July 7, 2013 -- The “R” Word

As we go through life, we are given many rules, things we need to do and things we need to avoid. Words have become one of the problem areas in our country as we become more politically correct. Paula Deen has become a pariah and lost a fortune because of her admitted use of the “N” word.  Cancer has become common place in many of our lives as more and more friends and relatives are affected. We sometimes choose to avoid the use of certain words like cancer and refer to it as the Big “C”.  I have had one word that I have kept out of my vocabulary in the past few years, not because it was a bad word, but because it was a word that seemed so foreign to me.

When I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, the first thing that I had to wrestle with aside from the fact that I was now part of the Big “C” clan was that it was incurable. MM is referred to as being a treatable yet incurable cancer.  Certainly treatable, but over 10,000 people still die in the United States every year from this form of blood cancer.  It was very hard for me to wrap my head around having to deal with this cancer for the rest of my life. 

I’ll never forget an online webinar that Julia and I tuned in when the guest speaker said that we basically have a cure because we have many options for chemotherapy.  Obviously, this doctor hadn’t spent much time sitting in a cancer clinic La-Z-Boy with a needle in her arm. Waking up every day for the rest of your life knowing that there was no end to being treated, isn’t an easy pill to swallow.   Yet knowing the alternative is death puts a whole new spin on it.

When I received my stem cell transplant, I held out the hope that although not cured, I would be able to say I was in remission.  Despite doing everything I needed to do when I received my transplant, it just didn’t do everything I had hoped.  Although I was in a state of “very good partial” remission, I still had the cancer with me every day.  Every day I worried if it was getting worse.  Five months after I received the transplant, my numbers started drifting up and I was certain that the transplant had given me little more than an additional six months of life. It was no way to spend Christmas.

I was so worried that I talked Dr. Mikhael into letting me have a blood test two weeks later to see if things had changed.  The fact that I would suggest to a doctor that I wanted someone to stick a needle in my arm shows exactly how nervous I was about the previous result.  The results were better and the cancer seemed to settle down for the next year as I lived my life without chemotherapy.

Then in January, 2011 it became evident that the transplant had run its course and the cancer was getting stronger with every blood test.  It was slow and gradual, but every test got worse.  In July, I began chemo again. It wasn’t too bad as it was just a pill, but there were some unwanted side affects that would not go away.  I had given the transplant its shot and it helped, but I was never going to be able to say that I was in complete remission.  It was something that I could live with, but not something that I was comfortable with.

Six months later, despite doubling the dosage, it became evident that the drug that worked for most people would not work for me.  My cancer was now almost as bad as when we found it originally, three years earlier.   Like most cancer patients, I was ready to move on to the next chemo.  As a cancer survivor, your hope is that the next therapy will work better than the last. You are not always rewarded, but you continue to hold out that hope.  The next attempt would be a cocktail of two different chemotherapies and a steroid.  I had hope, but I have learned to never get too high or too low, just hang in there.

When I received the results the next month, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  There results were better than I had every received, even better than after my transplant. Could this be the “magic pill” as they say in business? It was so unbelievable that I called Megan Connelly who had been my transplant coordinator to see if there was a typo.  It still wasn’t in the normal range, but the change was drastic from the previous month.

The next month was even better as I entered the normal range for the first time ever.  I remembered the phrase, “no cure but treatable.” It seems that I might actually know how that feels. The months moved on and the results remained amazing even as we extended the time between treatments.  Over the next 14 months I moved from having a treatment every week to once every three weeks, yet still the same results.

In April, 2013 Dr. Mikhael made the decision to move the treatment to once every four weeks and to not have another blood test for three months. I had never gone that long.  The Nervous Nellie that I am was at full strength. Elongating the treatment cycle and not checking for three months, was this man mad? I tried to put it out of my mind, but it was always there. This was going to be the most important test of my life.  Just like on the “Bachelor” when they have the most intense Rose Ceremony EVER, this would be the most important blood test EVER.

The nice thing about going to the Mayo Clinic is that you can get results online in a matter of hours on the majority of tests and within 24 hours on the important cancer number. When I got the results I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as the numbers were as good as I had ever received.  I now knew that I could stay with treatment just one time each month and as a result have less side effects and a more normal life.

That was on Wednesday and I had an appointment with Dr. Mikhael on Friday. I really just expected the same pleasantries that we always have when things are going well. We talk about our lives and schedule the next appointment.  Then my whole life changed. Dr. Mikhael used the “R” word, a word that I had given up using and even hoping.  He said I was in remission.

The words rang in the room. I was in remission.

I was always going to fight the fight, but I never thought I would be here. I never thought I would ever be off chemo for as long as I was alive.  But the words were said. I was in remission.  Now understand, Dr. Mikhael in the same breath said that the cancer would come back. This wasn’t forever. But somehow, that didn’t matter. It could last three months, it could last three years, we won’t know until it is over. But I’m going to be enjoying this time cancer free.

To complete the circle, the first person I told was Megan.  She has moved from stem cell transplant coordinator to being a nurse in the oncology area at the Mayo.  From being the first person to help me through my transplant to being the first person that knew other than Julia and I that I was in remission.  Somehow it just seemed right.

 

Thank you all for keeping me and our family in your prayers through these 4 1/2 years.

 

 

 

March 27, 2013 - Beautiful

When I return to my home town of Dayton, Ohio I always make sure that I go by places from my past, places of familiarity. I always like to run by the house that I grew up in, always hoping that it might be for sale and I could act like an interested buyer and take a look inside.  I’ll even run by the baseball field that I hit my lone home run as a young baseball player.  Lastly, I will run by Calvary Cemetery to visit my parents’ graves. I’m not sure that they can hear me but I always have something to say to them. It always brings me a little closer to my past and all that they meant to me. Familiarity is important to all of us.
 

Nurse Gerri Wensloff at Four Winds Hemotology.

Since I started this journey four years ago there have been many, many people in my life. I have had hundreds and hundreds of blood tests, twenty five radiation treatments, fifteen immunization shots, two cataract surgeries, two bone marrow biopsies, one kidney biopsy, two complete sets of body x-rays, multiple MRIs and somewhere around seventy five injectable chemotherapy treatments. Through all of that I have had four constants, Mr. Mikhael, Dr. Obenchain, Dr. Hogan and Gerri Wensloff.

Gerri works for Dr. Obenchain and she was the very first person to inject me with the poison that has kept me alive for those four years. I’ll never forget the day that I showed up for my first treatment of Velcade and Doxil.  Understand, I have never been one to appreciate having a needle stuck in me. As a kid I even passed out when I received a shot. Let’s don’t even go into how many times I have been a bit shaky when I have had a blood test. The thought of getting an IV and sitting there for four hours was not exactly something that I had on my bucket list. You hear about the horrors of chemo and you just never know what to expect.

Yet Gerri was there for me during the entire four hours even missing lunch to make sure I was comfortable and not dying from some type of allergic reaction to the chemo.  She didn’t have to do that, but that is who she is.  I don’t think that you could find a more likable, caring person to deal with this dreaded disease.

Until you have experienced being in that room, it is impossible to comprehend what is taking place. This isn’t like the dreaded trip to the dentist when you know a filling is coming. That feeling comes and goes and you are pretty much by yourself. When you receive chemotherapy, you are in a room with five, six or seven other people that are going through the same thing.  We are all at different levels of potential death and none of us know who will be back next week. You all hope that this will be the answer, but you never really know for sure.

Some of us like to talk to those around us while others try to sleep away the experience because of the pain, nausea and general tiredness. Yet, Gerri always seemed to know how to deal with each of us. If we wanted our peace, she gave us that. If we wanted to talk about what was happening, she gave us that. As you can imagine, I was a little different.

Over the last four years I have received everything from Gerri from a hug to banners with my name on them to a fake trumpet serenade to a pole dance (yes, you heard that right.)  She even came in on her normal day off just because she knew I was going to be there. She has always known what I needed. But now I will have to continue my journey without her as she will be returning to Indiana to be with her family and a new grandchild. I’m sure we will both move on as you always must, but it will never be the same; I will forever miss that familiarity, that caring touch.

There are younger and prettier nurses than Gerri but I am not sure that I will ever know a more beautiful one.

March 21, 2013 -- Incomplete Cremation?

While Jason was home for spring break, he and I decided to take in a Coyotes hockey game. Neither of us are huge hockey fans but we had gone to a playoff game last year and had a good time. Since he was stuck in Chandler for his week off, I thought that it would be good to get him out of the house as he wasn’t on a beach in Mexico like half of the college kids seem to be doing these days.

