Enter Scanman

No, I'm not posting any Metallica videos to go with that title. If you got that reference, you already have all the James, Lars & Co you need.

Today was the bone scan to make sure that pain in my hip and leg wasn't cancer. The good news is, it's not cancer. The bad news is, that's two scans in 10 days that turned out to be unnecessary. Or maybe that's good news. Whatever.

The pain is actually a little better today. The root cause could still be some damage to the ball and socket caused by my radiation treatments. We're going to keep an eye on it, and if it doesn't heal on its own, perhaps do another scan (yay!) with an MRI.

My other abnormalities this week include a 3 day headache, hoarse voice, and a rather pretty rash under one arm. All are likely compliments of Stivarga, so I'm going to take a couple days off, and then start back at a lower dose.

Bottom line - cancer hasn't returned to my bones, and as they say, Nothing Else Matters.

Don't call it a Comeback!

LL admonished his fans not to call his return a "comeback" in this classic.

I get it. Comebacks can be good, or they can be bad. An injured athlete returning to the field a after weeks of rehab is a good comeback.

A head of hair regrowing after a round of chemotherapy ends? Also good.

But pain in the hip/pelvis, the area that started this now two plus year long ordeal, that's a comeback I could do without. Unfortunately, we don't get to decide these things. We just have to deal with them.

I just have to deal with this.

It could be any number of things causing pain on my left hip that is now radiating down my leg. Scar tissue, a new injury, joint inflammation from increased workouts. So I went to see Dr. Z, and have a bone scan scheduled for later this week. He's on the fence about this - leaning toward injury vs. reemergence of cancer in the area we so thoroughly irradiated two years ago. So I'm replenishing my supply of legal narcotics and hoping the scan tells us what's going on.

Until then, I will continue to enjoy my 90's rap collection on Spotify.

No News Is...

... not necessarily good news.

I was reminded by Caroline of Singapore, a good friend and avid reader of this little slice of literary heaven, that it's been 3 weeks since my last post. If that last part sounded like a confession, fine, I confess.

I'm guilty of not wanting to tell you what I'd been hoping not to hear, but what I did hear. The chemo I'd been on since October, the one that gave me the Mr. Clean look, slowed things down, but didn't show any signs of putting me into remission. The cancer that's in my lungs is still there, still active, and still growing, albeit very slowly. 

So as Huey Lewis would say, I want a new drug!

The good news is there are new drugs, and at least one of them is on Dr Z's radar for me. But before we start a new treatment, I'm going to see the Wizard at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC next week. For those who don't know, I saw the Wizard when all this started and a couple of times since then. She eats, sleeps, and breathes colon cancer, which sounds like a horrible way to live, but it does make her the guru, or, as I like to say, the Wizard.

In the mean time, you know me, I'm living. I'm stopping in Paris again on my way to Prague for work after the NYC trip, and then I have to start getting serious about training for my next half marathon (The Pittsburgh Half in May). I continue to be amazed that in over two years, since my back pain was resolved, I've never had any symptoms of the disease - just side effects from the medicine. If they didn't keep scanning me, we still wouldn't know that it had spread to my lungs. It's weird. 

If we do nothing, eventually these lung spots would compromise my breathing. But we're still a long way from that, and I'm looking forward to figuring out what the next step is going to be. 

Wish me luck... Luck with the Paris Metro that is. Last time I got on a train headed the wrong way. Stupid French-only signage!

And the worms ate into his brain

Roger Waters & Co. included that strange line into Hey You from the album and motion picture The Wall. Now I'm told I need to watch out for those worms next week. 

I'm going to Costa Rica with A&J's class trip, and apparently, some sort of insect there carries these little worms that can burrow into one's skin. Left alone, I supposed they could grow into something one can actually feel crawling around in there. 

I've been to Costa Rica once before and as far as I know, I was not invaded by these worms. Then again, I have had this strange tingly feeling in the back of my head for the last 3 years... I'm sure it's nothing, right?

And you thought cancer was a bitch...

Love Me Through It

Those of you who know me well know my musical appetite is more Donny than Marie, yet I wanted to pass along this beautiful song by Martina McBride, who they tell me is an accomplished country singer. Sandy in my office sent it to me the other day.

Listen to the words carefully, and you'll hear what I have heard from Marcie and what every Member of the Club hopes to hear: a message of unequivocal love and support from a spouse or lover: I'm Gonna Love You Through It. I also like that there's a realistic portrayal of breast cancer in the lyrics, the disfigurement, the desire to feel like a woman again, etc. Nothing held back.

It's (not) The End of The World, and I Feel Fine!

Ah, normalcy. So this  is what it feels like? I think I like it.

Dr Z. was right, I had no chemo-complications this round. As Marcie pointed out, I technically didn't have chemo this time. I had non-chemo, or Nemo, if you prefer. The two drugs I received were a bone-building agent for my pelvis and a drug that cuts off blood supply to tumors. Technically, neither is chemo (thanks to Allison in the support group for the Avastin definition).

The only real chemo I'm taking now is my oral drug, and Dr. Z let me skip it for this round so I don't end up needing Imodium during Adam's Bar Mitzvah. I'm hoping I can enjoy a few runs without risk of the runs. Sorry if that's too graphic, but if you've been reading this blog for a while, you've been warned!

UPDATE - Right after I posted this, I received a comment from somebody at a group called FAMEDS, which is fighting a recent FDA decision to prevent Avastin from being used off-label to treat women with metastatic breast cancer. The drug is approved for colon cancer patients, and was tentatively approved for off label use for breast cancer, but now that breast cancer decision is being reversed. I don't know all the science behind this, but if you think that sounds like a stupid decision that might hurt the 17,500 US Women who take Avastin to treat metastatic breast cancer, click here http://fameds.org/index.php to sign the petition or to learn more.

Hey Mickey

Well this post could only be about one of two things. One of them is Toni Basil's groundbreaking and inspirational song from 1982 (actually a remake of Racey's 1979 original, per Wikipedia). The other isn't.

No, the other is Walt's World. And it's where we're headed for days 17 - 21 of the current chemo cycle. That's the good news. The bad? There are literally a million kids in Atlanta alone that have Spring Break that week, so I'm thinking the parks are going to be a wee bit more crowded than they were during our last visit... in January 2005.

Of course, back then Dumbo was a must-ride, overpriced pancakes with characters were a must-eat and all things Mountain (Splash, Thunder, and Space) were verboten. Now that we're all grown up and stuff, the Mountains are calling, and we'd rather eat the free breakfast at the hotel than pour syrup with Chip (or was it Dale?)

I'm also excited to see the Rice's on the way down. Neil and Donna are avid readers of this blog and long-time close friends who've always happened to live far away, even when Neil and I were partners in the same business and worked in the same office. Their home in Palm Coast was mine away from home for about a year while Neil and I shared a second chapter of our careers together. It seems like only yesterday Marcie and I were marveling at how well behaved little Ben and Tyler were (now both well over 6 feet, but still well behaved) and asking Donna for a bottle of whatever parenting magic she had. Turns out it was an '82 Silver Oak Cabernet. Go figure!

We've been told Mickey has some special love for folks who might get tired easily (me), need to minimize sun expose (moi again) or otherwise need extra attention (me, Me, ME!). Seriously, they do have different categories of help, and it doesn't always mean they whisk you to the front of the line, but a shady waiting spot is well worth the Scarlet Letter they make you wear. Only kidding of course, they make you wear color coded Mickey ears - red for "on chemo", green for "agoraphobic, " etc. Still kidding.

Wish us luck surviving the trip - not meaning health-wise, more money and stress-wise. I think my meditation practice may come in handy when I need to visualize a calm oasis in the midst of the post-Illuminations escape from Epcot.

Only 8 days till we get to say "Hey Mickey" in person. I hope Toni's not too busy guest-judging on So You Think You Can Dance to respond. By the way, for those of us old enough to remember the very earliest days of MTV, Ms. Basil turns sixty-eight this year. SIXTY-FREAKING-EIGHT. How old does that make you feel? And another BTW, that makes her 5 years older than Steven Tyler, whose 63rd birthday we celebrated today. And on that falsetto note, it's about time I headed off the see the Dream Weaver myself.

Round and Round and Round

This probably isn't what Joni had in mind, but today marked my return to the track, and it was great to see some old friends and many of the new crew I'd been hearing about since last Fall. John and Wes go back to the Black Mat Running Club days at Tucker High, before they tore the place up and made it all fancy. E's been my self-described running sister for years now, and they even made sure that I wasn't the oldest runner there (thanks Robyn). David, Eileen, and Kate - hope we'll see out there soon!

An 800 and a trio of 400's isn't much to write home about, but it sure felt good to me. Five times around the really cushy surface at St Pius is enough to make you realize 1) us Jews have nothing on these Catholic folks when it comes to raising money and 2) you won't hear me complaining about the boredom of track workouts anytime soon.

Can I kick it?

Many thanks to one of my farthest-away, yet closest supporters, Ghila, for today's musical inspiration... Listen past the first few seconds, there's a song in there.

I'm told my late-night posting is not as concise, so I'll try to stick to respectable hours. Today's amazing moment was when I received a call around 6 pm from Sherrie, the nurse at Dr. Z's. I had called her yesterday at a particularly low point before certain meds had kicked in to control the GI fun. She was concerned about me and wanted to make sure everything was under control. So she called me. On her time. And, no, Stu B, I don't think it's because she's fallen under my spell.

I can't even begin to compare that to the experience I and others have had at our favorite local University hospital. Just today one of our readers was abandoned for hours on end, left to decide whether it was important to reconnect the heart monitor after going to the bathroom. Answer: yes it was important, but nobody came to check when it wasn't reconnected for over an hour, so disconnected or dying apparently nets the same response. Not seeing an actual doctor for 18 hours until literally dressed to leave, missing procedures because the staff on the floor forgot - you know, the usual.

Sorry, I know this is supposed to be about me getting better, but now I'm just getting pissed. Some of our closest friends are amazing doctors and nurses working in that very hospital, and we literally owe our lives to their dedication, and to the great medical work that gets done there. The people working there know everything there is to know about treating patients, but treating people? That's where the institution falls flat on its face.

Well, I feel better now... And like I said, that's what this is supposed to be about, isn't it?

Hurts so good

The Coug was on to something. And spare me the history lesson about his last name. If the record company pays you, they get to call you whatever they want. Why do you think people still call me "Emmie B?"

Focussing on the title and not the actual lyrics, I think John was talking about exactly what I'm feeling tonight. If your troubles are so few and far between that you notice little pains, that's pretty good. So my heel hurts tonight, so what? This morning I'd have taken that pain in a heartbeat. Hurts so good.

If I weren't typing this on my phone, I'd totally go into the story about the three Iranian guys working in the kitchen at Camp Barney Medintz the summer that song came out. We inserted their names for words in the chorus (e.g. "Hertzel" for "hurts so", "Bay" for "babe," etc.) to hilarious approval of many of my fellow campers. But you had to be there. Come to think of it a couple of you dear readers were there, weren't you?

Separately, you know who you are over there in a dark corner of Clifton Rd. We are thinking of you tonight and don't hesitate to call anytime, seriously. Especially so we can listen when you give some poor tech the riot act over how you've been treated tonight. Much love...

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