February 25, 2010 Living in the Past

While watching the Olympics on Sunday, Al Michaels interviewed several members of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team that won the hockey gold metal. About midway through the interview both of the boys mentioned that they wanted to watch the movie “Miracle.” It really got me thinking about how much we enjoy thinking and reliving the past.

Last week I received a facebook request to add Denise Cline Derge as a friend. I about fell out of my chair. Denise and I dated for about three months during our senior years in high school. My best friend from fourth grade on, Mike Meixner, had been dating a girl from Fairborn High School for a while and I had been dateless for longer than I cared to think about so his girl friend fixed me up with Denise. We hit it off well enough to go to two proms together and actually “go steady” for a week. Boy, there is a term that our kids could not comprehend. They don’t even know what a date is anymore. They just get together and “hang.”

Because I went to an all male high school and moved away from Dayton after college, there really haven’t been any opportunities to reconnect with any of my old girl friends. I couldn’t just stop in at Fairview’s 30th reunion and check out Judy Bible. So it was great to talk to Denise again just to see how her life had gone. As they say, it was a “blast from the past.”

If you think about it, we constantly hang on to the past. I have XM Radio in my car and I more likely than not am listening to something that was popular anywhere from 1960 to 1999. (Current music dropped off the face of the earth for me around the turn of the century.) You hear a song and it immediately brings back a memory from the past; good, bad or indifferent. It was funny that Denise had contacted me because I heard the song “If” by Bread on the radio driving home the other day and it immediately reminded me of my long drives to Fairborn.

When the boys and I went through all of our old pictures during our clean-up phase of a month ago, we would often share a picture with one another and it was often accompanied with a “Remember when….” We all love to look at old pictures, often commenting on how young we looked at the time. Actually, we didn’t look young, we looked the way we should have, we just look old now.

After we found out that my dad had cancer in 1989, I borrowed Tim Loar’s video camera to record my dad’s thoughts about his life. (Tim and I go way back. At one time I interviewed him and turned him down for a job. Twenty years later he became my boss. God has a way of evening things up.) I now have seven hours of my dad reliving his life. When watching, you can see the ever present smile on his face as he relives not only the good times, but also the hard times.

I still utilize some of the sayings that my dad used that have long been forgotten by most. “Deader than a doornail” when referring to some road kill, “Hotter than a June bride in a feather bed” when talking about how hot it was outside, “Devil hates a coward” when we would be playing cards and he would make some wild move and my all time favorite when he wanted me to go play outside “go outside and get the stink blowed off you.” Not always the proper English, but they always got the point across. I have tried to pass these down to the boys to keep them alive after I’m gone, but they just haven’t grasped the concept.

Even though I have loved every stage of Justin and Jason’s lives, when Justin was five and Jason three has to be my favoritetime. They believed everything that I told them. I was still a god to them. I knew so many things that they didn’t, they probably thought I had an encyclopedia in my head. Now I’m just the guy with the wallet that 20’s fall out of. The guy that pulls the money off the money tree.

Since I have gotten sick, you don’t even want to know how many times I have longed for the first 56 years of my life when I was healthy. Certainly, some times are more desired, but just the fact that I couldn’t see the sands falling in the hourglass of life made living easier. But in many ways, I think that logic is a mistake. I think we all glamorize the past and miss out on how good the present is.

High school was fun, but I tend to forget all of the dances that I went to as a freshman and blended into the paint on the walls because I was sacred silly about the thought of asking a girl to dance. I fondly look back on college, but I tend to forget about the gargantuan set of nerves and the resulting trips to the bathroom that I had to face before every big test. Playing with the boys when they were young was a blast, but I tend to forget about the sleepless nights when they were sick or afraid of the thunder.

We all face difficulties in our lives and the most recent always seems like the worst, but in fact, they are not. Our lives are filled with ups and downs that we tend to minimize as the number of years increase. We all need to learn to enjoy the moment in which we live. In many ways, it can be the best time of our lives.

February 19, 2010 Delaying the Inevitable

In the last 10 months, the Mayo Clinic has become my second home. Not only did I spend two weeks vacationing there, but I have made in the vicinity of 50 other trips to visit to the Mecca of health care. I remember hearing about the Mayo Clinic decades ago and knowing that it truly was the place to go if you needed medical care. It is where people go when there seems to be no hope form anywhere else. Little did I know that I would eventually become one of their patients.

Last year there were roughly 20,000 people that were diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Of those 20,000, zero have been cured. That is a problem for all of us. The good thing is that there are advancements made every day in the fight against this disease. There was a recent release by the Mayo in Rochester, MN that talked about mapping out the genome of the disease.

http://discoverysedge.mayo.edu/multiple-myeloma-genomics/

It took a week on a super computer to actually get it mapped out so I doubt that I’m going to get a shot at it anytime soon. However they did study a woman that has had the disease disappear and reappear several times since her battle started. What they found was that the disease morphed each time it came back. Not too surprising in that viruses are famous for their ability to adapt to our defenses and come back strong.

The hope is that the more they know about the disease, the better they can fight it. The real truth is that it doesn’t have to morph to be different. I am a perfect example of how everybody’s disease is a little different. Matt Hare, who I wrote about a short time ago, just completed his transplant. He is going through the post transplant Hell that is inevitable no matter how much you believe it won’t.

During his chemotherapy treatment that he had before the transplant, he reached full remission with no MM found in his bone marrow. We both took the same chemo and took it for the same number of treatments. My particular brand of the disease proved to be a little more resilient and I only reduced me level to about 1/5 of what it once was. Then in the month before the transplant, it rebounded to three times that level. I obviously had a determined little bug in me.

The transplant is the equivalent of bringing in Batman and Superman to fight the bad guy. That is as good as it gets. It is the best shot at wiping out the disease in your system. Obviously, my bug brought along a bit of kryptonite because even the transplant didn’t wipe it out. Significantly reduced, but still hanging around.

However, the transplant did knock it for a loop as it hasn’t yet been able to rebound to previous levels. I have been able to remain in very good partial remission since the transplant. Not the ideal situation to be in, but certainly better than the alternative. Because of the roller coaster trip that my blood counts have taken, I have to return to the Mayo every month for another blood draw and visit with the doctor.

One of the scariest times that a cancer survivor has to face is that yearly check-up that confirms that the disease has been put to sleep, so to speak. I get to do that every month. Even though I feel great, I always have the fear that the MM has gained the upper hand. It is not a pleasant feeling. Today was the latest visit to the doctor to find out if my body is doing its job and keeping the disease at bay.

Luckily things have continued to improve. Since my high post transplant light chain mark of 9.45 in December, each test has shown a decrease with it now resting comfortably at 6.72. The lowest it has been is 5.98. I met with Angela Mayo (no relation) today, Dr. Mikhael’s physician’s assistant, and she gave me that latest good news. I now get to take a month off from the testing since it seems to have leveled off and I will go back in April. You have no idea how good that sounded.

She dropped another bomb on me when she told me that they have a patient that has had the disease for 16 years. Sixteen years!!! When I first got the disease, I wondered if I could do a deal to be assured ten years, would I take it. Not any more. If somebody else can do 16 years, so can I.

February 16, 2010 Making Mistakes

There are many jobs that we take on during our lives. We typically think that the job that we go to five days a week that actually supports the family is our most important job. In many ways it is; in many ways it isn’t. In my life, I have only had three of those “real” jobs. After I graduated from college, I worked at Timken for three years followed by nearly 30 at Ross Labs/Abbott Labs. I have just completed my second year at Isagenix which I hope will be the last of the “real” jobs that I have.

I have made a fairly good living at those jobs and I have been lucky enough never to have been out of work one day. The day after I graduated from UC, I started at Timken and didn’t take any days off between each of the other two jobs. Not many people are that lucky in life.

I have had other jobs along the way, none of which paid me a dime. However, in many ways, those other jobs were far more important and rewarding to me than the ones that paid. For 20 years I was a consultant for Junior Achievement and worked with over 1,000 high school students to give them a better idea of what it was like in the business world and away from the safety of home. Even though Jason might disagree with my value added to the equation, I was either a head coach or assistant coach for his baseball teams for five years. Teaching has always been important to me and probably my most important job centers on that task.

As I have mentioned more than a few times during my illness, one of my main concerns was that I wouldn’t be able to finish my job as dad. I’m not sure that job is ever finished, but I think the older you get the less help that you need from your parents, but that need always exists. That’s the rub, the child doesn’t always agree with that assessment and if you would ask Jason, I have a good idea that he might have some very specific thoughts on the subject. If I were given a performance appraisal for my last week of parenting, I’m not so sure that I’d be able to keep my job.

