16 months out: a net positive

Got my umpteenth CT scan (something like 10 of them thus far) last week as a normal course of post-chemo follow-up rhythm. Met with the Oncologist yesterday-- and got a clean report from a cancer perspective, but they did see a 'pulmonary nodule' which they suspect is pneumonia. They think it may be fungal pneumonia, but I am told by the oncologist that a CT scan doesn't provide enough info to call it fungal vs. bacterial.

Nonetheless, I feel like a pile of rocks and am taking the day at home to rest. I've coughed up some sludge that would be offensive to share via photo, so consider yourself spared.

I've felt achy for about 10 days now, and was starting to worry that something was wrong-- which seems to be a common theme coming into a scan milestone. Now at least we have identified the reason I don't feel good-- and it's NOT cancer!

Also of note was that I had my (second) chest port removed about 3 weeks ago. It was a great process, except when they were drawing labs prior to the operation they hit a nerve in my elbow. It lit me up light a light pole! Getting some residual zingers down my forearm, but I am told it will slowly heal. Matching port scars in my chest looks quite nice, and it'll just have to be my version of getting tattoos.

I am continually grateful to be healed of this illness. As you know, I have connected with a handful of Burkitt's patients over the past year or so and have been keeping in touch with people as they go through their journey. One of these young people I've come across, Brian Howell, died recently. He was mid-way through treatment, and things just started to fall apart, one by one. His wife Hayley is just trying to get through her days, without her beloved-- trying to re-learn how to spend her days and keep things afloat.

God's grace is all we have, and thankfully it's never-ending. Lord have mercy on us all.

1 year out: A CLEAN report!

Had my CT scan last week (I think this makes 9 scans in two years) and got the results two days ago: No signs of lymphoma...still!

Passing this one year-mark is not just a convenient anniversary, but it also carries some clinical significance in that most people who end up relapsing do so in the first two years, and so I am more than halfway through that zone.

Even better, my labs look good! I am at the low end of 'normal' for all the areas that were damaged during chemo (namely white blood cells, hematocrit, hemoglobin, platelets). Not only am I feeling more normal, I'm also starting to ressemble one on paper.

What does this mean? Well I am planning to get my chest port out at the end of the summer and will need CTs once every 4 months, as opposed to 3. A small, but meaningful, improvement in hospital visits and incremental radiation.

I met a few weeks back with the neurosurgeon who installed my brain reservoir and he said there is more risk in pulling it out than leaving it in. He said I can get brain hemorrhaging or menengitis... so why risk it. For now, and as long as I have hair-- I'm indifferent. I don't mind a permanent reminder here and there.

It's all good on this end... thank you, thank you.

9 months out: A clean report

So Dr. Flowers (I can no longer associate him with Tiger -- oh, how much has changed) came in and cut right to the chase. "Your scan looked good," he said, with his borderline awkward indifference and focus-less stare.

Wooo hooo.

At this point, my platelets are a little lower than yours, but they are not low enough to worry. Hope I don't cut my knee on the playground this weekend.

Otherwise, my liver, kidney, red blood, yadda yadda yadda function all look good.

He said I can meet with the neurosurgeon about getting my USB port out of my skull. No more awkward cowlick.

I celebrated with... you guessed it: fish tacos. Well, I did a pre and post celebration, both with fish tacos. An addict, I admit.

After getting the good report, I walked across the street to the main hospital where I spent my 45+ nights over 8 rounds of chemo. I sat with my buddy Khadar Hassan, who I came to meet right after he was diagnosed with Burkitt's. He is 22 and from Somalia.

This guy is a fighter. Like me, he got a nasty Staph infection during treatment, coincidentally also after his 4th round of chemo. Though I was in the hospital for a week getting pumped up on antibiotics, getting my port ripped out, having blood cultures and a 104+ fever, he was in for two.

They got the MRSA under control, and started round 5 today. What a fighter.

While I am honored to be on the back side of such a hard fight, I don't stray too far from what it's like to be in the bed, flat out on my back, getting pumped full of toxins.

Khadar is in the thick of it, and I yearn to walk through that valley with him in whatever way I can.