The area around the hockey arena is an entertainment complex with restaurants, bars and shopping. In addition, on top of the buildings, they have a number of rather large billboards, one of which caught my eye. It stated that you could get a “Complete cremation for $586.25.” This brought to mind a couple of questions. The first of which was, “What am I getting for that extra $0.25 that is included in the price?” The second question was even more important, “If I can get a complete cremation for $586.25, how much would an incomplete cremation cost and just how big would the chunks be?”

This might seem trivial to most of you but the cost of a funeral can be huge and as much as most of us like to avoid the discussion, we will all have to go through the process of death and a funeral. Julia and I have had an ongoing discussion over the years about how we would like to have our remains handled after we die. We are on opposite ends of the spectrum on this and oddly on ends opposite of where most would think we would be.

As many of you know, I tend to be a bit of a penny pincher. Some would call it being cheap; I prefer to call it being frugal. The possibility of only spending $586.25 for my funeral certainly has its advantages, but it flies in the face of what I have always wanted to do. I would have to say that I am a traditionalist when it comes to funerals and burials. It’s not that I feel like God will be upset with me if I am cremated, I just feel more comfortable with being put in the ground in one piece.

Julia, on the other hand, wants to be cremated. She would then like to have her ashes scattered in the Caribbean as she loves the beauty of the region. The best way to do this would be while on a cruise off the back of the ship in numerous places. For some reason, she isn’t too crazy about it when I ask if she minds if I take a date on this cruise. Geez, sometimes she is just no fun.

This trip to the hockey game came shortly after I went to the funeral of one of my co-workers. Jeff Richards had been suffering from Leukemia that led to complications including pneumonia and ultimately his death. Jeff was as nice of a man that you would ever meet. I don’t think that he ever had a bad word to say about anyone. My boss said it best when he referred to Jeff as a gentleman.

At the funeral, a friend of Jeff’s from his church gave an amazing eulogy that laid out Jeff’s life and all that he had accomplished. It really got me to thinking about what my eulogy would include. I’ve always felt that I have had a good life, but I’m not sure how much material I have created for a gut wrenching, boy what an amazing guy John was, kind of eulogy.

It made me wonder if I should have spent more time in my life creating a better eulogy resume’. In the end, it isn’t about how many toys we have at the end of life, but just what we have done to make the world and the people around us just a little bit better. I think we all hope that we have changed the world for the better. I think I have, but I’ll have to leave that up to the guy that reads my eulogy. I guess I still have some time left on this aging body and as long as I am still breathing I have an opportunity to improve that five minutes of remembrance. Maybe all of us should give a thought as we live our lives, just how we will be remembered on that day.

February 4, 2013 -- Be careful what you wish for

When you either make the decision to become a parent or you find out that the decision has been made for you, your life begins to change. It may be subtle at first, but it tends to gather momentum and in the end, your entire life has changed. It is no longer just about you and your significant other, your top priority becomes that little bundle of trouble.

You don’t realize in the beginning, but the sleepless nights that you have with a newborn are just the start. You think that when they actually start to sleep through the night, you are home free. You do look a little bit less frazzled, but deep down inside you are still engaged 24 hours a day with a sleepless night just around the corner. It goes from having to get up to a screaming child who needs a bottle to one that wakes up from a nightmare or an earache.

You get through all of that and then they get their driver’s license. They start off slow at first, but eventually they are left alone in the car as they run to the grocery store for you. Then they are going over to a friend’s and eventually they are going out on a date and it starts to get later and later that they are out. Eventually, it starts to eat into your sleeping. It doesn’t matter if they are 16 or 22, until you hear that door open and close at 2 AM its tough to sleep with both eyes closed.

The purpose of this whole journey is to create and mold a human being into someone in whom you can be proud. You want your child to be able to stand on their own feet and be successful without your help. You want them to eventually be independent. But then the time comes and you are not so sure that is what you really want.

Several weeks ago Julia and I made the trip to South Dakota to take Jason to school. This is no longer waiving to him as he gets on the bus for the first time as a kindergartener, this is giving him a hug, saying goodbye and leaving him alone 1,000 miles away from home. All of a sudden, you are not sure this is what you signed up for.

For the last 20 years, Julia and I have been caring for Jason in one way or another, either through prenatal care, changing a diaper at three in the morning or talking to him about the girl friend problems every teenager runs into. We loved, cuddled, spanked (yes, I was one of those Neanderthals that actually spanked his kids), read to, played with, instructed and even yelled at (Jason’s room is historically a mess as we often didn’t even know the color of the carpet). Jason and Justin had become a huge part of who we were and now we were shipping one of them off.

The weekend in South Dakota was filled with shopping to get all of the things we couldn’t stuff into a couple suitcases. I think Julia has watched too much HGTV as Jason is now equipped with enough cabinets, hooks, hangers and shelves to last him a lifetime. There is a place for everything and everything was in its place when we left. The question is how long will that be the case? Remember, this is the kid that left the house with who knows what stuffed under his bed to make his bedroom look cleaner.

We spent most of that Sunday sanitizing and arranging his room including creating a bed that is within three feet of the ceiling and has his desk and half of his clothes positioned neatly underneath. It took me three days to get over the aches and pains of that ordeal.

He stayed with us that night in the hotel because the dorm was still pretty empty as classes would not start until Thursday. We cleaned out the hotel the next morning and made our way to the local IHOP. For the most part, we were quiet at breakfast and ate about half of our meals. Eventually we had to get moving because if we missed our plane we might have to take out a third mortgage on the house to afford new tickets because Allegiant only makes two trips a week.

When we got to the dorm, we moved the last things in and said our goodbyes. I kept mine short because I knew the more I talked the more likely I would begin to cry like a 2 year old girl that just had her favorite doll taken away from her. Julia and I made our way to the airport and tried to convince ourselves that everything would be OK and this would be good for him.

Over the next few weeks we did our best to wean ourselves from Jason. After spending almost every day with him for 19+ years, it wasn’t easy. He finally told us he needed some space and we decided to give him that. Then three weeks into the journey he calls and says he has been throwing up and had diarrhea. With all of the publicity about the flu and the fact that it is killing off normal healthy teenagers in days, we felt helpless. For the first time we weren’t able to be parents and feel his forehead and give him chicken soup.

Once again the sleep interrupted nights had returned. Luckily after four days, he was feeling better and we could breathe easy. It seems that it doesn’t matter how old they are or how far away they are, you just can’t turn off that parenting thing. Maybe one day, I will write a book on parenting. The only problem is that it may have 24 blank chapters, because I’m not sure I have yet to figure any of it out.

January 16, 2013 -- Say It Isn’t So

I turned sixty today, yep, six zero. You notice, I didn’t use numbers, I used letters. When I look at the numbers, it scares me. How did this happen so quickly? I still remember playing in my back yard as a seven-year-old. Now I can’t remember what happened yesterday.

I look in the mirror in the morning and I don’t recognize who I see. Part of the problem is now that I had cataract surgery, I can actually see in the mirror in the morning. In the past, I didn’t put my contacts in until right before I was leaving for work. Now I get the full 20-20 view of the mess I am after rolling out of bed.

Starting from the top down, I have more wasteland on the top of my head than in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. When I actually get out of the shower and comb my hair, it takes me longer than when I was in college and had a mop on top of my head. It now takes an Architectural degree to place every stray hair just right so it looks like I still have some. Thank God I can never see my self from behind, or I would have a heart attack.

Then I catch the bags under my eyes. It looks like I am trying out to be Santa’s helper at Christmas because the bags are big enough to hold half of his toys for that evening’s delivery. I tilt my head back so the lighting is just right and the bags disappear and I reassure myself that I don’t look too bad for my age. Now, if I could just walk around that way all day without running into a wall.

Then I notice my neck. I am starting to look like one of those women that have to wear a scarf around her neck all of the time to hide all of the extra skin. To alleviate this, I try to stretch my neck out as much as possible and again I find a solution. Now I just need to learn how to walk with my neck stretched out and my head at a 45 degree angle.

As I continue my journey down the mirror I am reminded of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes. Kramer and George’s dad came up with the scheme of the manzier. I have now gotten to the point of having bigger boobs that several of the girls that I dated in high school. To top it off, one is bigger and droopier than the other. You think I could at least be symmetrical.

The mirror continues to lie to me because I can’t possibly have love handles that big. I only weigh 20-25 pounds more than I did in high school yet my love handles weigh 30. It just isn’t fair that the scale just yells a little, but the mirror screams bloody murder.