Baseball has always been a big part of my life and the only organized sport that I ever played. As often happens, both Justin and Jason spent a great deal of their youth playing the sport that “dad” loves. Luckily, they have both been very good at it and have generally enjoyed the twists and turns of their brief careers in the sport. One of my biggest joys in life is watching the boys play baseball. I have always looked forward to the spring and the resumption of the games. That all came crashing down just a little over a week ago.

With the success that Jason had playing football last year, there was a question as to if he had a chance to get significant playing time next fall. Unlike when I was in high school, the multiple sport star is a dying breed. To keep up today, you have to work at your sport virtually year ‘round. With an interest in both sports, Jason had a decision to make. Should he continue to play both sports for the high school and risk being left behind in both because of his inability to train for both or drop one and concentrate on the other.

Despite a great deal of persuading to the contrary, Jason decided to give up baseball. I was devastated. To get him to reconsider, I acted like the 10 year old that wasn’t getting picked to play in the neighborhood game and basically told him that I was going to take my football home with me. I was not going to let him play baseball in the summer. I was going to take away his Xbox and generally make his life miserable. At the time it made a lot of sense to me. In retrospect, not so much.

As parents, we always think we have the answer. We don’t want our children to make mistakes. When we see that a perceived mistake is about ready to be made, we jump in to try to save our child the pain associated with that mistake. At the same time, you have to watch that you don’t overstep your bounds which is what I did with Jason. Every once in a while, it is the student that teaches the teacher. He had some solid logic behind his decision that I just didn’t see at the time. If anyone made a mistake, it was me. I hope he holds off on that performance appraisal for a while.

February 9, 2010 Justin

As most of you know, I am an only child. You probably think that once my parents got a glimpse of me, they decided not to have any more children. On the contrary, I was so exceptional that they wanted to have more. At least that is what they told me. Unable to have another, I did my best to work the only child thing as long as I could. My mother felt that I was perfect. Not so sure she understood the full picture, but it was always nice to know she thought I was pretty good. My dad usually didn’t agree with her assessment, but that is another story.

Although I enjoyed the fruits of being an only child, I also suffered the pain of being the last of the Churans. I wasn’t allowed to get a bicycle until I was in the eighth grade. Do you know how hard it was to learn at the age of 13? My curfew was always early and I was rarely allowed to leave the yard growing up.

As a result, I was certain that I would never be the father of an only child. I always wanted three. Not sure why, but it just seemed like a good number to me. It was never my plan to wait until I was 38 to become a parent for the first time, it just happened that way. Children were always part of the plan and I couldn’t wait until my first was born.

Unlike, my mother, who had to wait 17 ½ years to get pregnant, Julia was a quick learner. The very first month that we decided to start a family, she became pregnant. Boy, was this going to be easy.

I had read enough over the years to believe some of the propaganda that you should enrich your child’s time in the womb by playing music and talking to the fetus. Because we wanted a child that was mild mannered, I decided that Julia should be listening to New Age music whenever possible. We had become fans of David Arkenstone and decided that our child should also. We even played it at the birth.

Being somewhat old fashioned, we did not press to find out the sex of the child before the birth. We picked out names, Justin Andrew and Jessica Alise so that we would be ready for the blessed event. So as not to prejudice the result, we never called the baby anything but “Ralphie” after the star of the movie “Christmas Story” which had come out several years before but was a favorite of ours.

It seems that either Ralphie loved to dance to the David Arkenstone music we provided or he was just a maniac. He was behaving just the opposite inside Julia as our music intended. It was not unusual to see Julia’s belly bulge out from a stray foot or fist. It almost became comical. It seems as though Ralphie never slept, there was always something punching Julia.

The day before Justin was born was like any other. It was a Friday and Julia and I even drove over to the West side of town to eye a Christmas tree that we had been watching the price hoping that it would drop. The store was closed but we still admired it through the window. You would think in February, they would be paying us to take it off of their hands. We would eventually buy it and it still is the tree that we use for Santa to “drop off” as Justin would later say.

Later that night we fell asleep on the couch watching TV, needless to say, we were relaxed. Julia awakened around 11 PM and realized that it was time. She very casually took a shower, shaved her legs and made herself beautiful. I ran around in circles accomplishing very little. Thankfully she didn’t tell me that the contractions were progressing fairly quickly or I would have run into a guardrail on the way to the hospital.

The birth was pretty uneventful but I’ll be honest with you, I really wasn’t very prepared. All I thought about was how special it would feel when I held my child for the first time. I just knew it would be an instantaneous bonding. Yet despite that build-up, it just didn’t happen.

Justin came out looking like a boxer that had lost a hard fought 12 round match. His nose was bent to the side and when he cried, one side of his mouth dropped down about an inch more than the other. I immediately started looking at the warrantee to see if there was a chance to trade this one in on a new one. When we commented on the obvious defects, the doctor just laughed and said he would look normal by the fourth or fifth grade. What had we gotten ourselves into?

It didn’t get any easier after we got home. He was colicky and cried all the time. I would have to lay on the floor next to his crib just to get him to go to sleep at night. Sleeping through the night was unheard of. For three months, we looked like the “Dawn of the Dead.”

Thankfully, after three months he settled down but he maintained his main fault which was spitting up. You could not hold him for more than 10 minutes without him spitting up and soiling your clothes. When we put him on the floor, there had to be a sheet, or the carpet would be ruined. Despite this problem, he was quickly becoming a Suma-sized baby. He had more chins than I had debts. The kid could eat.

We always felt that he has half alien in that he always did things early. He could hold on to my thumbs and stand on his own at one month. He had teeth at about four months. He crawled for only a month because he walked 3 days after his seventh month. He could walk across the room on his own five days later. This kid had more bumps and scratches than you could count because he wanted to walk everywhere before he really knew how to control his body.

As he grew older, he had more energy than Lance Armstrong. He was running everywhere. He would do summersaults non-stop. After his brother was born he constantly did cartwheels just to get attention. There wasn’t anything tall enough that he didn’t think about jumping off.

Many years later, we found out that he liked to put metal objects into electrical outlets once we felt it was save to de-babyize the house. How he is still alive, I’ll never know.

Even though I did not feel that instant bond when I held Justin for the first time it certainly got there soon there after. I just don’t know what I would do without both of my boys. They have created more challenges in my life than I could ever imagine, but I wouldn’t change one part of the last 19 years.

Justin no longer does cartwheels every time I bring out the camcorder, but he still brings a special joy to my life that I cannot describe. In many ways we have become great friends without making it unparentlike. I still yell at him when he does something wrong and praise him when he does something right. We often see things with the same eyes, but there have been more than a few times we have been on the opposite ends of the spectrum. In many ways we are a lot alike. Despite that, I love him more than he will ever know.

February 8, 2010 Chris Daniels

The date was February 8, 1996. It was going to be a very special day for Justin and myself. Since the next day was going to be his fifth birthday, I had scheduled something a little special for him. Justin’s favorite player on the University of Dayton’s basketball team was Chris Daniels. He was a 6’ 10” skinny African American kid from Columbus. After he had announced that he would be attending UD, I started following his high school career, even attending some of his games.

I had been a season ticket holder at UD for 7 or 8 years, but my seats were still up in the rafters. Every year I would check the little box on my season ticket application that I would like to move up if any seats were available. In those eight years I had moved one whole row closer to the action. I filled out the form, as always, hoping for good news. When the tickets arrived, I had only received one ticket, not the normal two and in a slightly different location. There had been a mix-up in the ticket office and my tickets had been sent to someone else.

In calling the ticket office, I spoke to the manager, Gary McCans. He assured me that we would work something out and I would always have tickets. As he worked that out, I was fortunate enough to sit by some of the parents of the players. One of those games I sat next to a rather tall African American woman who was certainly into the game. I finally grasped the fact that she was a mom of one of the players and we started a casual conversation. I came to find out that she was Chris’ mom.

It was Chris’ freshman year and he didn’t play much, but Alice Daniels came to all of the games and we became good friends. That friendship lasted all the way through Chris’ senior year when he finally exploded. He has averaging in double figures leading the NCAA in shooting percentage. He was no longer the skinny kid that I had seen in high school and was getting some looks from the NBA.

