Chemo 7 Done!

Well I had chemo #7 yesterday and I must say I feel pretty darn good to... Maybe the chemo is going to take it easy on me again and that sounds ok to me... I'm going to put some pics of me from the chemo suite just to give everyone an idea of just how much drugs they put in to me! Which is an awful lot of drugs yuk! Kinda of a neat thing they do at the chemo suite... They have a bell in lobby and when you do your last chemo you get to come out and ring the bell. It was quite surreal and a nice touch because there so many people in lobby and the nurses also follow you out... So DING DING! that's me ringing the bell followed by lots of cheering,clapping,and hugging. I didn't think this would have such an effect on me but I have to admit it made me cry!!! You know alot of things went through my head when the bell rung, but mostly the gratefulness I felt towards those nurses and the love and care they've given to me... Also how sick to my stomach I was when I heard the london health and science center wants to layoff cancer nurses so it could hire another CEO. Disgusting! Our local MP Deb Matthews give your head a shake get down to the cancer clinic watch those nurses save lives!

To be cured or not to be cured!

That is the question and no one is positive on the answer. Today I went in for my check up with Dr. Chin-yee which was great because I had alot of questions I wanted to ask him. He is the big cheese in oncology the best of the best. Not only that... when you ask him a question he explains in detail why they do things a certain way and gives pros and cons to everything! The appointment started out as they always do I lay down and the doc feels all my lymphnodes throughout my body.... Followed by a series of general overall health questions. This time much like my last appointment they talk about how well the chemo has worked! Then Dr Chin-yee talks about the possibility of a cure!  CURE! I'm confused because I thought there was no such thing. Dr Chin-yee is cautiously optimistic about a cure but shit I'll take it!!! The doc's seem to be more optimistic every time I walk through the door. Realistically if they told me today I was cured I'll still worry everyday about relapsing until the day I die... Of course he talks about the reality of relapsing and that I still have many good treatment options if I do relapse. So today I have a huge burst of confidence in my overall health. Still I have cancer and it may never go away totally. I also pressed him about the possibility of doing a PET scan. This particular scan is and imaging scan like the CAT scan but is a newer technology that supposed to be the new measuring stick for detecting cancerous cells. Dr Chin-yee sat down and explained the pros and cons to the PET scan to me. He didn't believe it was a particularly good scan against follicular NHL especially when you have more then one area of involvement of the lymphnodes which I do... He explained that this is a much better test for Hodgkins lymphoma which is cancer that is localized to the areas where the tumors are found. He told me that they can scan an actively growing cancerous tumor and the PET scan can come back as not cancerous even though the tumor is actively growing. Now he told me if after all the chemo was done and my tumor was still rather large then they would consider doing a PET scan. He said he's been burned twice in his career on PET scans. What he said was the PET scan gave him a false sense of security leading him to treat areas that he said didn't need to be treated... So for my particular case he doesn't feel comforted by a good or bad PET scan result for me... He would rather go with the CAT scan where they physically measure the tumor to see if it is growing or staying the same. After he explained this to me I felt much better. So I'll have another CAT scan in 3 to 4 weeks if my tumor measures the same I'm in remission but if the tumor has shrunk I'll be going in for and 8th and final chemo. He also said that he'll do another CAT scan in 3 or 4 months to make sure I'm in true remission... I also learned that rituximab which is the maintenance drug that they give every 3 months for 2 yrs after chemo. They used to only offer this to grade 1 and 2 NHLers the maintenance drug because studies showed greater distance between relapse but not so much with the grade 3a and b me being 3a. But now they offer the maintenance to grade 3's if I want it because rituximab is non toxic or basically because it doesn't hurt. So it's worth a try I think... I also asked him about radiation for my left over tumor. Once again since I don't have a localized tumor it's not practical to radiate all over my body. If I had one localized tumor then they might radiate... It's a possibility that I could relapse in one area and they might radiate the area that relapsed. So if this is all hard to follow that's ok it's confusing and I read and talk about it everyday with fellow NHLers. Keep in mind there are a million ways to treat Follicular NHL and theories on how to treat it. Treatment is changing so fast that most likely someone diagnosed today would be treated differently then me.

I'm so glad everyone likes the colors of the blog. The slide show has so many more pics but for some reason they're not all showing up I'll have to fix it. Linda you tell mike I'll be at golf with a big smile ready to kick some butt!
Oh and I have chemo tomorrow quite possibly my last one!

I changed my template!