Luckily, it isn’t a full length mirror. I will save you the horrors that have happened as I continue the trip southward. Yet, I shudder to think what all of this will look like if I can pull off a miracle and revisit this at seventy.

It was four years ago that I was just days away from finding out that I had multiple myeloma. After that back breaking news, I wondered if I would ever see this day. It probably sounds bad, but it struck me that I might not live as long as either of my parents, both of whom battled several issues throughout their lives. My father was told at the age of 26 that he probably didn’t have long to live and my mother had cancer at 45. I, on the other hand, only had acne to deal with until I was 56.

I may grumble about the way that gravity has taken me down a path of no return, but I thank God that I have an opportunity to complain about it. I may have gotten thinner on top and thicker in the middle, but I hope that I have gotten better over these sixty years. Not sure how many I have left, but I plan on making the most of them.

My father and his father did not live long enough to hold a grandchild and it is my goal to break that streak. Now that statement should not be taken by either of my boys to do this anytime soon, just a little forewarning that it’s in my plans to find joy in the fact that their children will drive them crazy like they did to their father. Sometimes, you just have to enjoy the simple things in life especially when there is no mirror to look into.

January 11, 2013 - Less is More

At a very early age we learn that we want more. Usually it doesn’t matter what it is, unless it is homework or chores around the house. When Justin was very young, I would grab him by his hands and swing him around like a ride at an amusement park. When my arms were ready to give out and I would set him down, he had just one comment that he would make through his giggles, “Again!”

When a child goes out for Halloween, he wants more candy. It doesn’t matter how much he has, he wants more. When Christmas comes around, it doesn’t matter what is under the tree, there is a glance around the room for one more present when the frenzy to open presents finally stops. When the teenage girl looks in her closet for shoes, there never seems to be enough.

The college freshman looks around his Psychology 101 class and wonders why there aren’t more pretty girls. When he shows up for his first frat party, he wonders why there isn’t more beer. As soon as you get married, you look at your checking account and wonder why there isn’t more money. When you have your first child, you look around the house and want more space.

When you get your first big promotion, you want a bigger office although you know deep down inside that you won’t do a better job with one. When you go on your first cruise, you look at the boat that is docked next to yours at the first port and wish you were leaving on it since it is bigger and must be more fun. When we buy our first SUV, we look at the inside room instead of the price tag and MPG.

As we age, it tends to slow down but never really stops. We do not wonder that we will have enough money to survive when we retire, but how nice we can live when we get to that point. Even after we get to the point of living in a retirement community, it is how many hours we can nap during the day.

We are born wanting more and it usually never stops. When Maria, or first au pair, came to the United States to watch the boys, she was amazed at how big everything was. She could not believe how much we decorated our homes for Christmas. The size of our grocery stores was overwhelming and we have a full aisle of cereal choices rather than a handful. It didn’t matter what it was, it was huge. I had never really thought about it, but she was right.

When I was growing up, my parents owned a grocery store. It wasn’t anything special, but people from the neighborhood would do their shopping there and it had just about everything they needed. Today, however, it would fit inside the produce department at Walmart. You couldn’t buy an oil filter for your car, but you could buy everything you needed to make a meal. Those stores no longer exist. If it isn’t big and offer us everything under the sun, we won’t go there.

In our minds, more is always better. If we don’t have multiple selections of what we need we are disappointed. If we don’t have something more than our neighbor, we wonder what it wrong with our life. We have become spoiled. It isn’t good enough to hit a home run, we need to hit it father than anyone else. Maybe we need to just enjoy what we have and not how big it is. It would certainly make life simpler.

Three months ago I convinced Dr. Mikhael to let me go from receiving chemotherapy every two weeks to every three weeks. In the case of chemotherapy, cavities, bills and wives, more is not better. In this particular case, less was just as good. When I received my results just before the new year, I could not have been more pleased. It was probably the best overall results that I have received. My kidneys were hanging in the with a 1.9 creatinine (which is as good as I ever get), all of my blood counts (red, white and platelets) were all in the normal range and my cancer counts were the lowest they have ever been. If a doctor looked at my results and didn’t know what was wrong with me, he would have no idea that I have cancer. I will not see Dr. Mikhael for three months which is s first.

We go through life always wanting more instead of appreciating what we have. We too often look past the journey and only worry about the result. Too often getting that next big raise or promotion or new car or house consumes us. We need to learn to make the most of who we are and what we have. That doesn’t mean that you cannot strive to be better and have more, it just means that it should not be all encompassing. I made a promise to myself that I would not wish my life away at the beginning of 2012. No more wishing it was 5 o’clock or Friday or time for vacation. I enjoyed what I had and who I was with. In the end, we are not defined by what we have but what we accomplished. Make sure you don’t waste time worrying about that next big thing, just enjoy your life’s journey.

October 22, 2012 -- Becoming an Old Man

It was bad enough on Sunday when the 80-year-old woman working the check out lane at Basha’s asked Julia and I if we were snow birds, but I officially entered old manhood this afternoon. You see, today I went for my cataract surgery consultation. I have known for a number of years that I would be making this trip, I just never thought that it would be in my 50’s (albeit extremely late in my 50’s.)

My adventure with cancer has taken me many places. I have gotten an enema at 3 in the morning at the local hospital, gotten acupuncture and passed out at work. I have had more side effects caused by my medications that you can count including hair loss (no comments from the peanut gallery), diarrhea, constipation, acne, nausea, vomiting, skin blotches, dry eyes and extreme exhaustion. But now my cataracts have gotten so bad that I can not longer get strong enough contacts to correct the problem.

This all started in the spring when I noticed that my vision had changed rather quickly. I went to the eye doctor and got new contacts and for two weeks all was well. Then I noticed that the new contacts were not strong enough. This pattern continued and over a period of five months I had gotten four new sets of contacts and still could not see.

It had gotten so bad I was going to Hooters for the food and not the scenery. I was no longer willing to drive at night because I just felt that it wasn’t safe. You have to understand that a man never feels that he can no longer drive. A man would rather admit that he can’t handle his duties in the bedroom before he will say he can no longer drive. There is something sacred about a man and controlling a set of car keys. That is why you read about 95 year old men plowing over 20 people in their ‘78 Cadillacs.

It was bad enough that when I went to a baseball game, I just watched how the players reacted to know what was going on because I couldn’t see the baseball. My doctor had gotten to the point where he was throwing up his hands in frustration and basically saying that it wasn’t going to get better until I had the surgery. It was finally time to admit that I wasn’t 20 any longer and I need to get this done.

However, I needed to deal with the whole eye issue that I have. When I got contacts at the age of 16 and I put them in for the first time, I almost passed out. When I was in my late 20’s, I was putting speakers in my car and managed to get a metal shaving imbedded in my eye. When the eye doctor told me what he was going to have to do, I actually did pass out and fell flat on the floor. When I take out my soft contacts I can’t do it like most people. I can’t just grab the contact off my eye; I have to pop it out as if it were a hard contact. My eyes freak me out. This was not going to go down easy.

The thing that convinced me that I could do this was when they told me that I had the option of being put into a twilight state similar to when I got my recent colonoscopy. I remember being told to turn on my side and then things got fuzzy and all of a sudden I am waking up on my back and being told that every thing went well. Trust me, if I could be in a different room while they were doing my eye surgery I would do that. Since that is unlikely, twilight state will have to do.

The consultation was pretty simple as we watched the video that went over the procedure and the relative risks associated with the surgery. Just like every commercial that you see on television concerning prescription drugs, there are a million things that can go wrong during and after the surgery but the likelihood is relatively small. We then met with the consultant that ran us through the options that I had. Either I get a lens inserted that will cause me to wear glasses for both distance and up close or spend the extra money to get something that will hopefully allow me to just have to use reading glasses. They cannot guarantee anything with the more expensive option, but in the end it will probably be better for me.

Finally, they did a couple of tests that will allow them to prescribe the appropriate lens for me. All in all, an easy 90 minutes. The doctor is scheduled for the next month, so my first surgery is scheduled for November 27 with the second a week later. Not looking forward to the procedure but looking forward to better vision so I can appreciate Hooters in the way that it was intended.

Despite all of the issues that have presented themselves over the last 3+ years, I thank God that I have had the opportunity to take all of these drugs and suffer the side effects. As I have often said, it is better to be here to complain than not have the opportunity. I am doing well and live a normal life. Aside from a cure, this will do.