For Justin’s special treat, I had arranged for Alice to go to Dayton with us (sparing her the 90 minute drive each way) and then the four of us would go get something to eat after the game. Justin was so excited, he could barely sleep the night before. You see, Chris and he had struck up quite a friendship.

We would always wait around after the games and get Chris’ autograph and he would get to talk with him for a while. It was a cute picture, the tall black kid with the little towhead. We even stopped at Chris’ house on campus when we would be in town.

Chris was a special kid. Despite his huge popularity on campus and the pending professional career, he was just a sweet kid. He never let the fame or notoriety get to him. He was the kid next door.

It was cold that morning and I wasn’t looking forward to making the drive into work. I was just about ready to leave the bedroom when the phone rang. It was before 7 in the morning, never a good time to receive a call. On the other end of the phone was my best friend from High School, Mike Meixner. The words that sprang from his mouth were incomprehensible. Chris Daniels had died.

They were words that I could not grasp. They were words that I refused to believe. My hands shook as I dialed the phone to talk to someone at The Dayton Daily News to confirm the report. To my great sorrow, it was true, Chris Daniels had died at the age of 22.

Even though we knew we could do nothing of substance, Julia and I felt that we needed to go to Alice. We got in the car and drove to her house still in complete disbelief. Aside from her daughter, we were the first ones there. We just held Alice and cried. There was nothing else we could do.

Chris was buried just three days later and I cried uncontrollably at the funeral. I had only cried at my parent’s funerals before, but I felt that in a way I had lost my own son. Chris was the kid we want ours to aspire to. He was smart, considerate and loving.

Chris’ brother, Antonio, was to play a game later that week for Bowling Green University and debated if he could actually go through with it. Antonio, who would go on to a fabulous career and was the number four pick in the NBA draft of 1997. Through his own faith in God and Chris, himself, he decided to play. Bowling Green would defeat the number 23 team in the country that night on Antonio’s twisting layup. Antonio knew that Chris was there.

I spoke to Alice today as I have for the last thirteen years on this date. We remain friends to this day and share a love for one another that is hard to describe. She is a remarkable lady that has gone through a great deal during her life yet still has a smile and a kind word for everyone. I could not have a better friend.

January 30, 2010 Fran

When we made the decision to move from Ohio to Arizona there were a number of issues that were considered. Some were easy, some were not. The opportunity to take a new and challenging job was at the forefront of the easy ones. I was miserable in my old job and I was starting to bring it home. Even the boys noticed a change in me. At the time, I thought that if I stayed, it might kill me in the end. Little did I know that cancer might have already been in me when I left.

On the other side of the argument to leave was what we would be leaving behind. Justin would be giving up his senior year in high school. This is the part that I will second guess for the rest of my life. We moved to Powell with the intension of staying there until the boys graduated from high school. Because of my need for change, I asked a lot of Justin. I hope he understands how much I appreciate what he did.

For Jason the move was easy. Yes, he was moving away from all of his friends, but he looked at it as an adventure. He couldn’t wait to get out to Arizona. It meant great weather and more baseball. He came out earlier than Julia and Justin just so he could be networked by the time summer came.

As tough as the move was for Justin, it was even tougher for Julia despite the fact she has never said a word. Julia has always been very close to her family and I know the move was hard on her. I guess that is what love and marriage is all about.

The reason that I am bringing this up is that Julia has gone back to Ohio to spend some time with her family and in particular with her mother, Fran. Fran and I have shared the burden of cancer for almost the exact same time period as she found out just days after I did. We have always been close, but I think this has drawn us even closer.

Fran and I have always referred to ourselves as the “outlaws.” It seemed like it was us verses the rest of the family, not in a bad way, but in the way that we were put together. The Millers are a great group, but they all seem to have the same tendencies. Julia, her dad, her brother and grandparents share a number of the same qualities.

They are all very methodical about how they run their lives. They study everything before they make a decision. Fran and I tend to move without thinking sometimes. The rest of the Millers tend to take their time and enjoy smelling the roses. Fran and I take a quick look and then move on to the next flower. We are more worried about getting there on time than what happens when we get there.

I’ll never forget the first time that I visited Rockford. Julia and I had only been dating for a short time, but she felt it was time to show me off. There was inherent danger in this because I did not fit the Miller mold. I was divorced, old, Catholic and worst of all, Republican. Yet despite all of this, Fran made the house look like the President was coming.

That was just the start of it. I would come back from every visit weighing five pounds more than when I got there. The food was always great and there was plenty of it. I have always kidded Fran about being my favorite Mother-in-law, but the cooking clinched that title long before Julia and I were married. My ex-Mother-in-law wasn’t a bad cook, but I would always have to eat rhubarb pie every time I visited. Ugh.

Christmas always took Fran and I to a new level of togetherness. The only real present that I cared about was the one Fran would give me and the present that I took the most time getting was the one I gave her.

It all started pretty innocently when I was presented a huge lump of coal. Not to be outdone, I spent the next 364 days plotting how to get her back. I had some good ones over the years including a book on Monica Lewinsky(Bill Clinton was always her favorite.) Despite all of that, she always seemed to outdo me. My favorite was the used toupee. She always enjoyed the hair thing as I also received a few chia pets over the years.

Fran and I have always had each other’s back when it came to disagreements within the family. It was the Millers against the outlaws. We now have taken on cancer together. We talk more than ever before and prop each other up when we need it the most. We have even used the same chemotherapy. We have made a pact that we are not going to give up on living. I’m just glad I have a fellow “outlaw” to keep me going when the time get rough.

Make sure you keep Fran in your thoughts and prayers as we both try to do the impossible.

January 23, 2010 The Beast

It was sometime in the early 1960’s when my dad took Paul Decker and me to Coney Island in Cincinnati. It was the first time that I had ever been to an amusement park and it was still the day of buying tickets for each ride. It was that day that I rode my first roller coaster. It was love at first scream.

Coney had been around since the 1880’s and was on it’s last legs. In 1972, the company that owned Coney moved the rides away from the banks of the Ohio River to a community north east of Cincinnati called Mason. In the blink of an eye, the amusement park went from being old and crumbling to new and exciting. At one point, the company held 1,600 acres of land. Kings Island was now an adventure with many new rides on the way.

In 1979, the Beast was added. It was long, fast and scary. Roller coasters were still made out of wood at the time and 30 years later it is still the best way to make a coaster. When you get off of the Breast, your body hurts, but it is a good hurt. Since that time, I have ridden nearly 100 different coasters and the Beast is still my favorite.

The reason that I even bring this up is that I was reminded by my latest trip to the doctor that our lives can easily be compared to a roller coaster. It doesn’t matter what we do with our lives, it will be a series of ups and downs. The thing you have to learn is to not get caught up too much in either of those swings.

I’ll never forget the excitement of getting married in 1975, but I’ll also never forget the fact that my wife (ex-wife, not current) didn’t bother to come home the night of our second anniversary. The thrill of holding Jason for the first time was one of the highlights of my life, but having to rush him to Children’s Hospital 13 months later with a 105 degree temperature reminded me just how precious life is.

Shortly before I graduated from college, I was still looking for a job. I was lucky enough to get an interview with Timken, a roller bearing company located in Columbus. Getting a job was extremely hard in 1975 and just getting the interview was exciting. That same day, my mother had a good section of her lung removed in hopes of stopping her cancer. A cancer that took her life four months later.

I was offered a job that day which changed my life forever. If I hadn’t been hired by Timken, I might have ended up managing a McDonalds. When I received the official offer letter, I about fell over. It was 30% more than I had anticipated. Indeed my life had changed, I was overjoyed. What I didn’t know was that the three years that I worked in that filthy, fume infested plant might eventually be the cause of my multiple myeloma.

No one knows unequivocally what causes multiple myeloma, but the belief is that environment has a great deal to do with its beginning and it may be 20 to 30 years before it manifests. Due to the fact that I never really had any exposure to any other harmful agents leads me to believe that my cancer might have been started 35 years ago just out of college.

It was a year ago today that my latest adventure started. It has been a year of ups and downs. A year of self discovery. That learning has not stopped as I found out two days ago when I visited Dr. Mikhael for my latest check-up.

If you remember, I was only going to have my blood tested every other month to see how the cancer was progressing. I was to go in November and then again in January. My cancer number increased in November but that was not totally unexpected as the results likely will have peaks and valleys since I did not have a full remission.

Because my creatinine number was up significantly in November, I was scheduled for another blood test in December. The kidneys had corrected themselves and creatinine was back down, but the cancer number was again up and up much faster than expected. I was nearly to the point of needing more chemotherapy. Dr. Mikhael even mentioned getting another bone marrow biopsy (not exactly high on my list of things to do.)

I was crestfallen. The fact that my cancer was advancing quickly was devastating to me. The transplant had failed. The up that I had felt just three months before was gone, replaced with a terrible feeling of doom. I had forgotten that life is filled with ups and downs and I shouldn’t get too attached to either.

After two weeks off from work, I insisted on another test and received some encouraging results as the cancer number had fallen slightly. Even though it was a small change, it was a positive one. Any good news when you have cancer is great news. The next test scheduled for January 18th was going to be huge. Good results and I breathe easy for a while. Bad results and it is chemo time.

When Dr. Mikhael told me that my number had dropped down to the low 7’s from the 9’s the weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders. My body was again beating the disease. I was winning. Another time for joy. Oddly, if my kidneys had not acted up in November, I would not have had the December test and would not have worried needlessly. Funny how the ups and downs of a roller coaster can jerk you around.

What I have taken from all of this is to become less worried about the numbers each month and worry about just living. Too often we all get tied to the latest event in our life and not looking toward the future. We are too worried about the work associated with moving up the roller coaster and not thinking enough about the thrill of the dive. Enjoy your roller coaster life. Don’t spend too much time dwelling with the pitfalls and enjoy the thrill of the ride.

January 18, 2010 Avatar

One of the things that I have experienced over the last year is an increased ability to cry. Obviously, this isn’t something that I going to brag about the next time I go out with the boys, but it is certainly real. As I have gotten older, I have become more emotional, but I have now reached new heights in tear flow.

Now, don’t misunderstand, I’m not sitting alone on the couch in total darkness sobbing to myself. It actually isn’t even directly related to the fact that I have cancer. It is all about TV and movies. I can’t go to a movie anymore and not find something to get teary-eyed about.

I notice that “Up” won a Golden Globe award on Sunday as the best animated movie of the year. I could have saved them all the time of counting the votes. I could have used my “tear index” to tell them the winner. I’m watching an animated movie about an old man, a kid and some animals and I am breaking down in the theater. I am now crying because a cartoon character died in the lead character’s past. Yes, a cartoon character.

This leads me to a discussion about “Avatar.” If you are not a moviegoer or have lived in a cave for the last six months, Avatar is the latest from James Cameron that has already grossed over one billion dollars worldwide. I had been eagerly awaiting it’s arrival at the box office, but through a series of circumstances took almost a month before actually viewing the blockbuster.

It became a joke in our household as I insisted on viewing the film on an IMAX screen in 3D. Just a regular viewing was not going to be enough for me. I told Julia that it was going to be a “once in a lifetime experience.” I was mocked for over a week after making that claim, but nothing was going to stop me from enjoying the movie to the max.

I have been a science fiction fan since my early teenage years. I remember watching “ 2001: A Space Odyssey” and just being mesmerized. I have followed in my father’s footsteps and had been reading scifi books for several years when “2001” hit the movie screen. My dad only read the sports page in the Dayton Daily News and science fiction books. I still have hundreds of those books stored in my basement.

As a result, it was in my blood. The fact that “Avatar” was a science fiction that was being directed by Cameron, had me at the edge of my seat for months waiting for it to arrive. You think kids look forward to Christmas, you should see me waiting for a James Cameron science fiction movie.

The day finally hit and I insisted on getting to the theater nearly an hour in advance. The last thing I wanted was to be in row 1 looking up at a six story screen. Again my actions were ridiculed, but I pushed forward. Finally, the movie started and 60 seconds into it I had a panic attack. Because of the 3-D and the movement of the camera I immediately started getting sick. My world was coming to an end.

You see, about 10 years ago, something happened to me that caused me to get a headache and upset stomach when I watch home videos that I have made of the boys if there is any significant movement on the video. No problem making the video, just watching. I was now panicking that my once in a lifetime experience would turn into a pool of vomit at my feet.

Luckily the action settled down and the once in a lifetime experience turned into even more. For the next two hours and forty minutes I became a part of the movie. The move is so vivid, so amazing that you cannot help but be drawn in. It makes you become alien and root against the humans. I’m not going to spoil the movie by telling you any more, but take it from me and even my skeptic, non-science fiction loving wife, the movie is unbelievable.

For much of the 160 minutes, I sat there, an emotional mess, crying one minute and rejoicing the next. I cannot even describe what I felt, it was so profound. I know that sounds utterly ridiculous, but I was so drawn into the action that I felt like I was part of it and it was my family, my race, my religion I was viewing.

After we exited the movie, I was amazed at how I felt. I now know what heaven will look like, save the wild man eating beasts of the planet, Pandora. The cinematography was so unbelievable that it had to be heaven. The wonders of the planet were so lifelike that you could imagine what they smelled and felt like. I have never seen anything like it in over 50 years of movie going.

I realize that I am a geek and most of the rest of you are not, but I cannot suggest any more strongly to see this movie. It is as much a love story as an action movie. Just go to be part a “once in a lifetime experience.” You will not be disappointed.

January 16, 2010 Getting Old

It is amazing what happens to us as we age. Our body decides to operate differently than it did before. Often the change is so slight that we don’t even notice. It reminds me of the first time that I put on a pair of glasses.

My vision was getting worse and worse when I was 11 but I was the last to know. I was able to play baseball but the number of times I struck out was alarming. However, being 11, I just thought I stunk. Yet, the incident that drove it home was during the spring after I turned 12, I was playing in the garage because it was raining outside.

Being an only child, I had to find ways of keeping myself busy and often played games I created that had something to do with a sport. When it was nice outside I would throw a Superball (now called bouncy balls) against the side of the house by the driveway and play a modified game of baseball dictated by how quickly I would field the ball, throw it back against the wall and field it with my foot on an imaginary bag. If I would do it under the count of 10, the guy was out. If it got by me, every count of ten was another base. Twenty for a double, thirty for a triple and so on. We had weeds on the other side of the driveway, so if it got by me, who knows how high I could count.

Since it was raining, I had to make modifications and do it inside. Only problem was that I used a golf ball and the wall that I threw it against was a finished, plastered painted wall. When my dad got home, the sound I heard would have rivaled the atomic blast at Hiroshima. Apparently, every time I threw the ball against the wall it made a dent. Because of my poor vision, I did not notice the hundreds of dents in the wall. The wall now looked more like a golf ball than a wall. This was the first proof that I was slowly losing my ability to see.

After my dad cooled down, it was decided that I needed to see an eye doctor. It seems my right eye wasn’t too bad, but my left I was terrible. After I got my glasses, I remember looking out of my bedroom window and actually seeing individual blades of grass. I was amazed. Little did I know that what was happening to my eyes would eventually happen to the rest of my body. Only problem is that there is no quick fix like glasses.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t have some new ache or pain. When I run up the stairs, I look around for an oxygen tank. When I try to wrestle with one of my kids, I feel like the 98 pound weaklink that has sand kicked in his face. What really struck me, though, was when Matt Hare updated his blog and discussed how many stem cells they were able to gather for his transplant. I was as proud as a new papa when I found out that I had gathered over four million the first day. The total goal was nine, so I felt good about having only two days hooked up to the machine. Most take three or four days, so I felt like I had kicked some serious butt.

Matt had mentioned in his blog that he hoped to get his nine million in one day. I sent him a note trying to ease him down so that he would not be disappointed when he didn’t reach his goal. How in the world could he get nine in one day when I only had four? Poor misguided kid.

Then I read his blog. Fifteen million. Yes, he collected fifteen million in one sitting. Heck, he could have taken a break and had a White Castle or two and gotten his nine million. My God, youth is a wonderful thing.

This brings me to the reason that I am talking about age. It seems that I was born on this day, 57 years ago. I have often wondered why we celebrate our own birthdays. Shouldn’t this be a day that the mother is celebrated? She is the one that went through all of the work. Back in the 1900’s when I was born, there was no epidural for the mom. It was head on pain and my mother went through 18 hours of it.

I’m afraid that I lost her 35 years ago, but I still appreciate what she did for me and what she put up with for the 22 years we had together. Thanks, Mother. (She never let me call her Mom. It made her feel old. Her mother was referred to as “Mom”, even by her grandchildren.)

Make sure you thank your mom on your next birthday. Just remember, she is the reason that you will get some birthday cake on your day.

Since this is supposed to be a blog about my health, I suppose I should stop pontificating and get to that part of my life. If you remember, I had another blood test after my two weeks of vacation. Apparently, I deserve my Dr. Kildare lab coat as my theory is at least partially right in that my cancer count dropped slightly (9.45 to 9.01). Certainly not statistically significant (just trying to use words I learned in college), but at least movement in the right direction. I take both a blood test and a 24 urine test on January 18. This will be very important as it will help decide if I need to go on some type of maintenance drug or chemotherapy. I’ll have results on January 21. See you then.

January 6, 2010 Friends

There is an old adage that talks about throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks. If it does stick, you know it’s completely cooked. That phrase later became part of the business vernacular as spaghetti became ideas and the purpose was to come up with as many ideas as possible and see which ones worked.

I never really thought about it until the other day, but that is the way we are with friends. You meet thousands of people over a lifetime but few stick around as friends. In the last week, I have met at least 10 new people. I doubt that any will become lifelong friends. You never know, but the likelihood is slim.

Sometimes it just takes a while for the friendship to blossom. You may meet someone, have fairly minimal contact and then go your separate ways only to get reconnected in the future. Over the last six months I have had one of those reconnections change my life.

With all of the teams the boys have played on over the years, they each have had fifty or more coaches. Because of the amount of time you spend with those teams, there is a decent likelihood that a friendship will occur. One of my best friends in the world is Chuck Gould, who coached Jason and Justin for three years . Another of those friends is Chris Valentine, who oddly enough, became a friend as a rival coach before he actually coached Jason.

A couple of summers ago, Chris put together a team of top players from the Columbus area to play in some post season tournaments. The boys did pretty well and we all had a lot of fun travelling around the state. One of Chris’ long time friends, Matt Hare, helped coach the team. I really didn’t get to talk to Matt much, but he seemed like a good kid.

Oddly, the thing that made Matt stand out to us as a family was something Julia’s grandmother, Marge, said while we were at one of the tournaments. To fully understand why this particular comment stood out, you have to understand Julia’s grandmother.

Marge is now 93 years old and has been married to Lester Miller for 70+ years. She is as nice as they come, but she is generally a very quiet and conservative person. It was just before the start of one of the tournament games that she attended, Matt happened to walk by and Marge commented on how nice his legs looked in the shorts he was wearing.

To most, this might not mean much, but knowing Marge as we do, the entire family just about fell out of their chairs with just the thought that Marge would even be looking at a 22 year old’s legs, let alone commenting on how nice they looked. Because of that comment, Matt would never be forgotten in the Churan household.

After the tournaments ended we all went our separate ways and other than retelling the story, Matt drifted from our lives. That was until Chris noted on his Facebook account that Matt was ill this past summer.

Matt was tired and losing a good deal of weight and the doctors could not discover what was wrong with him. However, as Chris described some of the symptoms to us, it started to sound eerily familiar. After weeks in the hospital, it was confirmed, Matt had Multiple Myeloma.

This seemed impossible. Matt was 25 years old. It was unlikely that I, a 56 year old, would even get the disease. This is a disease of old people, certainly not 20-somethings. To add to his problems, Matt also had an accompanying disease, amyloidosis, also a disease that does not normally attack young people. Multiple Myeloma causes plasma cells to malfunction and they lose the ability to respond to controlling signals from immune cells. As a result, abnormal proteins are created that damage bone, bone marrow and other organs. Amyloidosis is a disease in which an abnormal protein (amyloid) builds up in organs and tissues, impairing their function. Both of these disease are treatable, but not curable.

Needless to say, Matt was dealt a hand that just should not have happened. He was too young and too healthy. As one might expect, this was a crushing blow to a young man with his entire life still ahead of him. He was in the hospital for seven weeks as they struggled to discover the cause and begin treatment. An infection from his port caused a trip to the ICU and a great deal of concern for friends and family.

Like myself, Matt has had his battle with doubts about recovery, but through it all, he has remained upbeat with the knowledge that God is on his side. He has shown remarkable progress and has wonderful results from his treatment with Velcade. His Multiple Myeloma is in remission even before his stem cell transplant. The strength that he has shown through this whole thing is amazing. I want to be Matt when I grow up.

The amyloidosis has not shown as good of a response but there is good news as his organs do not show significant damage. I know I have left out a million details so when you have a chance, visit Matt at his blog, please take a read. You will be amazed at the strength of this young man.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/matthewhare/journal

Matt will go into the hospital on January 18 and receive his massive chemotherapy that starts the transplant sequence that same day. He will follow a schedule much like mine and start to feel the effects a few days later. Hopefully, his youth will speed his recovery. Please keep him in your prayers.

Until both of us ended up on the wrong end of an IV, Matt and I lived our somewhat care free lives independent of one another. Because of Multiple Myeloma, we have struck up a friendship that will last for the rest of our lives (hopefully, long lives.) There are many things that draw people together as friends. Sometimes those things are good, sometimes they are bad. For whatever reason, God decided that we needed each other years before the actual discovery of cancer. My, He does work in strange ways.

January 4, 2010 A Week in the Basement

In the movie, “Up in the Air”, George Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham instructs attendees at a seminar that they must rid themselves of their attachments in life. In it he states, “How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now….The slower we move the faster we die.”

In it, he also states that we shouldn’t keep photographs as they are for people with bad memories. To Bingham, you need to live your life without attachments, without things. He lives a solitary life that in the end, he finds disturbing. I cannot say I live that life. In fact, this last week really drove that home.

When we returned home from the cruise, I took it upon myself to attack the one major storage area in our house, one of our spare bedrooms. Unlike the Midwest, where everyone has a basement that houses all of the junk they have accumulated in their life, Arizona does not afford you that option. Every house that we have purchased afforded us a bigger basement and as a result more stuff. Although much was jettisoned during the move, much remains. That one bedroom had gotten so cluttered that we could barely open the door.

As a result, I decided to take the next several days to try to sort some things out. With some help from the rest of the family, that spare bedroom now can be entered without taking your life into your own hands. Yet, through that process, I went through 60 boxes of stuff. Some were easy and thus fast to replace. Others were not. They tended to be the ones with the most memories. The memories that Bingham looks at rather lightly.

I found everything under the sun. I found the little white hat with the small brim that I must have worn when I was two. It had “Johnnie” embroidered on the front and enough aging stains to make it look more brown than white. I found an old rattle from my childhood and pictures of my parents and grandparents from their wedding days. I found things that only hold special memories for me that when I’m gone will mean nothing to those left behind.

When the boys actually became involved, they went through their lifelong ritual of either playing with toys from their youth or trying on clothes ten years too small. They found things that they had either thought long lost or completely forgotten about. It was an opportunity to relive some of their youth. Yea, I know they are still young, but for some reason we all want to believe we are kids again.

After all of this reminiscing, Justin suggested that we watch old videos. Those that know me well, know that I have been a nut about taping the boys from day one. I probably have five hours of Justin eating baby food although that probably isn’t hard to believe if you look at him today. Julia gets to get in a shot every once in a while but that is usually to clean up a mess that the boys have created. If it wasn’t for my comments while doing the taping, you might not know that I even existed. Putting it simply, this taping is about the boys, an opportunity for them to relive their youth later in life.

What I have found, however, is that they like to watch them now, even while they are still young. It seems like we all want to go back and enjoy the good times of our lives no matter how young, old, rich or poor. Our lives are filled with a mish mosh of good and bad, joy and pain. We are drawn to the good times and want to relive them as we slosh through the times that may not be so joyful. Unlike Bingham, I’m glad I have brought along the weight of my past. It has made me what I am today.

We ended up watching about three hours of home videos last night including four of Jason’s birthdays, only one of which found him crying because he didn’t like the cake. I know that particular bit of information seems odd, but for some reason Jason found several cakes lacking over the years. Even though we have watched these videos numerous times, we laughed till we cried more than a few times

As an update to my ongoing battle, I had blood drawn at the Mayo this morning as I have once again put on my Dr. Kildare lab coat. In looking at my results over the past several months, it is obvious that the cancer began its comeback when I returned to work full time. After having two weeks off from work, I thought it might be a good idea to see how the cancer behaved while I just relaxed. Not sure what I am going to do if there is an improvement, but stay tuned.

December 31, 2009 Cruising

The year 2009 has been an interesting one to say the least. It has been one that has made me rethink a number of things, but one of things that hasn’t changed is my excitement concerning vacations.

Since I moved to Arizona in February 2008, the family has not been able to take what I would call a real vacation. We certainly have traveled including two baseball tournaments in California and several trips back home including one together, but we never had the opportunity to travel to a vacation destination.

Before he graduated from high school, we asked Justin what he would like as a graduation present and he said that he would like to go on a cruise. We had gone on three cruises as a family and it had become a family favorite vacation. Certainly Orlando has been our number one vacation spot over the years, but cruising had always been something special.

Our first cruise was as much of an accident as anything. Shortly after 9/11 no one wanted to fly and as a result, the vacation industry was having a hard time. We had already made plans to travel to Fort Lauderdale and had our plane tickets and accommodations already lined up when the attack occurred and we felt confident that it was safe again to fly.

Just a couple weeks before we were to leave, Julia received one of those gazillion emails that we seem to get regularly now that talked about unbelievable cruise prices. It described a five day cruise that was leaving from Fort Lauderdale that practically paid you to be a part of. Julia and I talked about it and bit. We didn’t tell the boys and thought we would surprise them.

After we landed, we told the boys that the resort where we would be staying required a water taxi so we had to go to the pier. They were just 10 and eight at the time so they still operated under the belief that what ever we said was gospel. For some reason, that is no longer the case, but that is a whole ’nuther story.

While at the port, we found our cruise ship and asked the boys if they would like to see what one was like. They responded with a yes, so the ruse was on. We went through the normal check in procedure telling the boys this was necessary just to see the ship. We then went to our rooms and asked them if they thought this was cool. Just looking at their eyes told us their answer. We then asked if they would like to stay and it was a resounding yes.

After the first evening of having to eat at the fine dining room with mom and dad, we told them about room service and we never ate dinner with them again. Eating steak and french fries every night in your room while watching cartoons easily topped eating with mom and dad. Thus started the family’s love of cruising.

We were ready to schedule a cruse this last June just after Justin’s graduation when my bombshell hit. In the end, I got to cruise the Mayo Clinic receiving my stem cell transplant instead of cruising the Mexican Riviera. Everyone was understanding, but Julia and I still felt the need to reward Justin with a cruise at some point. Christmas week became the best week to travel because of the various school and sports calendars what we had to mesh.

It was different not being either at home or with family at Christmas, but we made it work. We all ended up having a great time and we all made some great new friends, one of which I saw don his wife’s bra, his daughter’s earrings and Julia’s lipstick and high heels just to win a point in a late night scavenger hunt that we played in one of the ship’s lounges. To answer the obvious question, no, he had not been drinking heavily.

One of the nice things about a cruise is that it truly takes you away from the real world. No emails, texts or telephone calls to distract you from pure relaxation. I have fallen into the trap of never leaving my laptop at home when on vacation. I use the excuse that I will have too many emails to work through when I get back to work. I would receive 100 emails a day in my old job and would waste a day and a half getting caught up when I got back. As a result, even I bought into the theory.

As most of you know, I am resoundingly cheap and there is no way that I am going to spend a million dollars connecting into the internet while on the boat. So, the cruise becomes a safe haven from the outside world. One that I really needed this time.

If you remember, after my 100 day check-up, I walked away with the belief that I no longer had cancer, even though I knew it was still in my bloodstream. It was gone from my consciousness. But after my last two blood tests showing increase activity, that feeling of freedom was gone. The feeling of normalcy was gone.

Yet, somehow, getting on board allowed me to put all of that side and just enjoy life. There is something about the vastness of the ocean and its many creatures that always slaps me in the face with the reality that there must be a God. There is just no way that all of this happened by coincidence.

One of my last discussions with Terry before he died was about the existence of God. He was a non believer and I did my best to give the other viewpoint, but as he lay on his death bed, he was convinced that when he took is last breath, it would be the end. It was hard for me to swallow, but I wasn’t about to have my last hours with him involve a bitter argument around something I could not prove.

One of my biggest aids in this cancer struggle is my belief that there is more to life that what we see. To know that I might be getting closer to the end than I would like to think is hard enough, but I can’t imagine what it would be like without the knowledge that there is more than what we can touch and there is a greater force that might give me a hand to get through this.

It’s funny, you get on a cruise to be able to eat 27 meals a day, but you can end up with so much more. I suggest giving it a try and maybe you might walk away with a little more than an additional five pounds.

Have a safe and happy New Year, everyone!

December 17, 2009 State Champs!

Last Saturday I attended my first state championship game in just under 40 years. It was 1970 and I was a junior at an all boys Catholic high school. There were only two divisions for all sports at the time and they didn’t even have a football playoff. We were a big school at the time with about 1,200 students which would be the equivalent of a 2,400 co-ed school. Sports were special at Chaminade. We would pack the stands in football at whatever stadium we played since we didn’t have a home field and the gym was wall to wall people where ever we played basketball.

Going to a game was a religious experience. Unlike today in that the weekly football game is no more than a social gathering, we actually paid attention to what was happening on the field or court. When we cheered it had a definite lower, more bass like tone due to the heavy male component of the crowd. Certainly girls attended from our sister schools, but they were in the minority. Maybe that was why it wasn’t a social event.

Chaminade had won the state in basketball in 1966 and was to duplicate the feat that year. We played several games during the season at UD Arena as crowds of 7,000 or 8,000 would make their way to a game. We played Roth high school also from Dayton twice that year and both were epic battles. They proved to be the only competition that we experienced as the final two games of the tournament were 20+ point wins. When we beat Roth to win the district, we knew the rest would be easy.

The reason that I bring all of this up is that when I went to see Jason’s football team win the state 35-0 last Saturday, there wasn’t nearly the euphoria demonstrated by the students that we had felt. Winning state championships at Hamilton is a normal occurrence. It brings to mind the day that we visited the high school when we were deciding which school the boys would attend. One of the administrators, while showing us around the school, mentioned that they had finished the season as runner-up in football which was a complete disappointment. Wow, I thought.

It seems that Hamilton has won five of the last seven state football championships and will finish either second or third nationally in the ESPN high school ranking. They have won three baseball championships in the same seven years. They have had the best golfer in the state the last three years, all different young men. It is truly a sports factory. Their academics aren’t being left behind, as they have been ranked the top high school in the state.

Since Jason moved out here, he has witnessed three championships, one in baseball and two in football, one while being part of the team. Yet, I don’t sense the same level of excitement that I felt. Julia and I ran into other students after the game Saturday and it was more business as usual than bravado. This begs the question, “Can too much success dull the enjoyment?”

This all brings me to my success with regard to my treatment. I am approaching every blood test as if it were a game in the 27-0 1970 season. The test that I took about a month ago was certainly no blowout victory. Although there was some positive information, there was also the scary. Because this disease does a job on your organs which is eventually how it wins, I am super sensitive to anything that leads me to believe one of these irreplaceable organs may be losing the battle.

When I was told that my creatinine had risen from 2.2 to 2.8, I became extremely apprehensive. Dr. Mikhail was very reassuring with his normal statement that I shouldn’t get too worried about one point in time but to be more focused on trends. Easy for him to say, I’m the one headed for dialysis. Don’t talk to me about a kidney transplant. The chance of a cancer patient getting an organ transplant is about as good as Roseanne Barr being asked to sing the National Anthem again.

Waiting the 3+ weeks for my next test seemed to take forever. I had contacted my nephrologist who put me on a blood pressure medicine as my blood pressure has gone through the roof since returning to work full time. I think I need hazardous duty pay. The thought was that the high blood pressure was causing the kidney to be less effective.
I took the test first thing on Monday morning and the waiting was driving me nuts. Luckily I have a connection or two and I was able to get the creatinine reading that afternoon. The fact that it came in at 2.2 was a huge relief. My major concern had shifted from the cancer to my kidney function. That little number was a major victory for me. It was like the state championship all over again.

The numbers on the cancer itself are a little less exciting. My light chains moved up again to 9.24. This is now higher than the two month post transplant amount. However, the amount of protein in my urine is almost down to normal at .109 grams with normal being as high as .102. Because my light chains are moving in the wrong direction, I will have to undergo another blood test and 24 hour urine sample next month. If the trend continues, it looks like I will have to start up some type of maintenance drug. Hopefully the last couple of tests are not indicative of the future. I might have to ask for a refund on my transplant.

One thing I have learned with multiple myeloma, you appreciate every victory. State Championships can come every day and you still reach a state of euphoria with each and every bit of good news. This is the one place where just staying the same is like reaching the peak of Mt. Everest. I just wonder when they are going to let me hold the Championship trophy.

