I received a new phone from work and I finally have one with a camera in it again! So I will be posting some pictures directly from the phone from time to time for your added entertainment and mine (mostly mine). These posts will only have a subject and a picture because they come directly from the phone. Also be sure to check the photos link often as I will post additional pictures there that won’t wind up on the blog.

Mmm-mmm, ain’t technology great?

Finished up the second cycle on Thursday this week and all is well so far. They removed the Oxaliplatin from the treatment this week due to the pneumonia issue last week. They plan on adding that back in for the 3rd cycle. I’m doing pretty good with this cycle, just really tired. Work has been busy which is a good thing from time to time, it helps me to stay focused on other things.

It really stinks that I’m missing out on alumni this weekend. I was planning on trying to make it out there, but the pneumonia incident kinda hosed that up. That’s ok though — I plan on making up for it next year!

Well, I made it home from the hospital on Saturday evening and spent the rest of the weekend recouping. Big thanks to Scott who has been with me this weekend to keep me sane. I had a follow-up appointment this morning with the Dr to do chest x-rays and blood work to make sure I was continuing to heal from the pneumonia. Doc gave me the all clear and I will be receiving my second treatment beginning tomorrow. He plans on changing up some of the drugs so they don’t hit me as hard this time around.

Speaking of hitting hard, WOH can pneumonia pack a punch! I’ve never been so sick with cold-like symptoms in my life! When they checked me into the hospital, my temp was 103 and my heart rate was 130bpm at rest….yuck! That’s stuff’s just plain bad juju.

Here’s to hoping the second round of treatments goes well!

GO STARS!

Don’t even let me give you money to take to Vegas. As far as the luck thing goes, I’m not on exactly what you would call a hot streak. As you may have heard (I need to fix the “breaking news” section of my website apparently) I am typing this post over a nice hot plate of what I think is hospital spaghetti. What the Dr’s originally thought was Strepp, very quickly morphed into a mild case of pneumonia. And since I’m on chemotherapy, mild != mild (lets see how many geeks are reading….check the Wikipedia reference if you must). The good news is that I am not running any fever and my throat and chest are feeling much better. The Drs want to keep me here for another couple of days to be sure that it has been fully treated. The concern is that my white count is so low that I can’t really beat it on my own.

So here I am at my home away from home (and unfortunately the family). I bet I get more billable time from a hospital room this year than any other consultant at VeriSign (hey Brando, there should be some type of cash-compensation for that). Hospitals should also implement some type of points system too. I would be super-executive-platinum high roller then eh? I want my next hospital room to resemble something like this video.

So I’m still pumped about the clean PET scan results, I just have to stay on track and stop getting things like pneumonia so we can get these damn treatments done! Who’s with me?! (sounds like I’m a coach giving a whoo-rah speach before the big game).

Short post today, but I wanted to let everyone know that my PET scan results were clean. I didn’t get my treatment today because I’ve got a really bade case of Strepp and the Dr wanted to postpone my treatment until next week to allow me to get better. 

Thanks again for all of the thoughts and prayers during this difficult wait. Now we’ve got to concentrate on getting through the rest of the treatments! More to come soon!

Well I am a week past my first treatment and all seems to be going pretty well. I had a business trip to Chicago this week and the trip was pretty uneventful (thank goodness). It was good to get out and about and focus on work for a while….made me even feel human again. The picture here was taken from the bar on the 96th floor of the Hancock Tower in downtown Chicago.

I experienced a fair amount of nausea from my first treatment. I have to stay on top of my eating otherwise I seem to get nauseous. Other than that, there has just been an overall feeling of being exhausted. I’m working on joining a local gym so I can start working out again to help me through this process. The challenge will be finding one that can be flexible on the terms as who knows how I will be feeling 5 treatments down the road.

I’m reading the Lance Armstrong book It’s not about the bike. As I’ve mentioned before, my cancer experience has shown me that bad is relative and this book echoes that. Lance was 25 years old, just signed a multi-million dollar racing contract, had a huge house in Austin, a Porsche in the garage and was dating a beautiful young woman. Then within one week he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized into the lungs, had surgery, had his first round of chemotherapy and then found out the disease had spread to his brain. His chances of living, much less racing were very slim. It is uplifting for me to read about other people who have faced this hurdle in life and not only overcome it, but crushed it…..that’s what I plan to do as well.

I have a PET scan scheduled tomorrow to take a deeper look to make sure there is no more cancer. I will get these results on Tuesday 5/13 when I see my oncologist for my next round of treatments. My hope is obviously that those will be completely clean.

I just wanted to get a quick post in this evening to let everyone know that I’m doing ok after the first treatment. It’s not the most fun thing in the world, but luckily my side effects have been limited to being really sleepy and nauseous. I have to wear a pump for 2 nights which is a pain as well, but we’ll make the best of it and do what we’ve got to do.

As always, thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers.