So, how's he doing?

Geez, you take a couple days off from writing and everyone wants to know if something's wrong. Only kidding of course, I truly appreciate the outpouring of support.

Truth is, when you get chemo, bad stuff happens, often in one's GI tract. But what I'm quickly learning, mostly at the business end of the whoop ass stick wielded by my amazing wife, is that you figure out today's side effect, pop the right pill and go freaking LIVE YOUR LIFE. Easier said than done? Sure. But it can be done, so that is what we are doing.

Adele, you are an incredible friend for showing me the way. Not to mention for the soup. I'm not suggesting anyone go looking to get cancer, but if you should happen to stumble into the shallow end of the gene pool, the chicken rice soup makes it nearly bearable.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring. Whatever it is, I will remind myself that Tomorrow itself is a pretty sweet thing.

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Press On!

As I sat here feeling a little sorry for myself yesterday for letting nausea get the best of me, Marcie received a letter from Stephanie, whose kids we've played various sports with over the years. Stephanie and Michael are also good friends with several of our close friends. We ran into them at, what else, an indoor soccer game last weekend and told them about my cancer. Stephanie's dad and brother in law had just gone through the same thing.

The letter contained a charm with a buffalo on one side and the words Press On on the other. It comes from a research foundation http://www.pressonfund.org/ that is the work of two families searching for novel and less toxic treatments for two types of childhood cancers. The message is compelling. When a storm comes the cows run and hide but the buffalo charge through the storm, with much higher survival rates.

The thought of facing childhood cancer scares me more than anything I can imagine, but the message this family shares with us is a gift one can never repay.

Today I start to press on!

Live from the Chemo Room!

I've been hooked up for a couple hours now, getting all sorts of not-chemo infusions. Anti-nausea drugs, steroids, a calcium-magnesium cocktail, and a shot of Jim Beam. The chemo comes last apparently. Then I get to go home and try to organize the collection of pills that now fills my night table. Seriously, it looks like it belongs to an 80 year old woman (no offense, octogenarians, nonogenarians, or Marcie's 102 year old grandmother). Marcie says all it's missing is a crochet Kleenex box cover.

We're totally scoring points with the nurses here. First, I showed up with a plate of Marcie's cookies for them, then she offered to pick up Chick-fil-A when she went out to get salads for the two of us.  If you treat the cable guy nice, he might "accidentally" turn on HBO for free. Not sure what we can expect here. Any thoughts? (That's my way of encouraging you to comment on my post.)

Here's how much of an anti-cancer diet freak I've become. I'm sitting here debating whether I'm going to eat the dressing that comes with the salad because I'm sure it has high fructose corn syrup and other crap I shouldn't eat. I'm trying to reduce the processed food intake big-time (Chick-fil-a notwithstanding). My Facebook friends already saw that today's breakfast was steel cut oats with flax seeds, blueberries, and a little agave as a sweetener. Dinner last night was a stir fry that included my first ever attempt at tempeh. I've had it before (I think it was with Stan D at R. Thomas on Peachtree - sound right, Stan?) and it really was good, almost meat-like. My attempt - not so much. Wasn't bad, but it tasted like brown rice patty with soy sauce. 

Anyway, I did a little work while the infusion pump pumped away this morning, and will now take a break to have lunch with my beloved. Next time I'll bring candles and hire a violinist. 

Twas the Night Before Chemo

And all through my head, not a brain cell was rested as I lay there in bed.
I wondered if chemo my stomach would turn or whether the IV would make my veins burn
My doctor had told me there was little to fear, no nausea nor hair loss would likely appear
Some tingling in hands and feet could be felt, "Peripheral Neuropathy" I think it is spelt.
Still chemo makes cancer seem so much more real, and I'm not really sure how that makes me feel
I'm a fighter, an athlete, and a warrior I say, but Ali, Jordan, and Sun Tzu had their bad days
A day when for all one's bravado and talk, you wonder if you really can walk the walk
Oh I'll beat this for sure - I have not a doubt, but tough guys like me still can call time out
To catch one's breath, to remember why you've chosen to punch cancer right in the eye
To be there for family first and foremost, and to be able to one day stand up and boast
"I won or I tied, I'm not really sure, buying time till they told me 'We now have a cure'"

Me on Chemo Eve
Big C has no idea
what's coming!