In two weeks, I will be walking in my fourth “Light the Night Walk.” I don’t like asking friends for money, but this is one instance where I do. The Lymphoma and Leukemia Society does a lot of good for a lot of people and I have made it my goal to be part of that. Hopefully one day there will be a cure and we will no longer have to ask people for help, but we haven’t made it there yet. I’m hoping in my lifetime that we can find a cure but it won’t happen without the help of many. If you can help, please visit our team site and donate what you can.

http://pages.lightthenight.org/az/Phoenix12/teamoutlaws

Thank you, John

September 5 - You Can't Go Back Home Again

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe. In many ways this speaks to the fact that once we leave our homes, either we or those still there, change enough that it will never be the same and any attempt to relive your youth will become a miserable failure. This has become the general way of thinking in the world in which we live, but I have a very different way of looking at leaving and looking back.

I believe the quote by Maya Angelo is much more fitting. “You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.”

The reason that I bring this up is that we have finally sold our home in Ohio. After four long years of house payments and house repairs, we have rid ourselves of a financial and worrisome albatross that has hug around our necks since we moved to Arizona. I won’t go into the details of the costs and heartache associated with this burden, but you can imagine what 48 additional house payments, electric bills, water bills, gas bills and insurance payments along the way cost.

We physically lived in this house for twelve years. Justin was five and Jason almost three when we moved into the house that we felt would keep us happy until the boys moved out. We still had four years left until Jason would graduate from high school and go somewhere to college, leaving Julia and I over 4,000 feet to get lost in.

Then, I came to the conclusion that my job was taking over my life. No one said it at the time, but I became a different person, one that was not the real me. An opportunity then was presented to me that would not only give my career a new infusion of life, but one that could make things better for the entire family. Certainly leaving Ohio was going to be difficult, but in the end it could create new opportunities for all of us.

I would have the opportunity to redesign an entire department. Julia would be able to live in a place that she hoped to retire to at some point. The boys would get to move to a place that would allow them to play baseball year around.

What happened was different. Less than a year after I start my new job, I find out I had cancer. Three days later, Julia finds out that her mother has cancer. The next day, Justin finds out he didn’t make the high school baseball team and six months after that, Jason decides to pass up high school baseball. As they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

On top of all that, the sale of the home just wouldn’t happen. Month after month and then year after year hundreds of people would look at the house and find things wrong with it. This was after we put new carpeting in half of the house, replaced the ceramic tile in the kitchen, put in granite counter tops and replaced the front porch so the new buyers wouldn’t have to put up with the large crack that we lived with the entire time we lived in the home. Then last year, we had to replace the roof because an electric motor in the attic stopped working and the shingles fried.

Then finally, someone went through the house and loved it. After an initial low ball offer, we made a counter that we felt was the lowest we could go and the deal was done. Our excitement to sell the house was only exceeded by their excitement to buy the house. It’s always nice to know that whoever is buying the house that holds so many memories will be taken care of.

Our house wasn’t the perfect house. When Julia and I started looking for a new house 20 years ago, the house on Filiz Lane would not have been considered. We loved the area but had to put everything on hold because we were having trouble selling our house. (Sounds like a continuing theme, doesn’t it?) Then after two years of having people traipse through our house at the most unwanted times, we stumbled upon a spec house that was worth a look. It was very different than our likes but it presented some opportunities.

After speaking with the builder, we found that he was just as desperate to sell as we were, so much that he was willing to buy our house if we couldn’t sell it. As luck would have it, the house sold within a month and we were off and running.

For me, the house has more memories than I can count, most of which center around the boys. When we moved, I supplied beer for my friends that helped. We usually don’t have beer in the house, but there was some left over in out mini refrigerator in the lower lever. Jason saw it and insisted that it was pop (or soda for you non-Midwesterners.) Even at almost three years old, Jason was already working on his stubbornness and would not believe me that it wasn’t pop. To teach him a little lesson, I opened one up and let him have a swig. The look on his face was worth a million dollars and he hasn’t had a beer since.

Before we had any furniture in the lower lever, the boys and I would toss a nerf-type football to each other. I would be the quarterback and they would be the receivers. Justin at five years old could make diving catches. Jason at three would let the ball hit him in the face and hope that he could catch it on the bounce. Little did I know that Jason would turn into the athlete that he became.

Christmas was always an event, one that was choreographed. Julia and I would make sure we got up early so we could get cleaned-up and ready to go. If the boys got up early, it was back to bed. I would then set up the video camera and capture every moment of the chaos. We still go back and watch those videos. Everything from Justin screaming “Wow!” without even knowing what he had to Jason complaining that “I hate Barney!” when we reused a Barney game box for one of his presents. (We have kept the box to this day to give Jason one Christmas present each year inside that box.)

The boys and I would spend hours throwing a baseball in the front yard. I would throw pop-ups to them that at the time seemed like 100 miles in the air to the boys. We played every sport in the world in the front yard that potential buyers complained about when they went through the house because there was no place to play.

Of course, there was the night that a bat got in the house and the boys and I hunted it down, BB gun in hand while Julia hid in the bathroom. I dare not even attempt to count the field mice that we captured in the house. And of course, there was the raccoon that took up residence in the attic after we moved out.

There was the night that Julia and I sat down with the boys and told them that we would be moving to Arizona. It was a tough conversation knowing that it would be Justin's senior year in high school and Ohio had been the only place any of us had ever lived. More than a few tears were shed that night, but it was all a part of moving on.

Julia and I raised a couple pretty good kids in that house, so it will always mean something to me. Yet, it will not be missed as we have new memories from our new home and will have even more in the future. More than the home, it was the people that lived and visited there that made it what it was. We tend to fall in love with places or things when, in reality, it all means little without the friends and family that come with them.

Someone once said, “Home is where the heart is.” It could not be any more true.

My labs continue to be amazing. Blood cells are a little low but the cancer count is non existent. I will continue to receive chemo every other week and will do my best in two months when I meet with Dr. Mikhael to talk him into letting me drop that to once every four weeks. Another two good blood tests should help!

By the way, I had a colonoscopy about a month ago to complete what I started 3 ½ years ago when I found out I had cancer. I originally went to the doctor to get a physical and get set up for my second colonoscopy. After I found out about the cancer, I put the colonoscopy on the back burner which was really stupid. Just because you have one cancer doesn't mean that you can't get another. Luckily all came out well this time (no pun intended.) It was a breeze. Other than the preparation and getting an IV, I had no knowledge or recollection of what went on and had no after effects. If you have been putting it off, please don't. Don't roll the dice like I did.

August 12, 2012 The Olympic Spirit

 

The 2012 Olympics have come to a close and I already miss the excitement that they bring. There is nothing like hearing the National Anthem played knowing that someone from the United States has won another gold. Now that they are completed, we Americans can go back to doing what we always do after the Olympics and completely forget about all of the sports that we cheered on for the last three weeks.

I have to admit that I am among the worst when it comes to being a swimming, track and field and all the rest of the sports snob. If it isn't in the Olympics, I/we just don't care. However, if is the Olympics, people tune in and cheer like crazy even if the action is taped delayed. I even got to the point where I would not check out espn.com during the day so I wouldn't know what had happened. I stayed away from cnn.com like it was the plague. Who cares if the world is coming to an end? Just don't tell me who won the 4X400 relay.

I even have to admit that I have become a closet fan of one of the most maligned sports that is part of the Olympics. I know that this will be an affront to my manhood, by I have to admit that I have become a fan of rhythmic gymnastics. Yes, the sport where the cute little girl twirls the ribbon while standing on one foot. In the past, I have questioned why this is considered an Olympic sport while baseball is not.

Then I made the mistake of tuning in to the competition because there was nothing else on. It wasn't even on NBC, it was one of the myriad of networks they used to show the 5,535 hours of coverage. I initially started paying attention because the participant was just flat out beautiful. Then I started to notice what she was doing with the ball, hoop, clubs or ribbon.

I couldn't make up my mind if it was truly gymnastics or dance or a combination of the two, but it was amazing as to what these women were able to do and still look beautiful doing it. Their ability to manipulate the apparatuses, as they are called, while gliding across the mat was far more than just twirling a ribbon as I had always thought. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to give up my love for the often blood thirsty sport of football, but I know I will not ask if this sport belongs in the Olympics again.

The one thing that I really miss from my early years of watching the Olympics is that of a hated rival. If there was one positive that the cold war brought to those of us in the United States was someone to root against. There was nothing better that beating the Russians. They were good in the sports that we were good in. Unlike the Chinese who gave us a run for the gold and total medal title this year, we would go head to head with them.

The Chinese win in sports like badminton, table tennis and fencing, the Russians would go toe to toe with us in track and field, swimming and basketball. It's always great to be number one, but it's better when there is someone that isn't good enough to beat you that you really don't like.

