Video - Stuart and Candace 2009: A Journey

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So when my best friend turned 40 this weekend, he had a great big party. It was amazing. It was a talent show, whereby all his friends would get up in front of the crowd about nearly 100 people and perform a song, video, dance, skit, act, or otherwise unique talent. The cake, the people, the food, the event-- everything was just delightful.

Well, toward the end of the party, I was caught completely off guard when the next video in the lineup started with my name on the screen... and a comment about my cancer.

Then, as I realized what was happening, my whole body went numb. And has been numb ever since. I've been at a loss for words to fully describe just how special this reverse-gift was to me. I had been tricked. They had taken all the chemo video footage, which I had never seen, and put together a chronicle of the entire experience.

What's more, they included some footage of our wedding day over six years ago. I have never seen video from our wedding -- so it was like getting married all over again. I melted when I saw Candace's expression as she walked down the aisle, with her late father.

So why would someone take a milestone birthday party in their honor, and devote all of their precious time preparing a gift for someone else at the party? I just don't understand this kind of selflessness.

This video manages to capture an entire year of emotion and healing in one sitting. I have lost count of the number of times I have watched it.

Shane and Kelle, you two are most thoughtful and dear to me and my wife. I love you so much.

I'm posting below my wife's response to this video, as it captures what my numbness has thus far precluded me from being able to articulate:

"It is 2 am and we just watched the video for the 5th time. We have cried and laughed and kissed and hugged. We are in awe...we keep saying, "I just can't believe it....I can't believe all this is on this video".

There are so many emotions - I can't even process them all now.

When you walk through something hard, you just walk through it. But, when you have a chance like this to go back and revisit that hard time - it takes your breath away.

How did we do that? How did we get through it?

The video did a beautiful job of answering that question.

God, family, friends, some tears and some laughter and our love for each other.

And then our wedding... wow. I think I was the happiest girl in the WHOLE WORLD! You can see it on my face.

And my dad - right there...walking, touching me, smiling. I crave so much to remember him - his walk, his smile, his sweetness. You gave me that tonight.

There are no words.

This is THE BEST gift anyone has EVER given us. EVER. There is no way we could ever outdo this one.

It has been a very sad week for us. Shoot - it's been a sad couple of months. I have felt forgotten by God...confused by Him...unsure of Who He is and why things happen...I have not felt him close in a while. But tonight - this video - reminded me.

It reminded me that He is close and He has a purpose and He is weaving a beautiful tapestry, a story of the Smartt's, that no one could ever imagine in their wildest dreams.

It reminded me that His glory and good will come out of all things.

I needed that. This filled a place in me that was very empty.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you....a million thank you's...

And all this on at YOUR birthday party.

We love you crazy Ortizs.
You bring life to us.
Thanks for being our friends and thanks for one great party."

It has been a year...

Today is the day... one year ago. Whew. We made it!

It's a good thing that we can't see into the future of our lives, otherwise we'd be left to process -- all at once -- the joy and anxiety of everything. What a waste that would be! No, thanks. I'm happy with the day-by-day approach. (I say this as if I have a choice...)

Yet I don't feel great, I do feel gooooood enough. And for thank I am so thankful. Many, many days in the last year were pretty rough, as you know.

I'm having a challenging time doing this 'reflection' that I had hoped to do. Perhaps it's the steroid I'm on? Either way, the impact is still a story unfolding as we go.

I confess that I did honk aggressively at someone on my hour-long drive home today (for blocking traffic while they made a left-hand turn out of the far right-hand lane!). That's the barometer: I must be hardening up formidably. Dang it.

But tomorrow I will go to Emory to get my port flushed, and I hope to be reminded of my parole status once again so I can shed a layer or two of this hardness in the process. Such a predicable creature, I am.

My friend is putting some chemo video footage together that I hope to post to this site. I will be the pale, puffy one you see.

Well thanks for hanging with me this past year. Whether you've read this site once or weekly, I am honored that you shared it with me.

I felt lifted up and supported by so many.

Thank you so kindly.

ENT, BKO, and 1YR...

Had a visit to an ENT yesterday at Emory to further diagnose my chronic sinusitis (Oto-rhino-laryngologist). I must admit, I don't really enjoy seeing cross-section diagrams of what's anatomically going on inside one's throat and head. Seeing all the cavaties and tissues and bones kinda weirds me out.

Nonetheless, I had to be there. I sat in the chair for quite somet time awaiting the ENT doc. When he came in, he immediately started grabbing 'tools' out of his drawer and throwing them onto the counter - one by one. No room for chit-chat here. Even though there was no real bed in the room, his bedside manner was lacking.