I also met an 18-year old named Austin Saunders in the clinic who was laid out on a bench with a pillow over his head. An anxious woman sat beside him, rubbing her bloodshot eyes.

"Lumbar puncture?", I inquired.

"Yes," she murmured softly. "He has a rare non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and just started chemo last week."

My heart sank. That was me! The very same thing! Laid out, miserable, ready to give up, though things had only just begun. I was right there on that bench beside him, in my heart.

Poor kid was throwing up every 3 minutes. I am that kid.

I made every effort to console Mom and tell her some lessons learned from the road I had ventured only twelve months prior. I jotted down my contact info and offered prayer and whatever practical support I can provide. I sure hope they call.

Lately, I am playing tennis, exercising, eating well, and joyfully employed. God is so merciful.

Lord, please don't let me forget that I am one breath away from being on the other side of this thin veil of good health. Oh, my.

Daily bread.

I am prone to spend more time worrying about the future than I should. If I really do trust that Jesus is Lord over my life, has conquered death and all fear, then what's the hold up?

A thought came to me this week about the concept of daily bread. We are instructed to ask God for our daily bread. Manna was gathered up daily, for that day only. Any 'extra' provisions would go bad and ultimately become useless.

So if each morning, before I roll out of bed, I ask myself, "Do I have enough to get through the day?"

"Do I have what I need to make it until I return back to this very same bed, at the end of the day?"

The answer is simple. It's 'yes'. It has been 'yes' every day thus far in my life. The answer this morning, was also 'yes'. Tomorrow? Well, I'll know come tomorrow morning what the answer is, but I am fairly certain the answer will continue to be... 'yes'.

As I consider only the very day in front of me, I need not worry about having enough bread for future days. Of course this doesn't mean I am to squander all that I steward in a profligate way. Rather, it simply means that I need not have fear, anxiety, concern or worry about whether the bread will last beyond today and today alone.

The Lord has promised to be faithful in giving us our daily bread, and so I'm not going to keep doing my best to ignore this promise in worrying about some distant day that may never come.

I'm a 'yes' today. I'll get to tomorrow when it gets to me.

Four months, to the day: that should be enough of a hiatus

So, at the nudging of my wife, Candace, I am going to fire the blog entries back up. I had felt for quite some time that this blog would be limited to my experiences with and during Cancer, but it seems that my short-term memory isn't conducive to living life completely apart from some sort of chronicle.

Too, I suppose that every part of my life in some direct or indirect way really is connected to this life-altering (and sometimes ending) illness. My prior life was B.C. where the 'C' stands for Cancer, of course.

What's more, in one of our perennial Spring cleanings, I stubled across a sprial notebook that appeared to have been collecting dust for decades. Sure enough, it was (one of) my previous attemtps to white-knuckle a regular and consitent journal. As with every other attempt before and after, it devolved into one or two daily entries and then hundreds of empty, unmarked sheets follwing it... with nothing noted, nothing remarked upon.

It seems as though there was something magical (that's probably not the best word) about the days leading up to the sole journal entry in this notebook, but it was nonethless life-changing for a 7th grader. I will dig it up and post it, verbatim, at a later date... if nothing more than for your pure entertainment. (Turns out that, if you get past all the melodrama, even pre-teens can have some pretty profound thoughts.)

Getting to the point, it was a reminder that we go though all kinds of experiences, both the meaningful and mundane, and if we do not stop to reflect on them, they can easily be integrated into who we become without a trace.

That's me. That's what I'm good at. Ask me about pretty much any part of the last 32 years, and I can't tell you much. Weak! But in spite of this dearth of communicable information, I am unavoidably the sum total of every single experience up until this very moment.

So firing back up this blog is my puny effort to memorialize life as it happens. I will do my best to spare you the details of what I eat for breakfast or what my cat does, that is, unless he demonstrates more acts of genius as he sometimes does.

I can think of a few things that have already happened in the prior four months that are noteworthy... namely being convinced of a relapse, some lingering medical anomalies, baby steps to physical recovery, ongoing fertility challenges, a faith-fortifying trip and a few really amazing fish tacos. Oh, wait... no meal-centric blogs. Sorry.

If you (anyone) in cyberspace ends up taking a read, thank you. If not, this will be fodder for my descendants one day, at a minimum.