There was one competitor that did not wear the red, white and blue that I could not help but root for, however. He didn't win any medals, in fact, he didn't even come close, but his story is one of the most inspirational in these Olympics. If you don't know the story of Oscar Pistorius, it is one that you should.

Pistorius is a short distance runner for the country of South Africa. Until just a short time ago, he didn't know if he would even be allowed to participate. You see, Oscar has no feet. He was born with a congenital absence of the fibula in both legs. At eleven months of age, both legs were amputated below the knee. 

As a young man, he participated in numerous sports but a serious knee injury while playing rugby changed his life forever. While rehabilitating, he was introduced to running and took to it immediately. Utilizing a carbon fiber prosthetic, he was able to dominate other athletes in the Paralympics and soon turned his desires to compete against able-bodied athletes. 

He was finally able to compete internationally in 2007 and despite not faring that well, he set as his goal the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But before he could even attempt to qualify, he was ruled ineligible after he was tested at the Cologne Sports University. Their findings stated that the prosthetic allowed him to use up to 25% less energy than a able bodied athlete. 

Pistorius fought the findings and eventually was ruled eligible. It wasn't until July 4^th of this year that he was able to fulfill his dreams when he was named to the South African Olympic team and was given the opportunity to run in London. He did well enough in the 400 preliminaries to make the semi-finals but finished seventh and did not advance. He then ran in the finals of the 4X400 relay as South Africa finished eighth in the field of nine. 

The courage that this man has shown his entire life is a lesson from which we can all learn. Until the Olympics, I knew of him, but not about him. Now that I do, I can celebrate along with him and what he has been able to accomplish in a life that was meant to be special. 

In my own little Olympics against cancer, I seem to be doing rather well. The results continue to be outstanding even as I have reduced the dosage to just receiving treatment every other week. I have been experiencing some abdominal issues the few months but I seem to be seeing some improvement there, too. Within a half hour of eating I would begin to feel pain in my abdomen that would last the rest of the day. It was unlike anything that I had experienced before and medication didn't seem to help. 

After speaking with all of my doctors it was suggested that I have an abdominal ultrasound. That showed nothing so after two months I was no closer to an answer than I was the day after it started. Although the doctors did not seem to agree, I just felt it had something to do with my chemo. Because it has been so successful, I had no intention of changing, but doing this for the rest of my life just wasn't going to happen. Two weeks ago I met with a Gastrointestinal specialist at the Mayo and talked to him about potential causes. He suggested that I have a colonoscopy which will take place tomorrow morning. 

In the mean time, I have had the nurses give me my bi-weekly shot in my arm instead of the stomach. In addition, I asked the doctor for a probiotic to try. Between these two changes, things have been getting better and I can eat a meal without wishing that I hadn't. I do have to say that losing weight is a lot easier when your stomach hurts. You just have to look at the positives in life.

June 21, 2012 - Planes, Trains and Automobiles

In 1987, Paramount released a film by John Hughes starring John Candy and Steve Martin entitled Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The movie was a huge success for its time bringing in $150 million on a $15 million budget. The movie follows Martin on his unexpected adventure trying to get from New York to his home in Chicago for Thanksgiving dinner. The scheduled 90 minute flight turns into a three day fiasco that is unforgettable. The title gives you an idea of the different modes of transportation that was used in Martin and Candy’s futile attempt to complete the journey. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it if you can deal with a bit of saucy language.

The reason that I even bring this up is because of the close parallel to our recent vacation. As we did for Justin when he graduated from high school, we planned a cruise for the four of us to celebrate Jason’s graduation. In reality, it is a flimsy excuse to take the entire family on a cruise. It’s Jason’s celebration, but we all benefit.

We decided to go big time and sail on the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas. This is one half of a set of twin boats that are the largest cruise ships in the world. When you see it docked next to other cruise ships, it looks like Barry Bonds on steroids verses the 90 pound weakling that gets sand kicked in his face at the beach. You could sit other ships inside the Oasis. The ship has everything including rock climbing walls, an ice skating ring, surf simulators, a miniature golf course and a 17 feet deep diving pool used as part of a Cirque du Soleil type water show. This is in addition to several theaters and more places to eat than you can count. They can house 6,000+ guests on board in addition to over 2,000 crew members.

We flew into West Palm Beach late on Friday and arise early on Saturday to get on the ship as quickly as possible and begin to explore. We got through the lines quickly and were actually able to get to our rooms around two that afternoon. We grabbed a quick lunch and then began to explore the ship and found it absolutely amazing. When it actually did begin to leave the port, it was so big we barely felt it start to move.

That evening, we enjoyed our first dinner in the dining room which included a lengthy conversation with our waitress concerning our arrival in the Bahamas the next morning and our subsequent departure for St. Thomas later that afternoon. Little did we know at the time that an adventure was coming our way, an adventure that was sealed during that conversation. I had looked at the itinerary incorrectly and believed that we would leave at 4 PM which was confirmed by our waitress and as a result, I did not recheck the next morning. A relatively small mistake that led to a huge escapade.

We took our time getting off the boat that morning as we knew the ship wasn’t leaving until late that afternoon. Once on land, we grabbed a taxi and headed to Atlantis to take a walk through the shopping areas and then on to the beach. We knew that we would have to head back to the ship early because Justin’s dress shoes had a blowout and his soles needed replaced. We knew there was some shopping downtown so we left about 2 ½ hours before the ship was scheduled to leave at four PM.

We were not able to get on the first ferry as it had reached its limit and we were forced to wait an additional 20 minutes for the next one. No worry, as we had left plenty of time for the return. When the next ferry arrived, we got prime seats and could even see our ship in the distance. That is when the adventure began.

As we looked at the Oasis, Jason mentioned that it looked like it was moving and, indeed, it was. It was turning around! As one often does, we did all we could to just convince ourselves that it was just turning around before it would leave in two hours. However, there was a knot in my stomach that I just could not get rid of. Ships don’t turn around until they were leaving.

We didn’t panic until we got back to the port and not only was the Oasis of the Seas not there, there also wasn’t anyone from Royal Caribbean. We were now stranded in the Bahamas with nothing but our bathing suits, tee shirts and four wet Royal Caribbean towels. We had no phones, no passports and very little cash. We had stepped off the ferry and into a nightmare.

After a bit of work we found the port agent William who did offer some help in finding a flight that would get us to Miami that night and then continue to St. Thomas in the morning. In finding him, we also found two other people that had missed the boat, Stella and Terri. The one good thing was the fact that Royal Caribbean had gone to our rooms and taken our passports out of the safe and gotten them to William. With those in hand and Stella and Terri tagging along we rushed to the airport.

It took almost an hour but we were able to get tickets and make our way to the gate. Seemed odd with only four towels as carry on, but it did make security easy. Imagine how we looked and felt. We had spent several hours on the beach and were covered in sweat, sun block and sea water. I pitied the person sitting next to me on the plane.

We were able to use Stella’s phone when we landed in Miami to check out Travelocity and find a hotel near the airport. Then after waiting over 30 minutes for the shuttle to pick us up, we stumbled into the hotel around 9 PM. After surveying the room we walk to a nearby McDonald's and pounded down burgers and fries which was a far cry from the formal dinner we were to have on the ship that night. This was the night the boys were going to break out their suits for the first time after looking at them hanging in their closets for nearly a year. Instead we sat at McDonald's in our bathing suits.

When we got back to the hotel, we took our turns in the shower and after the boys and I were done, we wrapped ourselves in towels and Julia washed out suits and shirts in the hotel laundry. I won’t even go into the trouble that Julia had getting quarters as the hotel didn’t seem to have any.

The next morning we got up early to finish drying our clothes with the hotel hair dryer. There is one thing to miss about the lack of humidity in Arizona. You can hang something up wet and have it almost completely dry by the time you sit down. Not so much luck in humid Miami. After grabbing a quick breakfast we were once again on the shuttle on the way back to the airport.

We soon found ourselves in St. Thomas again looking for a hotel near the airport. William the Port Agent had gotten in touch with someone that would be at the airport. She approached us as we were looking for the cab station with two suggestions for hotel accommodations within walking distance. It almost felt like big brother was watching as we did not identify ourselves and she knew who we were. Maybe the bathing suit travel wear gave us away.

We were able to walk to a quaint but rustic old hotel on the water and after moving three times to find a room that was made up and not filled with bugs, we made our way to the beach and began to enjoy our time in St. Thomas. Things began to look up when we found a bar just down the beach that was giving away free appetizers and rum punch. Nothing better than free anything, let alone rum punch.