He probed some metallic holepuncher-looking device into each ear and made a 'hmmpf' sound. Then grabbed my tongue with gauze and stuck a mirror to the back of my throat. 'Say ahhh.' I tried, but gagged. He commented on how I had a sensitive gag reflex. Thanks, doc. Could've told you that.

Then he fired up an electronic machine and said he would spray something up each nostril to numb it. And that it does not taste good. Felt like someone blowing up each nostril with chemical-breath.

Then he said he was going to take a look. Jammed some sort of little camera up there on a flexible line. Geesh. 'Hang with me, hang with me. A little swollen in there,' he said. The sensation was... unenjoyable.

So he said I needed more antibiotics, this time to be combined with a steriod. Only then would he know if I needed surgery. Keep in mind that I've already been on three rounds of antibiotics for this... so this will make four. Given that I have some side effects from the steroid used during the chemo, hearing this prescription made me ancy. MORE pills? MORE drugs? Hmmmm. I dunno.

I am supposed to take three weeks of Augmentin (AMOX/CLAV) coupled with a round of Prednisone and then return for my zillionth scan.

Trying to keep a positive attitude on things... but as you may be able to tell, I'm pretty much ready to be done with this!

'BKO'... My employer is in Ch. 11 bankruptcy, still, but fortunately there's no additional drama to report on this front. I marvel daily that I have a job at all, given the 17.5% unemployment/underemployment rate. WOW.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of this roller-coaster. It was Nov 12th, 2008 that it all started... the stomach pains, the emergency appendectomy, the diagnosis, the re-diagnosis, the chemo...

It's a year that has flown by, nevertheless. I am compelled to reflect on the past twelve months -- and see if I'm able to assess just how I feel about it, and how it has affected me and how I view life, faith, and the world around me. I'm not naturally prone to do so, so I will force myself in the coming days!

Projectile...vomiting?

So *that's* what they mean by this choice of words.

I got hit hard around 9pm last night with some projectile vomiting and relentless diarrhea (sorry if that's not PC). I had just downed a nice dinner and come home, when it all came back up. (Any chance I can petition for a refund?) And I mean ALL of it-- lunch, too. It was a long night- marked by fevers, bathroom trips, tossing and turning. $40 bucks... down the toilet. Literally.

For obvious reasons, I stayed home from work today. Been laid out on my back all day long. Brought back memories of chemo life.

Tried to nibble on a piece of toast -- bad idea. Bouts of vomiting were almost instantaneous. I did manage to pull off a deft move whereby the vomit was mid-air over our carpet and I grabbed the trash can and caught it just before things got completely ruined. I have lost 6 lbs in the past 24 hours. Who knew weight loss was this effortless!

I will say this: despite this being no fun whatsoever, it sure does beat a normal day during chemo. Allllll relative, my friend!

My employer is now officially in Ch 11 bankruptcy. TIme will tell what this will eventually mean, but for now -- I am still employed!

2009... who could've predicted the excitement!!

Watching game 6 of the World Series through one eye... while I nap with the other... lovely evening!

A camera-shy cat...

So whenever the camera is off, Dude acts in his normal, peculiar ways. But when it's action time and the camera is rolling, he pretends he's a normal cat. Still trying to capture him doing his quirky things. By the way, ever notice how many cat videos there are on YouTube... and better yet, how each of them seem to have millions and millions of views? Huh.

I am feeing pretty good! About 80-90%, I'd say!

The nerve pain in my feet is slowly improving... and I even spontaneously jogged across the church parking lot today when two little girls were chasing me down. It was epic, relatively speaking.

The docs put me on an antibiotic called Omnicef for 21 days, as well as the steroid nasal spray Flonase, to see if that clears up my sinusitis. Things are better, but far from fixed. Same with bowel problems... gotta diagnose that one further. We've been trying to experiment by removing dairy and/or gluten from the diet, but that's HARD to do!

THANK YOU for checking in!

A clean scan! Three months down...hopefully a long lifetime to go...

Just back from my doctor's appointment at Emory. The CT scan shows no signs of recurrence of the cancer. Candace and I are elated!

The good news doesn't stop there: my white blood count (my immune system), which had been at 1.7 and then 2.0, jumped all the way to 7.4! The normal range is 4.2 to 9.1, so I am smack-dab in the thick of it. While my platelets dropped a little, they are not in the critical zone and this type of drop is less of a concern than my whites. Other counts looked great: Hematocrit (46.7%), Hemoglobin (16.5), RBC count (5.04).

I'm going to get scanned in three more months, and hope for the same result. In the meantime, I have to get a CT scan of my sinuses this Friday, as I've had chronic sinusitis for several months now. I will see an ENT doc to try to figure out what's going on. Since my bowels have been a bit unpredictable (read: irregular and irritable), I am probably going to have to see a GI doc. The sinus and bowel 'problems' are minimal in comparison to the good news related to recurrence and white blood counts!