November 30, 2009 Big Boy Haircut

It was an exciting day for me as I actually paid for a haircut. It had been since May, before I went into the hospital, that I had a professional lower my ears. Julia has been doing a good job of trimming but it was time for the plunge. I’m sure you will get a kick out of where I went. It is called “Floyd’s Barber Shop” and is reminiscent of where I would get my hair cut as a kid. Just four chairs and two barbers. These were real barbers, not twenty-something hairdressers with blue and pink hair. I even got a lecture as to why teenage girls breasts are getting bigger. Per Floyd, it is because of the hormones we are feeding chickens to get more white meat. Silly me, I thought it was silicone.

On the medical front, the last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Julia and I met with Dr. Mikhail on Tuesday and got a bit of a mixed bag of results. My cancer cell count is up slightly, from 5.98 to 7.24. I wasn’t too excited about that since I was expecting a cure. Still better than I had two months after the transplant, so nothing to get too concerned about at this point. If we start seeing a trend going in the wrong direction, it might be time to get that rosary out again.

The other not so pleasant news was that my creatinine was up significantly. It jumped from 2.2 to 2.8 which is as high as it has been since I started taking the original chemo. Again, not the end of the world, but something to watch. The other thing that jumped out was my blood pressure. It was in the 150/90 range which is probably causing my kidneys to act up.

I spoke to Dr. Hogan, my kidney guy, and he suggested that I check my blood pressure three times a day and report back to him tomorrow. Over the weekend the pressure was up and down, but it definitely spiked when I got to work today. Imagine that, work causing your blood pressure to climb. Not to worry, as Dr. Hogan is sure that he can give me something that can get it back in shape without any side effects. In the mean time, I am trying to get a little more exercise and hope to take off 10 pounds. In the past this has helped me out quite a bit.

On the positive side of my results, the full body scan came back very good. It was hard to say that I had any damage directly tied to the multiple myeloma. This means that my body is doing a good job of getting my bones back to normal. So much for my excuse that I can’t lift anything over 10 pounds. Only problem is that I have babied myself so much, I can hardly lift anything over 10 pounds.

The other good thing is that my blood looks very good. Some problems areas have been cleaned up and my hemoglobin is back to normal. That is the first time I have seen that in a long time. So all in all, it wasn’t a bad trip to the doctor, just not a good as I had hoped.

Since this last weekend was Thanksgiving, it really gave me the opportunity to think about where I am in life. I really think we as Americans take too many things for granted. We probably don’t appreciate all that we have. We live in a land of plenty when even the poor would be looked upon as prosperous in some countries.

I guess I am just lucky and feel that way to still be here. If it wasn’t for my family physician, my oncologist, my nephrologist and all of the wonderful people at the Mayo Clinic and hospital, I might not have had the opportunity to enjoy the turkey that Julia made on Thursday. I have found that I have some of the best friends/relatives in the world. My life may not be as I would have designed it right now, but I am so thankful for the life I lead and the friends that I have. Make sure you appreciate all that you have been given and don’t take anything for granted.

November 9, 2009 The “F” Word

One of the things that we have always stressed with the boys is a willingness to share. We have not always been successful with our approach, but at least we have always given it the old college try. This week, however, Jason somehow shared with his dear ole dad.

A week ago, Jason started feeling just a little under the weather. Then on Monday night he had the pleasure of food flying out of him in both directions at a velocity a great deal higher than he would have liked. We gave him Pepto Bismol and told him to get better. I’m not sure if Pepto ever works but it still gets used in our house like it was water from Lourdes. To his dismay, Jason only rented it.

Because he somehow managed to survive the JV football season and was called up to the varsity for the last regular season game, I felt it was imperative that he do everything that he could to make it to school so that he could dress for Friday night. Yea, I know he was throwing up, but this is football we are talking about. Hamilton is the number 16 team in the country and the opportunity to suit up and possibly get in a game would be a wonderful experience. The fact that I have a $30 bet with Justin that Jason will actually make it into a game before the end of the season had nothing to do with my motives.

To my (and Jason’s ) dismay, he had to come home on Tuesday and didn’t make it back to school until Thursday. Needless to say, he made it to the sideline on Friday but not dressed to play. One less game to win my $30.

As they say, God works in mysterious ways. I had not even had a sniffle since this whole cancer thing started. Chemo does wonders for the common cold, it seems. Well, I don’t think He liked the fact that I sent Jason to school just so he could play in a football game. That night I understood the wonders of sharing. Midway through the night, my stomach started to bother me a bit. By seven in the morning I was driving the porcelain bus. Later that day, I had to rush to the bathroom for the other reason.

If you add up the entire time I was out of bed on Wednesday it would not have reached 15 minutes unless you count bathroom time. By the next morning I felt good enough to go to work but by 3 PM, I was headed home not to return until Monday morning. I found that if I laid around all day, I would improve, but as soon as I did much, I would start to head back down hill. So for the most part, the weekend was a do nothing, watch TV marathon.

I hate to bring up the F word, or flu for those of you that have lived in a news free zone for the last year, but my guess is that I had some strain. Jason took one for the team when he went to see the doctor and had blood drawn to see if it was bacterial, but that came back negative. He didn’t make it through football practice today and the coach sent him home after he threw up on the sideline. Not sure what it is, but it sure has thrown us for a loop.

Hopefully, we will both be completely back to normal in the next day or two as I have my first overnight business trip since my transplant on Thursday and Jason has his best chance of getting in a game this Friday. Don’t forget, I still have that $30 hanging over my head.

A week from this Friday, I have my blood taken for my first post remission test. I also get to have my body x-rayed in every position known to man. The blood work will confirm if I am still in remission and the x-rays will determine how my bones are doing. Hopefully, both show some improvement. Tune in for results just before Thanksgiving.

October 11, 2009 A Rebel with a Cause

I was reminded the other day of a famous fable about the chicken and the pig. It seems the chicken approached the pig about opening a restaurant that specialized in breakfast. The chicken tried to sell the pig on the concept as a win-win in that between the two of them, they possessed everything needed for a great breakfast of ham and eggs.

The pig was not an easy sell in that he realized that there was a catch in that the venture would take different levels of participation. It seems that the chicken would only need to be involved while the pig was going to have to be committed.

Certainly this is a lesson to be learned in the way that we live our lives. So many of us are just involved while others are completely committed. This happens in how we handle our choice of employment, our relationships and how we interact with life itself. I’m afraid that I have played the part of the chicken instead of the pig in far too many things.

I am never going to be confused with a philanthropist, but I usually am not afraid to contribute to worthwhile causes. However, I have rarely completely committed myself to the cause. I’m embarrassed to admit that it took a slap in the face with the reality of a cancer diagnosis to change my participation from one of audience to one of actor.

Next Saturday (October 17), I am going to participate in the Light the Night walk sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help raise funds for not only those afflicted with blood cancers but also their families. We tend to forget that the pain of these diseases afflict not only the individual but also the friends and family.

I’m asking for your help in supporting this cause. Please help by either walking that evening and collecting donations or just helping with a donation of your own. I know that many of you that read about the comings and goings of my life are spread all over the country and will not be able to participate physically, but please know that your donation can help someone in need.

Please visit the Light the Night site and help others that you may never meet.

Light the Night

The little ordeal that I have experienced these past nine months has changed me in many ways. I hope that my words have also helped you change. Make sure that you become involved like the pig and not live your life on the sidelines with the chicken. Don’t wait for that slap in the face to make you take life by the horns.

September 22, 2009 The Big “R”

It is hard to believe but it was exactly eight months ago today that I went in for a simple physical. I had gone longer than I normally would because of the move to Arizona and not having a regular doctor. My life has been filled with ups and downs but today topped all of the ups that I have received during those eight months. It was today that would mark the beginning of my life as a cancer survivor.

Multiple Myeloma is a disease without a cure. I came to grips with that a long time ago. Yet, I never gave in to the belief that MM was ever going to beat me. Certainly I had my days of doubt, but I refused to succumb to the power of cancer. Deep down inside I knew that I would eventually win. I’m not exactly in the winner’s circle, but I am certainly within earshot.

Today I received the official word that I am in “very good partial remission.” Doesn’t sound like much does it? It sounds like the title of fifth runner-up in a beauty pageant. In reality, it isn’t all that bad. In looking at the raw numbers, my lambda free light chain that measures the amount of cancer in my bloodstream has dropped from a high of 65 down to 5.98 with normal being as high as 2.63. This is an improvement from last month when it was at 8.12. The amount of protein in my urine is down from a high of 1.000 gram in 24 hours to .142 with normal being less than .103. All of this puts me at a 90+% improvement which throws me in the “very good partial remission” group.

