Christmas for the Tasteless

We had a a wonderful Christmas! Good family time spent enjoying our wonderful grandson and the wonder of his first twinkling of opening presents! The kids (Brad and Erin) came over Christmas day and fixed eggs Benedict for us! Very tasty but nearly lost on me. During Chemo the chemicals they use to kill the cancer also kill most all of your daily renewing cells, (inside and out) so you lose lots of stuff besides hair. Check the bottom of post.

Gabe had a great time with wheeled toys this Christmas, He got a ride on rocket ship, 3 trucks and was part of the receiving group of 4 nerdy boys that got the Kinex video roller coaster set!(Brad, CD, Gabe & Grandpa)

The rocket ship was a big hit and he alternated between using it as a push toy and riding on it. He had better luck pushing himself backwards than forward but he is getting the locomotion down. He even picked it up and carried it around at one point which amazed us all.

The two trucks Gabe got at Grandma & Grandpas were a plastic cement mixer and a plastic dump truck, e spent a lot f time working the dump mechanics and opening the cabs to install or retrieve the little drivers, You could see his imagination turning!

It seems that no Christmas in a house full of engineers would be complete without some sort of tracked wheeled mechanized toy.
Ths year was no exception. Santa brought the boy a Kinex Roller Coaster set that came with a coaster car that has a video camera in it. So, not only can you build and operate a roller coaster in your living room, you can view what it looks like to ride it! Brad did most of the assembly bringing back memories of his childhood Christmas kinex sets. after it had been set up a while Gabe figured out how to run it manually and got a big ick out of watching it go!

Taste How It Works or Doesn't

Chemotherapy kills rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells often multiply more rapidly than normal cells. Cancer cells are also less able to recover from the toxic effects of chemotherapy than can normal cells. Normal cells that divide rapidly, such as hair or blood cells, are also killed by chemotherapy. This results in common side effects such as hair falling out and blood counts dropping. (from Mayo clinic)

It also can mess with your digestive tract, which can affect taste (as it has for me)

Tme Line of Events to Date

• September 28th
  
• Dr visit to complain of Pain in ribs

• October 1st
  
• CT Scan found a mass

• October 6th
• First CT guided Biopsy

• October 16
• Dr visit to get results from first Biopsy inconclusive
• Second CT guided Biopsy in the afternoon Hurried schedule due to our trip.
  

• October 27th
• Dr visit to get results second Biopsy
• Dr preformed a Bone marrow biopsy in the office
  

• November 3rd
• PET scan My scan not generic
  

• November 5th
  
• AM Meeting of the cancer treatment council recommendations for treatment
• PM Dr visit to get results of the cancer treatment council recommendations for treatment

• November 10th
  
• First Chemo Treatment
• Chemo Nausea A WORD or TWO

• November 19th
  
• Chemo follow up Doctors appointment

• December 1st
  
• Second Chemo Treatment

• December 10th
  
• Chemo follow up Doctors appointment

• December 22nd
  
• Third Chemo Treatment

Riding the nausia Surf !

Chemo on Tuesday went well, it's falling into a sort of routine if you can believe it. The staff at the office/clinic are so wonderful and kind it makes the time and discomfort much less. During the infusion of the various chemicals there's a lot of time to reflect, read and sleep, not necessarily in that order. Yesterdays reflections brought me to scary and serene places.

In the evening I went from nausea to hunger to nausea and back to hungry. At about midnight I got the last of my other meds down (for asthma) took a breathing treatment and a final anti-nausea pill that was supposed to work 8 hours at 3:30 I was up wishing I had taken more anti-nausea medication or that it worked better.

As I am sure everyone knows, the middle of the night, when you are wide awake and your brain starts running it never seems to run to that beautiful beach in Hawaii or the dolphins in Saint Croix, NO it runs off to very dark places and drops anchor and sets up shop churning out every fault and shortcoming we have. Why is that?

I have so much, SO MUCH to be grateful for and yet I allow the storm to drive me. Allow myself to play the dirge in my head while rerunning every bad word, hurtful act, poor decision and insult (seemingly endless) that I or others have (that's right I worry about other peoples pain as well as if there's not enough in my own inventor).

I can certainly relate to Peter, climbing out of the boat fully intending to enjoy the experience, but then looking around at the enormity of the storm and the sea his mustard seed of faith was replaced by the anchor of doubt. In spite of the fact that he was on the water walking..... even that clear demonstration of the power we are given was not enough for our human brain to grasp. The moment we take our focus off of the source of that power and focus instead on the storm as Peter did, we sink, and yet Jesus was (and is) still right there, and still above the storm, and still was willing to lift Peter (or any of us) to safety. Matthew 14:30

Lord please help me to stay focused on you through this storm. Amen

I'm looking through you!

Today I had time to go through the CD they sent me with my scans so I put together some views of what I looked like inside before my treatment started. As you can see the mass is in the same plane as my heart only lower down.

Please view at your own risk, At the bottom of this post are PET Scan photos of my cancer.

I found a great article about how to understand the scan although with the colors it's pretty easy to understand

How to read a PET scan

Contributor

By Kim Vincent
eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating: (0 Ratings)

A PET (positron emission tomography) scan is a diagnostic tool that detects soft tissues within the body and can detect maladies in them. It is different from an X-ray that shows bone structure but similar to an MRI that uses magnetic resonance to create images of the internal structures of the body. A PET scan is different from an MRI in that it illustrates cellular metabolic changes within tissue, giving early signs of disease starting or spreading. Reading a PET scan requires understanding what is normal and what is not.

Instructions

Review the anatomy of the area of the PET scan. If this is a chest scan to review lung health, use an anatomy book to locate the organs and soft tissues around the lungs. Knowing what should be there is the first step in understanding what is normal in your PET scan.