In the end, we had a good time that day in St. Thomas and we got to spend more time with the boys than we would have on the boat so all was not lost. However, we almost did lose Jason that night. Sometime well after midnight, Julia was awakened by the sound of the door opening to the outside. After clearing her eyes, she noticed that Jason was standing at the door with it wide open in his underwear. He was still asleep ready to venture out to the beach which was just 100 feet away. After partially waking up, Jason stumbled back to bed and barely remembered the incident the next morning.

Finally, the morning came and we were off to meet the Oasis. After jumping through a few hoops, they let us back on board and we were officially back on our cruise vacation.

Certainly not a planned adventure, but certainly one nonetheless. At the time, it seemed horrific, but in the end we had more laughs than you could count. In some ways, it really wasn’t that much different than my little adventure since I discovered I had cancer. In the beginning, you are devastated and not sure what to do. However, with the help of a little knowledge, you somehow get through. Not to suggest that cancer is a laughing matter, but you would be surprised how many laughs I have had as I have recounted my trip from near oblivion to where I am today. You just have to stay strong and keep fighting and you might be able to find some free rum punch on a beautiful beach.

May 16, 2008 - What was God Thinking?

As you probably already know, I am quite the TVaholic. Two of my favorite shows are House and Bones. The lead characters in both shows are extremely smart and are very clear that they do not believe in God. It doesn’t keep me from watching these shows, but I always cringe a bit when they go there. It seems that science precludes God and I can’t agree with that.

We all have our own reasons for believing in God. It could be anything from your parents telling you He exists all the way to doing doctoral studies on religion. I really didn’t have any choice growing up. I was thrown into Catholic school in the first grade and there was no looking back.

When you are young, it is easy to believe in God. You really don’t understand the world and your educational background is fairly limited. The fact that Sister Mary Immaculata is making you memorize every prayer under the sun doesn’t slow down that belief.

I took religion classes all the way through high school and I never questioned if there was a God or was I praying to the right one. However, as I became more educated and the scientific community became more advanced, there were more and more reasons to question my beliefs. We now live in a world that questions everything and ridicules everyone and everything that is different.

Can you imagine if Jesus was born in 1982 and was now embarking on his public career? He would not be able to reach the masses without appearing on television. If he actually said the things today that he did 2,000 years ago, his public career would not last three years as it once did. Every scientist in the world would discount what he said and did and do everything they could to disprove every miracle that he performed.

The world is just different than it was 2,000 years ago. People believed what they were told without proof (other than Thomas). Today, we would ask Jerusalem CSI for proof that Jesus’ DNA had no paternal element. I just wonder if the Christian or any other religion would thrive and survive as they have. Today, we need to touch and feel the proof.

Even though I have questioned some of the things that the Bible states, that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in the overall concept. I certainly believe that there is a Superior Being. I believe that Jesus was born and died for us. I believe that if I live a giving life, I will get to see Him after I die. That is what faith is all about. That is what makes us special.

In the end, I just cannot buy that all of this just happened. I cannot believe that we just crawled out of the muck and became what we are. I cannot believe that God did not have a hand in all of this. Do I believe He did it in seven days? Nope. But I do believe that He made it all possible. If you believe in everything the Bible says, dinosaurs are a real problem. I can deal with God and dinosaurs. He just took his time giving us what we needed.

Just looking at the human body, no one can convince me that it all just fell together this way. God even gave us spare parts. There is a reason we have two kidneys, two lungs, two eyes and two ears. We could survive with one, but two made us much better. He even wanted us to thrive and gave us two ovaries and two testicles. There are back-ups to keep us alive and thrive.

The only thing I really question is why is MY body falling apart. I just came back from the dentist after having one of my crowns removed. I have had this and another crown for over a decade with absolutely no problems. It seems that I am now allergic to both of these crowns. Didn’t know it but my gums were being overrun with little globs that looked like mini grapes. He cut that out after popping off my crown.

I sit here now with my jaw aching because I opened my mouth about four inches wider than I should have so he could get all of his equipment in there. I now have two more appointments set up to get the other one done. Six months ago I had to stop in because I had a pop corn kernel wedge itself under my gum. A month later it worked its way out. Three months before that I had one of my teeth break in half as I was enjoying a cinnamon coated almond. That gave me another crown that I have yet to become allergic to. I’m just wondering what will break next in my mouth.

In summary, I think God did a wonderful job of making this miracle machine that we refer to as the human body. I just wish he would have given me an extended warranty.

April 10, 2012 The Miracle of Life

About two months ago Julia and I started noticing two ducks that had conveniently mistaken our pool for a pond. I have always wanted our pool to get more use, but this was not the direction that I was thinking. For fear of digested duck food in and around the pool, I would make my way out to the pool screaming words I’m sure the ducks did not understand to try to get them to find another home. Generally it worked, but I found that as time moved on the ducks became less and less afraid of my rants.

I then resorted to the fear of physical abuse by grabbing the pool net and splashing it in the water. This, too, worked for a while but I eventually had to use a combination of the two to free the pool of its new inhabitants. After a couple of weeks I noticed that there was only one duck left and I felt pretty proud of the fact that I had scared the male away.

Little did I know at the time, but it seems that my two new friends had turned my back yard into a love den. It seems that Mr. Duck had gotten rather friendly with Miss Duck and done what many men have done over the years and flew the coup. I didn’t put all of this together until I was doing some replanting of flowers in one of the planters that we had built into our water feature (that’s what they call a waterfall out here.) My eyes about popped out when I saw a couple of eggs sitting in the bottom of another planter.

I was now in crisis mode. This was no longer a situation of scaring away an unwanted duck. All of a sudden, I was either going to become a home wrecker or a duck egg murderer. Neither of these sat well with either of us so Julia started calling around town to see what our options were. We were told everything from it was against the law to do anything to the eggs all the way to grab the eggs when the mother was gone and turn them into scrambled eggs if we want.

Our problem had grown bigger as the days went by as we were now grandparents of so many eggs that I couldn’t count all of them. If you think that having two ducks soiling the pool was a problem, think about who knows how many more. We were beside ourselves. It’s not like we are super animal lovers, especially of the wild variety, but at the same time it just didn’t seem right to tamper with the eggs.

Julia was lucky enough to find a rescue group that would come to the house after the eggs were hatched and take the ducks to a more suitable environment. We waited and waited, but no baby ducks. That was until early Saturday morning when Julia awoke to the sound of multiple peeps and not the kind you find in your Easter basket. She was able to make it to the window and see several newborn ducks literally roll down the waterfall and into the pool.

Much like Christmas morning we scampered outside to see our new presents. There were nine ducklings following their mother around as if they were tied together on a string. All of a sudden they were more than eggs. New life had joined us on the Great Lake Churan. They were cute and fuzzy and Jason wanted to keep one.

During Julia’s conversations with the rescue group we were told that once the ducklings made it into the pool, they would have trouble getting out. As a result, we needed to give them an escape strategy. Julia grabbed one of the screens from our windows and all of a sudden the escape plan was in place. However, the ducks didn’t quite get the memo and we had to do a modified cattle drive to get them out of the pool. That worked once, but it seems that ducks are not right up there with dolphins in the intelligence category. Within minutes the ducks were back in the pool and had no idea how to get out.

The ducklings were getting a little more adapted to their surroundings and the majority eventually were soon able to get out on their own. Ironically, Jason came to the rescue for the rest with the same pool net that I had used just a month earlier to try to scare the ducks away.

Then the rescue guy called and said he was on his way over. Julia said his name was Scooter and I was expecting some young kid in dreds showing up. Instead, we got a 60+ year old volunteer. After several attempts and Jason and I helping trap the ducks in the water feature, the mother was captured and soon the babies. They were quickly placed in cages and were off to their new home a few miles away.

Then it hit me, I missed them. We only had them for a few hours, but they were cute and I understood why Jason wanted to keep one. I think the miracle of life grabbed me a bit. Sometimes we just take for granted how everything works. I have a couple of ducks in my back yard in February and in April I have a boatload of baby ducks.

I refuse to believe that we are an accident. There is nothing that the scientists tell me that can allow for the fact that all of this all happened in one place. Big bang or not, I still think that God had something to do with all of the pieces fitting into the puzzle.

We all have the opportunity to believe what we want and I guess I’m a hybrid kind of guy. The bible version is a nice simple way of describing what happened. Yet, you can no longer deny the science and the fact that dinosaurs were here 30,000,000 years ago. But at the same time, there is no reason to believe that God didn’t just want it to play out this way. No reason to believe that he didn’t help push the first few cells together to make life. No reason to believe that he didn’t whisper into the ear of that first fish that decided to take a breath on dry land. In the end, it all worked and I refuse to believe that there wasn’t a plan to make life the beautiful thing that it is.