I decided with all this beautiful weather that I'd go with a more spring like blog I hope you all like it! This burst of spring weather and a combination of me feeling so well has really energized me of late. Chemo #7 is just around the corner on March 26th and I hope this is it. I don't have a date yet for my next CAT scan but I should know this by thursday... I also have a stupid cancer gathering coming up on the 30th of march that i'm very much excited for. Also have an exciting surprise coming soon but shhhhhh it's a secret for now!

Friendship!

 I'd like to devote this blog to my daughters... I want to talk about my views on friendship so they oneday can look back and know what there dad valued. So many of my cancer friends that I've talked to have mentioned that when they were diagnosed with cancer that they had some of there good friends pull away from them... I thought about this for along time and I realized I didn't have one friend of mine pull away! For this I feel lucky! In fact after my diagnosis I kinda reaquainted with alot of my old buddies as the phone calls poured in one after another... Also the newer group of friends that Jen and I have had the honor to hang with since moving to London 10 yrs ago... This group stepped up huge for us after I was diagnosed providing love,support,food, and advice. Of course my work buddies who gave me such generous gifts after I was diagnosed and they still call to check up on me all the time. I feel blessed and thank all of our friends for all your help and support.

I can honestly say that in 38 yrs of living I don't know if there would be more 2 people in my life that I've met that I don't like... There are some people that I don't love to be around alot but I wouldn't say I don't like them. I guess I was given the gift of patience towards my fellow humans. People really have a hard time pissing me off! I remember my dad telling me when I was young that there is 2 sides to every story and for some reason that always stuck for me. I tried not to judge people because of this. To me this is so true sometimes we all act out were not always the best friend. We all have are own fears or skeletons in our closets. Each and everyone of us has hurt are good friends oneway or another... I've never taken being hurt by my friends to personally because they are good people and I believed they never meant to hurt me. I have friends who I don't talk to for over 6months at a time, but when we speak It's like we hung out yesterday we laugh we share stories ask about each others families. I can't tell you how much that means to me to feel no guilt even know it's been tooooo loonngg since we talked. I often think of my gradeschool friends some of who I still speak with today... Of course there's the highschool buddies next and when I think back I find myself laughing my ass off because I had so much fun with all of you guys. God did we do some crazy fun shit back in those days... I remember trying to steal on of those huge party tents out of a park in Belle River at 3am one morning because we had this great idea that we would bring it to grand bend and set it up on the beach... It was a great idea until the OPP showed up. I remember my buddy Claudio falling out of the minivan we were in while it was moving and then we preceeded to run him over after he fell out. He was fine other then a nasty bruise on his leg. I remember fooling a bunch of american girls into believing I was Eric Lindros and then going back to there parents house to sign autographs after I didn't want anything to do with that one but my buddies talked me into it. I remember my buddy Roy made the best Ice tea ever and I still can't duplicate it! I remember a bunch of drunk guys sitting at a campfire crying and telling each other how much we loved each other... These are the kinda things that good friendships bring and there's alot more I just don't type fast enough. Then you move into your adult life and you have your adult friends neighbours,work friends, and all kinds of people you meet. One of my favourites is 4 of us from work went to a cottage for a weekend and we all stripped down and did naked cliff diving, I couldn't stop laughing the whole day... It was kind of a brokeback weekend as one of are wives mentioned. Friends come and sometimes we drift apart for many reasons this is natural are lives get busy... Don't be discouraged because no one can take away the good times so have lots of them. Your true friends are just a phone call away even if it's been over a year... With all these social networking sites it's becoming easier to stay in touch. I was lucky I have alot of friends who have giving me a lifelong worth of memories.

I want to thank everyone for all the great comments on my last blog, Jolaine at Matt glad you guys are here for me. Mom I do hate this fucking cancer too! Bryan and Brenda couldn't do it with out you. Erin I never thought I see someone request more blogging from me on facebook but you proved me wrong so here you go. Jen you and Mark do so much just by helping out on fridays and the lasagna and visits. Jewel ditto back at you girl. Colleen and Chico it's always great to hear what you're up to. Are you guys coming home from florida soon?

Chemo #6 done!

A big thanks to all the comments on the blog again! Colleen as long as the weather is good in florida you should be able to beat Shannon in golf... Erin Happy 30th birthday now that you are an official cougar and yes the 7th will be a breeze. Bev I'm glad it's warming up for you guys it's time to get the bikinis out an tan those bodies lol! Kim you're like my own little personal cheerleader I love it... Baldylocks wrote to me I love your blog and liz's army 2 of my favourites.