Locate abnormalities in the PET scan. Normal tissue will be various degrees of gray in the PET scan with problems showing as bright white spots. Some PET scans will inject a radioactive isotope prior to doing the scan to have "hot spots" light up--these bright areas are malignancies that absorb the isotope.

Determine the value of the bright spots found on the scan. These are measured by SUVs (Standardized Uptake Values) with a range of 0 to 15. Non-cancerous ranges are below 2, with most cancers starting at 2 or higher. This should be noted on the scan in the margins by the radiologist. If you have had more than one scan, compare the values to determine if the value is going up (bad sign) or down (good sign).

Confirm the location of the abnormality and consult with your physician regarding the implications of the problem and the next steps to take. A PET scan prevents invasive biopsies for most diagnostic means, although a biopsy would more than likely be the next step if a malady is found on your PET scan.

These are Slides of my actual scans taken on November 3rd 2009.
In this first view we are looking from the side and you can see the relative postilion of the mass. (I labeled some of the items to help orient the views)

In the colorized scans it is vary easy to pic out the cancer as it will luminescence quite well.















In the next slide we see the same area from the front view.













Finally in the last Slide here you can see why they consider this to be stage 3 as it is involved (although small at the time) both above and below the line of the diaphragm.






Some time after my 4th treatment (January 11th) I will go in to have these scans redone so we can compare how successful the treatments have been and the doctors can recommend what happens next

I'm Really looking for a Job

Any illusion I had that I might just slip from one job to another was dashed a bit last night when the the owner of the The Quercus Trust rejected my proposal to consult for them on their various clean tech companies.

Now I need to get serious as the separation package will not last long.

Moving on to my old contact lists

Went to the Doctor Today

Good news all around.
White blood cells while low for the over all count, the important ones were in the acceptable range.

There are 3 that they monitor

Looks to be a Good day

Got a really good nights sleep last night. Due to that I feel quite happy this morning and if the weather holds today I intend to try to get in a hike. At least a walk around the neighbor hood. I felt so good after my hike the other night I hope that's what I get again.

Work is going well and I'm working on a new part design for one our products so that should fill some time as well the next few days.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. —Proverbs 3:6

Tough days for those around Me

The last couple of days have not been a time anyone would want to spend with me. Saturday was my last massive dose of Prednisone ( In conjunction with my CHOP-R treatment, I'm taking 500 mg a day for 5 days) which means I get the mood swings along with all the other stuff going on AND coming off.
Honestly I don't understand how people choose to use drugs as an outlet, my head is so screwed up when I'm being effected that I can't imagine doing this for pleasure. I know in my head that it's just the effects of the chemicals yet it's in my head.... the hate, the resentment, the terror, the self loathing and sometimes all at once.
The good news is I only have to do this 4 more times! (Oh my 4 more times)

Luckily I'm feeling better and have gotten back to a comfortable even keel. Praise God! without him none of this would be possible for me to get through.

Went for a walk

Yesterday I had the car in for service, so when Deb was on her way to CIB I thought I'd pick up the car assuming it was done. Well it wasn't so I decided I'd walk back to the church and bum a ride from someone home.
After walking from Brunswick to Alta street I felt pretty good and having always enjoyed walking I decided to continue to walk home. I stopped in at the market bought a flash light and procceeded to walk to our house on the edge of Penn valley about 8 plus miles total. It took me about 2 hours and 45 minutes. While I walked I felt great and saw the moon rise at my back, heard a bunch of wild turkeys and generally felt in touch with my scouting days which was good.
I wasn't even that sore (although my knees protested some due to all the down hill) Today I feel pretty good and think I'll try to include some hiking in my recovery routine.

My walk through the 23rd Psalm

Psalm 23

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

(At each turn of my life and career God has always provided what ever was necessary, even when I lost work it was to make me available for something better)

²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

(each day I rejoice in the love of my family and friends who renew me daily restoring my Soul)

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

(in the midst of this troubling walk, I have the support and love of so many people around me how can I be afraid and yet when I am afraid he sends someone to strengthen me)

⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

(In the face of this Goliath in my life, he has provided a local clinic staffed by lovely caring people, with the best and latest tools and treatments and my cup is running over)

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
(How can anything be against us when God is for us, enough said!)

Second go at Chemo today

I am being treated with a treatment regime known as,

CHOP Chemotherapy Plus Rituxan

A typical course of CHOP treatment consists of 6 - 8 cycles, given every 3 weeks (21 days).

CHOP consists of cyclophosphamide, vincristine and doxorubicin as infusions on the first day of each cycle (day 1). You have Prednisolone (a steroid) taken at home on days 1 - 5, orally. (and this is a not fun medication)

For Rituxan (AKA Rituximab) is added (CHOP-R), generally before CHOP

I am on the 6 cycle program. The oncology channel has a great specific recap of all of this

Today was a bit shorter than last time, I showed upat 8:50 am they called me right in and checked my blood numbers. They were OK, not great, but good enough to allow me to take the treatment.. My white cell count was at the lower edge of acceptable. It hasn't effected me or how I feel, but they were concerned and so watched me closely and then prescribed a prophylactic antibiotic to avoid infection.

The first thing was the anti nausea drugs then the Doxorubicin, next is Oncovin® (AKA vincristine ), then Cyclophosphamide, and last the Rituxan (AKA Rituximab) which goes very slowly

I read a bit, I dozed a bit, visited with others, and I listened to my iPod. by 2:30 Iwas on my way to the pharmacy.

I think I feel pretty good but glad to be sitting with my feet up.

I know that many of you are praying for Deb and me an we thank you all!!

Jeremiah 29:11

.