By the way, I got some good news last week in addition to the good news from the latest blood work. Not only is my light chain reading normal, but there is a chance, however small, that I could actually get off chemo at some time in the future. Even though the activity is so low it really doesn’t measure, Dr. Mikhael is of the belief that there is some of that nastiness still going on, which is only logical. If the current cocktail continues to work and minimizes what is there even more, there is some chance that the multiple myeloma might go dormant for a period. Again, not a cure, but a hope for freedom from chemo for a while. In the meantime, I’m enjoying life to the max, even though I seemed to have lost my new duck buddies.

March 31, 2012 Play Ball!

As we approach the beginning of April, I have to admit that my heart starts beating just a little stronger. I have never hid my love for the game of baseball and another season is just around the corner. It was just a little over 50 years ago that I remember my dad talking about the Reds on their way to the 1961 National League pennant. I didn’t really understand much about the game at the time because very few games were on TV and we just didn’t have the money to go to Cincinnati and take in games.

I quickly became a fan as baseball was America’s pastime in the early 60’s. Football had yet to see the explosion after the start of the Super Bowl, the NBA was of little interest to anyone outside the cities that they played and hockey was played in eight cities that were mostly in Canada or the extreme northern part of the US. By the time I started playing baseball myself at the age of eleven, I was addicted. Everything about the game intrigued me. The smell of a new glove or a well used baseball. The sound of the ball as it meets the bat. The sight of the ball throwing up chalk as it hits the foul line. The mental process of deciding who should hit against who. It was the perfect game.

I did everything I could to learn about baseball, waiting patiently for the mailman to show up on Thursdays with my Sporting News. I had every baseball card each year and I would spend hours memorizing the backs of those cards. I would throw a super ball against the brick wall next to our garage so that I could work on my fielding. I would fungo hit 200 baseballs a day because there was no one to pitch to me.

All of that work in the back yard didn’t get me very far as I peaked at the age of 12 and rode a speeding runaway car to the end of my career three years later. That didn’t keep me from my love affair with the sport, however. I watched whenever I could and fell asleep to many ballgames on my transistor radio smuggled into my room hidden under my pillow.

My Reds were not very good at that time, but I still kept a vigil hoping for another miracle like what happened in 1961. Every year it was the same old thing. I would hope for the best in the spring but watch some other team in the World Series. But in the spring it was magical, I could always convince myself at the beginning of the season that there was new life, there was always a chance. It was a new life, a chance to start over with unbridled hope.

If you think about it, there are only a few times in our lives that we get to start all over. I still remember the last quarter when I was attending UC. One of my engineering buddies and I were walking down the hallway after our last finals and he just threw his books and slide rule down the hall in a fit of pleasure that it was all over. When we move from one job to the next, we receive an opportunity to start all over with a clean slate.

The thing about baseball and the new season is that it wipes out what has happened in the past and every team starts out at the same spot with zero wins and zero losses. Any failures that have happened in the past can be forgotten and we can just move on. We, as humans, every once in a while need a clean slate, an opportunity to start all over. It seems that our failures seem to follow us more than our successes. The old saying at work is that 100 “atta boys” gets forgotten with one “Oh crap!”

I guess that I am at one of those crossroads and I am getting a clean slate. I just received my latest results from my blood work and I have zero losses. For the first time since I found out that I have Multiple Myeloma, the level of cancer in my blood stream is virtually non-detectable. My Lambda Free Light Chains are at 1.81 with a “normal” range of 0.57 to 2.63. If somebody just picked up blood work and looked at it, they would likely not suspect that I have a blood disorder.

This is certainly exciting news for me. It doesn’t mean that I am cured. It doesn’t mean that the cancer has gone away. It doesn’t even mean that I can stop taking chemo. What it does mean is that this little combo of chemotherapies and steroids that I am taking is doing the job, better than anything that I have taken in the past. I will see Dr. Mikhael next week and my hope is that he will consider letting me back off the chemo a bit so that I only take it every other week instead of every week. Normally they like to wait four months before such a move, but I hope to use the medical knowledge that I have picked up watching “House” for the last eight years to change his mind. The belief is that the less I use of it now the longer that it will last. Keep your fingers crossed.

March 12, 2012 - The Waste of a Life

I haven’t written in a while and I apologize for that, but to be honest, I have struggled with the topic that I’m going to discuss and that is Whitney Houston’s death. I could not make up my mind if I wanted to pursue it, but as we have gotten further from her death, I feel that it will be easier to discuss.

Whitney Houston, like many entertainers, was given a remarkable talent. Beautiful, vibrant and with the voice of an angel, she burst on the music scene like an atomic bomb. She was everywhere. She sold millions of albums, appeared in movies and ended up on the cover of every beauty and entertainment magazine. Yet, twenty years later, she died alone in a hotel still fighting demons that had taken over her life.

How many times have we seen this happen? In my lifetime alone, drugs and alcohol have taken the lives of so many entertainers and musicians that they are almost too numerous to list. Just to name a few: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, John Belushi, Chris Farley, Amy Winehouse, Judy Garland, Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger. This doesn’t even include the names of people that didn’t die directly as a result of drugs but where substance abuse indirectly led to their death such as Elvis Presley. The list goes on and on. I could fill up the page with names.

The reason that I am even discussing this is that I find it so tragic. These people were all given an amazing talent. We all have our talents, but those that choose entertainment can reach such highs and lows that their rather unique psyches often struggle with both the good times and the downtimes which they will inevitably find. As a result, they look for crutches or a new high that their normal life cannot give them.

In the end, they throw away everything. Even before their deaths, their lives are miserable. They fail to understand that their life, as it is, has value. Unless they can return to the unbelievable heights that they had reached, they become dependent on other means to simulate their previous highs. Obviously, this isn’t restricted to entertainers, but because their lives become headlines, we know them so much more easily.

What is truly sad is that there are so many of us that just have normal lives that are willing to go through so much to just keep living. I’m not just talking about those of us that are currently fighting illness, but those that work hard every day just to keep their family in food and clothing. Life is a struggle. It doesn’t matter how much money you make or how famous you are. This is not easy. Yet, somehow, we all pull up out bootstraps every day and work through it without having to “escape” through drugs or alcohol.

Certainly addiction is a powerful and awful thing. I understand that. Today we have become so politically correct that we even label it as a disease. I’ve never been fond of that dumbing up of the situation. There are those that have a greater propensity to addiction, I’ll give you that, but at the same time they weren’t born addicted. They did not feel fine, have a physical and find out that they were gravely ill. They made a choice, most of us that are fighting for our lives, didn’t.

I don’t feel sorry for Whitney Houston. I feel sorry for those she left behind. She should have thought about them before she thought about herself.


Another person I don’t feel sorry for is myself. I have been given a hand to deal with and I’m doing the best I can to squeeze every little bit out of life that I can. To that end, I changed my chemotherapy six weeks ago. Before that, my cancer numbers were getting worse and worse. I was actually starting to get a little nervous. There are only so many drugs out there for me and one of the most popular had failed. I wasn’t going to give up, but the cancer had gotten my attention.

When I received the email with my blood results a couple of weeks ago I was anxious to open it up and check that magic number next to the “lambda light chains.” This is the absolute number that let’s me know what the cancer is doing. A person without Multiple Myeloma would likely be under 2.0. Last month, my number jumped from 20 to 46.

I always hope for the best, but this time the number that I saw just didn’t look right. It just couldn’t be what I saw. I looked and then looked again. I sent an email to the person (Megan, my former Stem Cell Coordinator) that sent me the information and I asked her to confirm what I saw. It was 3.19!!!! Not 31.9 or 319, it was 3.19, almost normal. Now understand, this doesn’t mean that I am close to being cured or even getting off of chemo. What it does mean is the new combination is kicking some serious tail, better than anything that I have done before!

We will continue with the every week injections and pills for the time being. Over the next few months we will monitor my level to see if the chemo cocktail stays effective. If it does, hopefully, I will be able to reduce the frequency of the injections. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

If you can’t tell, I have a big smile on my face!

January 31, 2012 -- Be Gone January, Be Gone

When I was young, it was easy to pick out my favorite month of the year. Certainly December was extremely important to me highlighted by Christmas and the ensuing presents and 10 days away from school. The three months of summer were also very high on my list with major league baseball in full swing and, again, the ability to not worry about school. October was great because of all of the candy that I would be able to collect at Halloween (and I’m talking full size bars.) But all of those fell by the wayside because January was easily number one on my list.