(Actually, chemo has been delayed a week due to the weather in the Atlanta area, but I had this one written, so I figured I'd post it anyway)

UPDATE - Now we're on for this Thursday for my first Chemo. I guess those cancer cells just couldn't wait to start getting their butts kicked. Here I come, like Jimmy Superfly Snuka off the top rope! (Ladies, ask your husbands or other men who watched wrestling in the 70's on Superstation 17). 

All Kidding Aside - Speaking of Kids...

As any of you dear readers who are parents know, the hardest part of getting through challenges like the one I'm facing now is helping your children get through them. The only thing harder would be, G-d forbid, if it were your child who had the disease. Some of you have faced that, and my heart goes out to you. When the parent is sick, you want to protect your kids from fearing the worst, while not pretending that they don't know something's wrong. And once you figure out how to talk with them, you worry somebody else will say something that unravels the message you've so carefully crafted for them. With a lot of help from many people, especially you B.L., we developed a strategy that we think works for us.

Our kids know I have colon cancer again and that it has spread to my pelvis. They don't know exactly how serious it is, but they all understand it's not good news. They've each asked if I'm going to die. We've told them that while everyone dies some day, I'm planning to fight as hard as I possibly can to make sure that I don't die for a very long time. So no long faces if you see them, OK? They read right through people, and we want them to hear and believe that message, just as Marcie and I do.

Everyone thinks their own kids are amazing, and you can take comfort in the fact that some of you are right. I happen to know my kids are incredible. It's not just that they are bright, articulate, good looking, tall, smooth-skinned, and germ-resistant, or even that their poop is great-smelling. What amazes me is how absolutely normal they have been after 6 months of world-rocking news about their parents. Don't get me wrong, they've each had their moments. But after seeing their mom seriously injured and hearing their dad is dealing with cancer again, they've been more like themselves than I could ever have imagined, or prayed for. I hope they will always be comfortable talking with us about how they feel and that they will always know it's OK to be scared, sad, mad, or just confused about what life is sending their way. Marcie and I plan to be there to remind them about that until they each turn 65, After that, we're still planning to be around, but it's up to them to remember that lesson.

Pantries, and wi-fi, and pleasantries… oh my!

We arrived at the Memorial Sloan Kettering outpatient clinic promptly at 0900, having completed the 30 foot indoor commute from the Marriott Courtyard to the tragically-named facility. BTW, Marcie and I chuckled at the directions from the hotel staff.

Marriottian: "You see those doors past the elevators?"
Cancer-tourists: "Uh, the ones that say 'Emergency Exit Only'?"
Marriottian: "Yes, you just go through those doors, and you're in the hospital! Can I interest you in a late checkout?"
Cancer-tourists: "Maybe later. We're going to contemplate the deep meaning behind the label on those doors first"

Anyway, MSKOC (don't pronounce that phonetically, especially in front of your kids) sure does know how to treat its patients and the patient people they brought with them quite nicely. As the title of this post gives away, they do in fact have a nicely stocked pantry in the Guinness Book-worthy large waiting room and free wi-fi throughout the facility. Sweet! I was all set to catch up on Myth Busters on my Android-powered phone, when they called me back. I had barely gotten to the opening credits!

So it's a very efficiently run gigantic healthcare facility. Big deal - you see that every day, right? Here's the weird part, the people there, and I remind you this is in NYC, were all, wait for it, nice. I know! But here's the weirder part – everyone we dealt with in NYC, from the bagel shop counter people, to the 22 year old waiter at the 102 year-old Italian restaurant we went to with Marcie's brother, to the Marriottians, was nice. It's like the snowstorm last week froze all their New York DNA and they haven't thawed out yet. Not one person told me to do anything untoward to myself. Well, maybe the cabbie who didn't listen to my directions as to which bridge to take from LaGuardia to Manhattan and who was rewarded appropriately by my lack of tip, did. But if so, it wasn't in English, so that doesn't count.