It is very difficult to put into words what this means to me. Certainly the ability to have Big Macs again last week was huge, but this makes that look like the 1962 Mets. I now have the weight of the world off my shoulders. I can go to sleep without that constant nagging of worry of ,“What is the cancer doing to me now?” I still have to carry a backpack of worries, just not the world.

This is not a cure, but then none of we MM survivors have a cure. We have to live day to day knowing that it will come back at some point. That doesn’t, however, keep us from enjoying that day and the next and the next because they are making wonderful strides with this disease and hopefully in my lifetime they will come up with a cure.

Dr. Mikhael will continue to monitor my progress and I will have another blood test in two months and a full body scan at that time. We will make decisions as we go as I am not on any maintenance drugs of any kind. If the disease starts to make a comeback, there are many options short of another transplant to keep it at bay. However, as Dr. Mikhael never forgets to remind me, the average length of time between transplants is 18-24 months. I will continue to scoff at that until my time comes.

I cannot begin to tell all of you how important all of your prayers and well wishes have been to me. If it wasn’t a comment here, it was something on Facebook, an email, a call or a card in the mail. I’m a firm believer in the power of the mind and the power of prayer. What all of you have done for me will not be forgotten and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

I am going to miss my updates on here and the interaction that it caused. Julia seems to think I should keep writing, but I’m afraid my normal life is far too boring to keep people awake. This outlet has given me the opportunity to say things I would normally not say and I appreciated that. Sometimes it is hard to say things that are in our hearts to the people we love and this gave me a way to express those feelings.

I will post updates on here as I get results from my tests so you might want to check in every couple of months.

In parting, I want you to remember that the amount of money in the bank means little when you don’t have your health. Please remember to have a physical every year. It saved my life, it could save yours.

September 12, 2009 Day 100

Needless to say, this was one of the most important days in my recovery. This is despite the fact that nothing really happened. There were no tests, no results, just a ticking of the clock and a changing of the date. Day 100 is something that I have pointed to since before the transplant. This was to be the day that I was to be back to normal. This was the day that I could just be me and not be constantly thinking about having cancer. More importantly, it was going to be the day that I had a Whopper.

The problem with trying to be normal is that I’m not sure what normal is anymore. Because I had this disease for some period of time before I realized I had it, I had convinced myself that I was just getting old and I had to deal with everyday aches and pains. Some of those aches and pains have disappeared only to be replaced by others. Is that now the new “normal?”

The good thing is that I feel considerably better than anytime in the last nine months. My energy level is getting back to something that is livable. In my own mind, I had imagined that I would be ready to take on just about anything at this point. I have not yet gotten there, but I have gotten to the point where four+ hours of work does not completely do me in. When I left work on Friday, I actually felt like I had a little bit left in the tank.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. I wasn’t even supposed to come back to work at all until September 14 and I have already worked five weeks of part time days only missing one day in that time period. Everybody at work has been great (as usual) and insisted that I take it easy and not overdo it, but part of what drove me was to be back and making a contribution. My next goal will be to convince Dr. Mikhael that I can start to stretch it out a little more. I will be happy the day I feel well enough to do the traditional 8 to 5 day.

Another nice thing about day 100 is that I can get off of my medication. Due to the reduced immune system, I needed to take three different medications to create an artificial one. It seemed to work as I have not even had the sniffles. However, I think my body was starting to react to the constant bombardment of these drugs. I’m hoping that my withdrawal from those drugs accelerates the process back to normalcy.

Day 100 was as much about eating as anything. I have been religious about the little things like no fast food, no fresh vegetables or fruits and no ice due to potential bacterial infections. Saturday was my day for breaking through those barriers. Saturday was my day with the Burger King. I’m not sure why, but my first fast food was going to be a Whopper (Maybe they can do a commercial about the experience with Brad Pitt playing me at the BK. Hopefully he’d be willing to shave his head.)

I followed that up with a salad at J. Alexander’s as Julia and I celebrated our anniversary a couple days late. To make the day even crazier, I let them put ice in my Sprite! I love living on the edge.

All in all, the 100 days has gone pretty quickly. During that period of time I have had my ups and downs. I have had my doubts about recovery and felt the relief of that anxiety after the results of my first blood test. I lost my best friend which was extremely hard, but I have been able to see my kids play baseball and football. To top off the 100 days, I got to spend a night with my amazing wife celebrating another anniversary.

I’m still not 100% physically, but I am a long way from where I was. My hope is that all goes well when I meet with Dr. Mikhael on September 22 as we discuss where I am and if I can say that I am in remission. Now if I can just manage to deal with the 24 hour urine test without the difficulties I had last time, life will be good.

September 10, 2009 To Have and to Hold

The date was August 23, 1975 and I found myself walking down the aisle of a church in Plymouth, Michigan. It was in the 90’s and extremely humid that day. The church didn’t have air conditioning and the reception hall lost theirs the day before. I should have realized at that point that there might be some difficulties in this marriage.

The date was August 23, 1977 and I found myself alone because my wife decided not to come home that night. No call, no nothing, just no show. It was at that point that I realized that there were more than difficulties in this marriage. I’m not the brightest guy in the world, but when my wife had a date on our anniversary and it wasn’t with me, I surmised that it might be time to start looking elsewhere.

The next decade was interesting to say the least. I had more than a few loves in my life, some only lasting a week or so, one lasting three years. But having become a one time loser, I was bound and determined not to make it two. As a result, I became extremely cautious in my relationships. Not afraid to fall in love, but certainly afraid to commit.

Then one day, I was taking out one of the administrative assistants (Diana) from Human Resources for lunch. This was one of those real stretches for me as the young lady, although certainly attractive enough, would never go for a pauper like me. When I went to her office to pick her up, I notice this cute little thing sitting at her desk. Little did I know at the time that cute little thing would eventually become my wife.

During lunch that day, I asked Diana who the new girl was. After getting all of the scoop, I played like I was in the fifth grade and asked her to see if there might be any mutual interest. To my glee, there was. One thing led to another and before long were we were in love.

On the one year anniversary of our first date, I popped the question. The first words out of Julia’s mouth was “Are you sure?” She could count the bottles of wine just as easily as I could, but I knew what I was doing. She knew my past as well as I did and she knew my hesitation to commit in the past. Yet for some reason, I knew this was the one.

So on September 10, 1988 I found myself walking down the aisle once again. Instead of it being hot and humid, it was a day in paradise. It was 72 degrees and sunny. The wind didn’t blow a bit which made the pictures that were taken outside unbelievable. For those of you in the Columbus area, you know that there are only about two days every year that are that perfect. It just so happened that God saved one of those for us.

The wedding went according to plan; that is Julia’s plan. This was one of those things that I let her drive as she was by far the expert. My biggest concern was the vows. Julia has an excellent memory (as she has proven over the years as she remembers everything I have every said) and she decided that we would memorize the vows. They were not particularly long, but I have never been one to memorize things. I tend to think on my feet and wing it. I must have said that thing to myself 100 times that day because I was bound and determined not to make a fool of myself.

As expected, Julia whizzed through hers like a hot knife through butter. It was then my turn and I started off strong with,”I, John, take you, Julia, as my loving wife.” It was then that things started spinning and I was glad that I had remembered my name, because I sure couldn’t any longer. Whatever was left of my mind had turned to Jello. I stood there for a second and even heard a chuckle from the crowd as I tried to remember what was next.

I finally gave in and looked at the minister for help. He got me started and I just winged it after that. As I like to mention to Julia and have done so several times in the last 21 years, I forgot to mention the thing about being faithful. It wasn’t until we reviewed the tape of the wedding that this fatal mistake was noted. So far I haven’t taken advantage of this missed paragraph in the contract, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to tease Julia about it.

Julia, however, has taken her belief and understanding of the vows to another level. When you actually utter the phrase, “in sickness and in health,” you never really think about the sickness part. Most people are just thinking about where they are going on their honeymoon when they get to this part.

Needless to say, the last eight months have opened up even my eyes to what those vows mean. It’s easy to stay with someone when everything is balloons and butterflies, but it is an altogether different story when you find out that your spouse is ill. That is when you really find out how much someone is really committed to the contract.

Not that I was surprised, but there wasn’t a thing that I lacked when I needed it. Julia was everything to me when I needed her. It was only through her love and devotion that I have been able to get through this. This is when you know you have someone special. Little did I know that the cute little thing behind the desk would become my everything.