For most, January was one of the more drab months of the year. Other than New Year’s Day, there were no days off from school or work. The weather in a good part of the country certainly leaves a little to be desired, especially in Ohio where I’m not sure anyone has even seen the sun during that month. There was college football on January 1, but that was the end of it until the fall. All that has now changed, but back then January 1st was the climax. Even pro football was done until they started the Super Bowl and as a Cleveland Browns fan, it still doesn’t matter what month they play that thing.

Despite all of these negatives the fact that my birthday was right in the middle of the month easily put this month ahead of all the rest. I would begin counting down the days on December 26th. January 16th was my day and no one else’s. There was just something special about that day for me. January 16th is so unspecial to the rest of the world that it was proclaimed “National Nothing Day” back in 1973. From the Hallmark site,” This un-event, first observed in 1973, was created by newspaperman Harold Pullman Coffin ‘to provide Americans with one national day when they can just sit without celebrating, observing, or honoring anything.’”

Obviously most think their day is special, but to me it was everything. It wasn’t like my parents ever did anything special. I would never have a party with kids from my school but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t important. We didn’t have to go out to eat or see a movie or anything. It was still my day.

I didn’t even care that much about presents. I would get some from my parents and relatives would send me five dollar bills that I would save up to buy something cool from Jandy’s Toy Store on Main Street, but even that wasn’t all that big of a deal. I would get my favorite cake and get to blow out the candles, which was fun, but it was just a signal that it was my day.

I still feel more important on January 16th but after surviving 59 of those anniversaries of my birth, I now don’t get quite as excited and I even hide the fact at work so they don’t decorate my office with who knows what. I’m still pulling Silly String and confetti from my drawers from two years ago. Yet despite my reluctance to share my day with others, it still means a lot to me. It still is my day. I still feel special that day, even if I don’t broadcast it like I did 50 years earlier.

It does seem that I am starting to feel differently about January as a whole though. It was three years ago that I found out that I had Multiple Myeloma. It was last year that it became apparent that the stem cell transplant had run its course and I would have to restart chemo sometime soon. Then last week, I had a fainting spell at work that brought six EMS guys to the office and a trip to the Emergency Room. After a barrage of test showed nothing including the CAT scan of my brain, they let me go home. No real cause and no concern from that, but it did make me feel helpless for a bit.

Then last week, I got the results of my last blood test. As you know, the Revlimd has been rather inconsistent in its effectiveness and there was a good chance that January would be my last month of usage if it didn’t show some resiliency. In my own mind I was prepared for news that would lead me to the next suite of chemotherapy. What I wasn’t prepared for was the level of the cancer growth. My fear with continuing the Revlimid was that when it did go south, the MM would have a hey day. Well, it seems that the Revlimid not only took a vacation, it threw a little gasoline on the fire.

The biggest increase that I have ever had from one moth to the next was a jump of about 5 which has happened a couple times recently. This time it jumped from 20 to 46 with the 46 being the second highest I have ever had only falling behind the mid 60’s that I had when it was initially discovered. I was a little stunned and disappointed but certainly not ready to throw up any white flags. Poor Justin decided to make this his first visit to see my doctor with Julia and me and he had to hear this.

Although on the surface, this sounds rather ominous, it really isn’t much different than what happened during the six weeks that I was off chemo before the transplant when it jumped from 13 to 41. The fact that I have a good deal of confidence in the next chemo cocktail has kept me from jumping off any nearby bridges.

My next little adventure will include three drugs, Cytoxan, Velcade and dexamethasone. The last two are familiar as I have used them both but the Cytoxan is a new animal to me. It has some interesting potential side effects that may or may not come into play: low blood counts, hair loss (I’ve been working on that for a couple decades so no big deal), nausea and vomiting (usually with larger doses), poor appetite (Guess I can back off my diet), loss of fertility (I won’t even go there) and discoloration of the skin or nails. Pretty typical stuff, not all of which is guaranteed.

The Velcade will be taken subcutaneously (just under the skin in the stomach) while the other two will be in pill form. They will all be done once per week on the same day at different times of the day. This will be ongoing with no breaks although we might be able to back off on the Velcade if good we get good results. In some studies, 90% of those taking this cocktail have seen positive results.

Just another bump in the road as we go through this process. Disappointing, but I still feel good and plan to attack this like I have from day one. Keep the prayers and thoughts coming, they are certainly appreciated.

January 1, 2012 - Let's Start All Over Again

It seems that the magical date of January 1 has made its way into our lives again. It is the perfect date to start all over and the vast majority of us use it to do that to some extent. How many times have we all selected January 1 as the day to begin the remaking of ourselves into something better, something more acceptable to our life's goals? Once again, I will use January 1 as the starting point of a new diet. My guess is that many reading this are shaking their heads and saying the same thing.

In addition to the more than likely failed effort of losing weight, I have decided to add an even more important resolution to my new year. This is one that I will do my best not to let slip through my fingers and be forgotten by February 1 which is generally the lifetime of most New Year's resolutions. As much as I would like to look in the mirror and see an Adonis staring back at me, this one is actually more important.

In less than a month, I will have made it through three years of my battle with cancer. It hasn't always been pleasant, but I'm proud to say that I have made it this far when I had serious doubts in the beginning that I would still be upright in 2012. Yet, I'm not sure that I have utilized my three years as well as I should.

I'm afraid that I have felt maybe too good during this stretch. Yes, I have had some difficult times, but for the most part, I have felt unaffected by the disease. It has given me a somewhat false sense of security, a security that most of us take for granted every day of our lives. That security is the belief that I will have tomorrow to get the most out of life, a life that should be enjoyed to its fullest extent every day, something I know I haven't done even with this cloud hanging over my head.

We spend our entire life wishing away the days always looking for tomorrow, looking for something better. It starts out very early when we wish to be older so that we can stay up later and not have to take a nap during the afternoon. (Now, I'd love to be able to take a nap every afternoon.) Then before long we are wishing away the days until we turn 16 so we can drive a car or 21 so that we can have a drink with our friends.

Everyone of us is guilty of wishing away at least four days of every week. How many times have you wished on Monday morning that it was Friday afternoon? We are only given a precious few days on this earth and we probably wish away half of them. Too many of us look at a normal day as a penalty that we have to pay to get to the good ones. The only exceptions to wishing away days are days that include trips to the dentist and getting a colonoscopy. I'm sure there are a few others, but those really stand out.

Give some thought when you are putting together your improvements in the next year and think about how you can take better advantage of those not so thrilling “normal” days. Not every day can be Top 10 day, but it is what we do with the rest that really make up our lives. Do your best to enjoy them because you just never know when you might not have as many left as you would like.

One thing that I have tried to do since I started this blog was to give you all an idea of what I was going through and what it was like to fight the biggest battle of your life. I have always tried to be honest because it doesn't do any of us any good to just say the things that people want to hear. With that in mind I'm going to level with you all, this year has not been the easiest on my mental approach in the fight.

As you know, I get my blood tested every month. This is both a blessing and a curse. Every month I know pretty much how things are going. Aside from being told for the first time you have cancer, the scariest thing that you have to do is hear the results of the next test. For some, that is in six months or five years or some other timeline. It really doesn't matter how long the interval, the fear never subsides, until the doctor tells you that all is clear or things are improving.

Of the twelve blood tests that I had this year, only three saw improvement, the rest showed some advancement of the disease. I cannot tell you how frustrating that has become. The reason that I bring this up is that my last blood test once again showed that the Revlimid is not doing the job. After the dosage was increased to 15 mg there was a nice improvement but this last month showed that everything that was gained was lost. So, I have been on Revlimid five months and the light chains have basically jumped up and down and are back where I started in August.

I guess that I should be happy that I have gotten five more months of relatively good health without it getting worse, but it just gets frustrating always being on the edge of having to do something else. I can live with the prospect of being on chemotherapy for the rest of my life, but it would be nice to see some consistent progress. As I have stated before, it is the mental aspect of the disease that can be so taxing. I'm extremely lucky that I only have to battle that part so far. I will be taking the Revlimid for another cycle to see if there is some hope to salvage the use of the drug. If not, it will be on to a different chemo drug.

Don't get me wrong, I still feel great. In addition, I'm going to take my own advise and try to enjoy every day just a little more that I would have in the past. I'm still pretty confident that the Mayans are wrong and we will all get to enjoy 2013, but you just never know......