Now for the part most of you want to know, did the Wizard cast any spells or otherwise change the treatment plan? Well, not really, or maybe only slightly. There's this mutation that if I have it makes some agent that they could add to my chemo potentially more effective, but it takes a couple weeks to work up the slides to find the mutation. So, we'll talk it over with Dr. Z (actually it's "Sz", but it's pronounced Z, which is my way of closing the loop on the phonetic reference I made earlier) tomorrow. But the bottom line is the Wiz is on the leading edge of all this cancer stuff, and she thinks I've received excellent care so far and that all the right decisions are being made by the Docs here in ATL.

So, we saw Cousin Stan, Brother Steve, the Wizard, and even, quite unexpectedly, one of my all-time favorite people from high school, while in NYC this time. Next time we go back, we're hoping to do better in the Wicked rush ticket lottery so we can see the "real" Wizard on stage. And maybe we'll get some good news on how I'm doing and what new potions they've cooked up in the land of pantries and wi-fi and pleasantries.

We're off to see the Wizard...

Technically, she's an Oncologist, not a wizard. They're pretty similar, minus the wand and plus a few years of school in a place way less cool than Hogwart's. What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to NYC for a consultation with a Dr. at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital. 

 A quick aside: Somebody in marketing should point out that the word "Memorial" should never be used in hospital literature, let alone in the freaking name of the place. What were they thinking? It's like saying "Hi, welcome to Bankruptcy Financial, how can I screw you?" or, "Our special today at Sushi Parasite Palace is the fatty tuna."

We're not expecting to hear anything different from the wizard  Dr., but she may be aware of some trials that would be good to know about should our planned treatment not give us the results we're looking for. 

Let me back up for those who are just catching up. The fine folks at Emory did finally determine that  the pain I've been having in my lower back and left leg since October was from cancer, and the source was colon cancer, even though I've had 5 years of clean colonoscopies, not to mention living a red-meat free lifestyle since 2003. Makes me want to march down to the Varsity and have them walk me a couple dogs. 

I liked the people at Emory. Most of them were great. But when you have the attitude I do about my cancer, namely "bring it on be-yatch, I'm a freaking P90x-ing, marathon running 44 year old bad ass, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you take me out of the game," you want the medical oncologist in charge of your care to put on the Maori War Paint and do the Haka when he comes in the room. (No idea what I'm talking about? Rent Invictus, or click here - then rent Invictus). The guy at Emory just doesn't have it in him. Nice guy, brilliant I'm sure, but he's no warrior. 

So I'm now with Dr. Steve Szabo at Georgia Cancer Specialists. While his Northeastern Jewish upbringing makes him far more likely to Hora than Haka, I still like his attitude.  And Marcie loved the fact that the first thing on which he focused during our 45 minute initial consult was my pain and what he could do to get me feeling better, as in immediately. He prescribed me some cool new meds (which Adele had recommended to me a week month earlier - props to her, and yes, that strikethrough is b/c she corrected me) which really have helped. I can now sit to work or, hopefully, fly on an airplane, two things that were out of the question 3 weeks ago. 

Today was my 10th and final (for now) radiation treatment on my pelvis. They gave me a certificate today, as if I had graduated from Radiation High and was now ready to enter into the College of Chemo. It was actually a nice gesture by the radio techs, who also gave me pointers on removing the blue tattoos that encircle my waistline. The techs use these lines like a pilot would landing lights, I guess. Good thing they never slipped off the runway. The last thing I need is any shrinking of any other parts down there! 


Warning - Bowel Movement Joke Ahead The promised radiation side effect of loose stools never really won out over the constipation-inducing Morphine. Guess I'll have to double up on the Metamucil (I'll take "Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say Before I Turned 70" for $200, Alex) . 

Barring any changes from our meeting in NYC, I'll start chemo next week. Anybody hanging out in Lawrenceville with 4 hours to kill, let me know. But you'll have to bring your own Hardy Boys books 'cuz I'm not sharing!

I'll try to use this space to keep friends and family posted on my progress. I'm happy to hear from all of you, especially if you have encouraging stories to share about others who've given the middle finger to the medical odds-makers. Or pictures of kittens, those are nice too.