with what I have.

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The Body in Question

Five of Six Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the fifth of the scheduled six chemotherapies.  I can honestly say I do not look forward to this.

From the other side of the coin I do.  This is the only option on the table.  In my considerable experience with the lack of options, I’ve learned it makes no sense to fret.

When the options are do or don’t and don’t is obviously the wrong choice it ceases to be one.  That leaves one thing to do. 

The word options no longer applies.

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Balancing Act

 

The next week is going to be a balancing act.  The Chemotherapy number five is this coming Thursday.

There have been many things I’ve not wanted to do but had to because it was the right thing to do.

When “Do the Right Thing” is our family motto, it gives me little leeway.

However, I am truly not looking forward to going through this again.  It would be close to nine on the classic scale.  If you knew me well, it would concern you when I place something that high on the scale.  It concerns me.

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Ahhh, Sun and Heat

For a moment there I thought I was having another hot flash but looked over at the YoWindow display on my Acer monitor and discovered it IS 86 degrees out there and that ambient light is actual sunlight.

If three of the medications I am taking didn’t have the explicit warning to “AVOID EXPOSURE TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT” and there was any hair left on my head, I might be inclined to go outside.

Anyone who knows me would say that would be a stretch even before this whole Lymphoma thing started.

I will admit, it has always been my policy not to go to the beach.  If I do find myself at the beach it is never without an umbrella of any size and a hat with a sizable brim.
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It was when I was this size and wearing that bathing suit, I was left to sleep on a blanket at Rye Beach in upstate New York.  It was under an umbrella but either the sun or I moved allowing my legs to be out in the sun for quite a while. 

Look at those legs!  Should they be exposed for any length of time to solar radiation???

Sun Poisoning or Photodermatitis  is what they called it.  Noxzema is what they put on it.  As I know now, cold water would’ve been a better treatment.  Let’s just say, these legs do not now, nor will they ever, be exposed to the sun for ANY length of time.

TMI, I know, but it’s Sunday afternoon & I’ve some time on my hand while Stephen Fry tweets his way from Heathrow to his London flat.
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Fever Has Passed

Woke up at five and took my temperature again!
97.0 F.
Whew!  That was with Tylenol.  At 0830 it was back up to 98.0 without the Tylenol.  I think we can say the fever episode has passed. 

Now let’s hope the mouth lesions go away soon as well.
Over all, not too bad.
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Low Grade Fever

For the past day or so, I’ve been running a low grade fever, bordering twixt 99.9 & 99.5. If it goes over 100.5, I get hospitalized, so it’s important to monitor it. This is in combination with the mouth sores, the last of the Chemo side effects on the list that I haven’t had.

You can say one thing for the chemo therapy, it gives you what it promises, not a good time. Again, if it works, then it’s worth it.

I can see, however, how some people, especially those with a low tolerance for pain, will put this off until the last possible moment or entirely.

It was the “if you don’t treat this, it will kill you…” part that inspired me to go ahead with the therapy and skip the maybe it will go away dream machine. It wasn’t going away, that was made obvious by the small potato that was growing under the skin in the back of my neck.

Alien….

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Finished My Birthday Book

It took me a while because of the room in the house where I planted this book, but I finally finished reading Citizens of London, by Lynn Olson.

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

Ms. Olson obviously has a crush on Gil Winant.  Based on her narrative, this was the man who should have been VP when FDR died.  If he had been instead of Harry Truman, the world would not be what it is today.  Whether that’s a good thing or not, who can tell.

After reading

Team of Rivals

a book so well constructed and researched, the random style Olson brings to history put me off at first. 

Then, after her pages on Winant’s place in dealing with  British reaction to the horrendous US racial policy imported to the UK with the American soldiers; I was able to see the point she was making about the heroics of “saving” democracy supported by the corrupted foundation of democracy itself.

I was saddened to read how Governor Winant died, but don’t go there until you finish the book.

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Technorati Tags: Book Review

Grazed Net

While we were waiting for Belltowernews.com to reappear, we discovered an old URL from a now discontinued website we ran BB. (Before Blogs)

As did happen to most of the blogs we used to provide up to date information. Grazed Net became dormant once blogging and it’s younger cousins Facebook and Twitter came into the mainstream.

Grazed Net was one of the first sites we put up using a proprietary desktop application.  We forget the application name, but we do remember it was on our 286 box.

That dates it before 2001. 

Ancient by web standards.

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We're back up!

That didn't take as long as we thought it would. We've simplified how the oldest of the Famous Grazing blogs presents itself. There should be no more problems with loading it in RSS.
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Belltowernews.com

Belltowernews.com will be down for a few days while we realign the server and database. None of the content that started in 2004 will be lost.

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Sharing Google Reader with Ping.fm - Duck!

This was probably a rash decision, but I have set the Share button on Google Reader to share using Ping.fm's new feature that does just that. Now, I will test it by sharing something and then seeing to where it is posted. This may happen just once, so don't look forward to my sharing all of the useful to arcane information I think worthy of sharing when I browse through the hundreds of blogs I have Google Reader browse. -30-

They Kept Saying it Would Get Worse

And they were right.

The last PET scan was very promising with "No Uptake" as the result.

The chemotherapy has been most forgiving for the first three sessions.

Not so the fourth.

The possible side effects have been openly listed from day one but they have, up until now, been few and mild.

Up until now

I should've kept a list, but I am fairly sure if there was a list for each of them, I would be ticking them off one by one over the past three days.

This is not a complaint. I am just reporting the facts.

If suffering through this is what it takes to stay alive, piece of cake... sort of... okay, slice of pie.

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LiveJournal Tags: chemotherapy

via Writerous

Posted via web from grazing's posterous

No Uptake

The news at Dana Farber was promising.

After undergoing three sessions of chemotherapy and waiting for my fourth, I was given a PET scan.

As I waited with an IV in place dripping saline solution, my nurse came to tell me that scan came back with "no uptake." She then gave me the bump.

(fist to fist).

Then they started hooking me up again.

I know this is good news, but my body feel worse than it has through the other sessions of chemotherapy. It's hard to rejoice at such good news trying to overcome the feeling you will vomit at any given provocation.

The bottom line seems to be, that I am in the beginning stage of remission. I will be tested for another five years before the cancer can be said to be clear.

Of course, what I heard is they expect me to be around for another five years.

Around that, I can get my head.

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