God has carried me through some fearful nights this past week. All the scenarios running through my head of a possible relapse were playing like a double-feature in my head. At one point, I even remarked that this post-chemo period has been more challenging from a fear and trust perspective, as one fully expects to feel crummy during chemo... but not for months and months after the chemo has ended.

I walked the Light the Night event this past saturday and, of course, didn't take a camera. My feet were burning in pain, but I completed the entire 2-mile walk and enjoyed it thoroughly. Each person was a given a colored balloon: Red for family/supporters, white for patients/survivors, and gold for a lost loved one. There was a sea of red balloons, a few white ones, and many gold ones. Lots of people don't make it. Like Richard. I walked with him in mind, and his name written in marker on my shirt. It was a moving event.

My employer is still on the verge of a major restructuring, or bankruptcy. This is great news. Why? Because coming 'back' to work has been such a nice thing, given the temporary holding pattern we're in. Whenever I feel unproductive or like I'm not 'where I need to be in life', I am reminded that there could've been NO BETTER TIME IN MY LIFE, or even the series of world events, for me to go through chemo and recovery.

The opportunity to see the 'good' coming out of this, and the invitation to give all glory to our God, abounds at every single turn in the road. I am so, so grateful.

Next post to include a Dude (cat) video. He is working on a trick that he wants to share with you.

CT Scan, a new friend with Lymphoma, and a smart cat...

So I had my three-month scan today. Not a PET/CT, but a standalone CT that covered my skull, neck, chest, abdomen, and thighs. I had the tasty two bottles of barium contrast, and also got the IV contrast this time -- which was a first. When you're in the middle of the scan and they inject the IV contrast, it sends a burning hot sensation up your arm, and then into you chest and abdomen. At one point, I thought I had gone to the bathroom on myself, but fortunately it ended up being just a mixed signal to the brain somehow.

The scan results are in, but I won't know them until I sit down with 'Tiger MD' next Wednesday morning. Why rush it? Won't change 'em...

On a less enjoyable note, some close friends introduced me last night to a guy who was just diagnosed with Lymphoma. After speaking with him for what will be the first of many, many conversations to come, I hung up feeling a tinge of anxiety. It was almost as if I was reliving the uncertainty that comes with this sort of life-changing new information. He, like me, is in his 30s, lives in Atlanta, is married and has no children at this point.

I asked him to read me the details of his pathology report. He has been diagnosed with the same Lymphoma as I was initially diagnosed- diffuse large b-cell. Similarly, two oncologists told him to get started with R-CHOP. When he read that his Ki-67 stain, a measure of the proliferative rate of cancer, approached 100%, I insisted that he ask his docs to tell him why he DOESN'T have Burkitt's. For me, the corrected re-diagnosis to Burkitt's from a plain vanilla diffuse large b-stell was only possible after additional testing was pursued. I am very curious if they will request that same additional testing in order to rule out -- or in -- Burkitt's While I certainly hope it's not Burkitt's and that he is able to pursue the less toxic chemo, it will be quite ironic if his experience parallels my own in this aspect. I'll keep current with him, without a doubt.

On a final note, I am very fond of cats. Probably borderline 'cat whisperer'. I try to sweet-talk stranger cats I meet on neighborhood walks, and tend to take pause and consider what to do when I see a mangey dumpster stray scurrying about. So we have two cats-- Dude and (Fat) Mama. Dude is a very needy and loving cat. He meets you at the door, follows you around the house, and insists on nibbling on your ear when you are seated.

I rarely lose my keys. I tend to put them in the same place on the countertop every time I come home. Last week, I had a problem: I lost my keys. How was this possible? I looked in all the likely places, but had no success in finding them. After starting to wonder how in the world I'd find my way out of the predicament, I looked over at Dude, who was sitting still, watching my fruitless search.

I inquired aloud, "Dude! I've gotta find my keys!!"

Though he normally doesn't meow excessively, he let out a long, awkward, labored cry. "Merrreeoooowwwwoooowwwoww."

As he let out this protracted sound, he walked a few steps across the room and rubbed his body against a bag of dog wee-pads (don't ask) that was opened and mostly full. My eyes, as they made contact with his, saw a slight metallic reflection nearby, peeking out from in between these pads--- IN this bag.

Of course. He was showing me where the keys were. He had known all along where they had fallen, out of my pocket several hours earlier that day.

I had to take pictures to prove it -- because it was certainly absurd. Even better, my wife Candace witnessed the entire episode. See the keys hiding in there??? Thanks, Dude!