Well friday I did my 6th chemo and it went well. My brother Mark came with me to this chemo I'm not sure what he thought of it... I was to much in chemical wash to talk when it was all done. I sleep through most of it now anyhow. Mark and I are only 10 months apart and much like twins have always been by each others sides since birth. I moved to london and he followed me shortly. We both even married Jen's so that's how close we are but not the same one... I think it was hard on him watching his older brother recieving chemo it's no party. It's hard being the oldest and feeling so weak in front of him and my sister and my youngest brother for that matter... I'm supposed to be the wise strong older brother and this cancer can humble you quick! I think when people ask me what's the hardest part of having cancer it's the loss of control you feel you had before you had cancer... the reality is there was no control of my life before cancer! I know that because I could die at anytime with or without cancer and I have no control! I always think of car accidents so many people die in these crazy car accidents and there are so many other ways to go. So when I give up the control to cancer it's easier to deal with but make no mistake about it I've hated every moment of having the shitty disease! Again this is the way I deal with it... I've read so many blogs of people with cancer and we all deal with it differently but each and everyone of us friggin hates the disease but we're all surviving. So now that my tooth infection is gone the docs suspect I'll deal with the chemo much better on my 6th cycle. I still can't believe that I never had a fever through that infection I thouhgt i'd be in the hospital for sure. My blood seems to be recovering from the chemo fast these days within 8 days of my last chemo my blood counts were good and I think that's fast. That's most likely what saved me from spending a few nights in the hospital with infection way to go blood. Man oh man Oct 20 2009 I was diagnosed with the big C it seems like yesterday easily the worst day of my life... But better thing are to come and have been coming now we just got to cure this dam thing or remiss it for ever call it what you want just don't come back!!!

This beautiful weather we've had in the last few days has been awesome! What a pick me up to have this weather so early in march already... I was swinging my golf clubs off the snow covered ground carefully sending snow divots into the nieghbors yards! Hey I got cancer so they won't yell at me right? I so can't wait to golf it's my favourite thing to do other then hanging with the kids and wife.


See you all!

Well It looks like lucky 7!!!

Well basically I have to do a 7th chemo. It's not that the CAT scan was bad it was quite the oppisite. The CAT scan came back as a very favourable response to chemo! That's good! My lymphnode under my left armpit shrunk from 5.5cm to about 2cm this is good. The nodes in my abdomen that were slighty swollen before chem they didn't even measure becsause they were good. Basically the normal procedure is they do the CAT scan after chemo 4 and whatever your lymphnodes measure after chemo 4 they then use to compare when they measure after chemo 6 if the nodes measure the same after six as they did after 4 then you're considered in remission. Basically when they're sure the chemo won't shrink your nodes anymore you are done. Now since I couldn't get my CAT scan until my 5th chemo I have to do the seventh chemo and do the CAT scan after seventh. If the chemo is still shrinking my nodes after seven then I'll have to do an 8th. They suspect 2cm is about as small as they will get it. Dr. Donahue who I seen today was very thorough and quite positive. She told me they are working towards a CURE for me... This was exciting for me to hear the doc talk with so much enthusiasm. You're not going to hear me argue with such a bold strong statement. So although I'd rather be done after 6 the news has been good so I'll take it and do 7 thank you God!

I just wanted to take a second to thank all of you who read and comment on my blog I love to hear from you all so keep on writing. I did a quick calculation and I have well over a hundred followers on my blog and that's exciting in it's own right. Freinds and family I couldn't do it without your prayers and good wishes. I've been involved so much in the self help groups and met so many people with this crazy diease it's really sad when you think how many of us there are... I have had the pleasure to spend lots of time hanging out with them chatting with them through email even getting my butt kicked in table tennis by one of them. They have helped me sooooooooooooooooo much in understanding my thoughts and feelings and concerns I have. You'd think us cancer survivors wouldn't have such a good humor as we do have. This week I did the art therapy and yoga I missed my Reiki but oh well there is always next week. On march 30th "stupid cancer" is back in london this a group for young people with cancer. We'll be bowling at the palasad it should be amazing like the last one!!! So if you are under 40 and live in southwestern ontario come out and bowl with us or email me and I'll tell you how to get there!!!


Thank you to my 3 girls Jen,Marissa, and Mikayla as long as you're here daddy will fight the fight because life is always worth living. Also you're all so darn cute!!!!!!