Check Up

I had my first check up on Monday afternoon and everything is good. Last week I had blood taken and the numbers all came back in the healthy range and I am scheduled for a scan at the end of March. At this point, I will have scans every two months for the first year so they can make sure nothing is coming back. Although the appointment was pretty quick (10 minutes), I spent a while talking with a few people that were in the office getting their treatment. One of the people was Gary, a man I had talked about earlier as he has some pretty nasty cancer and he was the man who had the fluid drained out of his head. Since I last saw him, he has gotten rid of his cane and is walking which is nice. He is in the process of scheduling a stem cell transplant as they just found out his brother is a match. It will require Gary to stay in the hospital for 1 month and then live very close to the hospital as there is a high risk for his body to reject the transplant and he needs to be able to get to the hospital in minutes. There was another lady getting treatment (who's name I can not remember), and we had talked a few times during treatment. She was sitting with her daughter and she was surprised to see how much energy I had. I was able to tell her and Gary and the one other person in there how great I felt and that, when I was getting chemo, I could never have imagined that I would get back to this point and feel Normal. I think it was good for them to hear as it's so hard to look past your current situation. As we continued to talk, this lady mentioned that she had a pretty rough run and spent 5 days in the hospital with Anemia, which was very similar to what I went through. They were going to lower the strength of her medication by 20% and give her and extra cycle. I am not sure I could have handled that.

Anyway, during the conversation with the Dr., I told him that I am still sleeping and eating a lot. He said it was okay as my chemo ended just 6 weeks ago. It's hard for me to look at it that way as it feels like it was years ago. He understood and said most people are able to move on pretty quickly. He did warn me about eating too much as I have put 9 lbs back on.

Thanks again for checking on me, I appreciate hearing from all of you.

Sam

Update

Sorry for the delay since the last post. Things are busy and I am feeling pretty good. I am still experiencing some side affects and expect to have them linger for the next few months. The taste of food is still not normal, my hair is just starting to think about returning and the tips of my fingers still tingle. There are other things and they are pretty minor. Even with food's lack of taste, I am hungry all the time. Although I am eating normal meals, I am eating whenever I can between the meals and it still does not seem like enough. The other thing I cant get enough of is sleep. I have never been a good sleeper and over the past couple of weeks, I've had nights when I've gone to sleep at 7pm and woke the next day just before 6am. I am sure these 2 things will slow down as things continue to get back to normal.

I go a week from Friday for a blood test and have my first "after cancer" treatment with Reznick on the following Monday. It's been pretty nice not going to his office and not getting poked everyday.

I know I've said I will get some photos on here and I will do my best to upload them this weekend.

Obviously, my time on the blog is slowing down. I hope to write once a week to update everyone on the rest of the recovery and our family. At some point soon, I will start skating and getting ready for the 24 hours of hockey charity event and then I will start to ask everyone for donations for the Childrens hospital. The event is in May and I hope to raise a couple thousand bucks for the hospital. I will keep everyone posted and remember, it's a tax writeoff!!!


Talk to you soon.

Sam

Port

I went to Skyridge hospital today at 1130am for my 12:30pm appointment.  I went into the "minor procedure room" right on time and the Dr came in shortly afterward. Since this was not a big deal, I still had slacks and dress shoes on as I layed down on the table and buckled me in.  The Dr and 2 nurses were in the room, they talked non stop and occasionally threw in some medical terms. After they cleaned the area, dried it and put down a bunch of clean towels, the Dr told me I would feel a quick pinch which he said would be like a bee sting. I have only had external stitches once before (when the port was put in) and I was under a general medicine and was out cold. The shot they gave me hurt BAD and they he took the needle and bounced it off my skin asking if I could feel it. On the 3rd or 4th poke, I felt one and they gave me more medicine. It's pretty strange hearing the talk and feeling the tug of your body even though you do not feel pain. I closed my eyes and let them do their thing and at one point, the nurse asked how long the port had been in as "there was a lot of scar tissue built up" and then the Dr said that is why he it was taking so long and that he was almost done "digging". All of the sudden, I heard a little pop and they told me it was out. They then cleaned it up and stitched it back together. All in all, it was a pretty easy gig although, if given a choice, I would prefer not to hear the operating room chatter. Its a pretty small cut and it's a little sore tonight. I would guess everything will be fine by the weekend.

I'm really glad to have the port out and do not have any medical appointment until 2/26 (I think) and I look forward to having a couple weeks until I need to visit anyone.

I am going to sacramneto tomorrow and need to work on my portion of the presentation.

Sam

Saturday morning

Hi,

  Sorry for the delay in posting this week. I've been back at work everyday and found myself going to sleep very early and sleeping a full night. There was a day this week where I slept for 10 hours and that is not something I usually do. It was great to get back to work and I was glad to see that most of the chemo/cancer questions died down by mid week. Some people would still stop by my office and say they were glad to hear everything is cleared up, which is really nice, and it's good that they didn't want to continue the conversation as I'm pretty tired of talking about it. Of course, people ask questions and I figured if someone asked, maybe you want to know also.

1). Are you going to grow your hair back or stay bald?  My hair has just started to come back and I will grow it back. I think I will wear it a little shorter than I used to and the bald thing needs to go - it's too cold.

2). Will I read the Blog?  Hell no - I have No interest in remembering anything that happened or reading what I said.

3). Do I think, with time, the Chemo won't seem as bad as it was?  Although I think it's fair to say that time deminishes the pain of most things, I believe I will always look back on those 12 weeks as the most horrible thing I've ever gone through. Of course, I could be wrong and maybe as I get farther away from it, I will forget the physical aspect of it and only remember the good stuff which included the family support, support of friend and strangers, etc. I'd like to say that will be the case and it might be but not for a long time.

I think this cancer stuff is a little like school where there are a lot of questions and people just don't want ask them. So, I will open it up to questions. You can email or post on the blog and I will do my best to answer them.

I will get the port taken out next Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to it being out but not how they take it out. When the port was installed, I was knocked out and in surgery. To get it out, they numb the local area only, cut along the scar and pull it out. All the while I am aware of what is going on. They said it takes just a couple minutes and I hope there is a blindfold or something so I do not need to see any of it.

I'm traveling to Sacramento on Wed for a meeting and will be back Thursday night. I know it seems a little quick but they held off waiting for me.

Thanks for reading and I will post soon. There is some preliminary info on the 24 hours of hockey coming in this week and I will post the web page and more info.

Sam