Happy Holidays!!

Hope everyone had a chance to celebrate the holidays with family and friends!  I know I had a great time visiting the Yakima Valley and hanging out with extended family and friends and missed those that were out of town.  The holidays were good to me and with the constant food eating I was able to put some weight back on.  I know plenty of you out there were dreading this inevitability for yourselves but I was looking forward to it after my weight dropped a bit last round.  It only took eating plenty of Cougar Gold cheese, homemade pumpkin pie, steaks, and whatever other goodies were available.  

The chemo treatments are starting to hit me a bit harder and it took me another day to crawl out of my "hole" this last round.  When I was feeling half normal I headed south to visit Vancouver for a few days.  To my luck, some object bouncing down the freeway popped up, skipped across my hood and bashed into the passenger side of the windshield.  I never saw where the object came from and it definitely freaked me out.  There were even small pieces of glass in the cabin of the car.  I didn't need to stop for coffee after that, so much for an uneventful car ride down I-5.  The good people at Progressive did manage to get the car fixed and ready to go as quickly and painless as possible and I can't even tell where the dent was on the hood.

Damage of the object on the windshield with bits of glass on the inside.

Work has a tradition on the last day before the holiday break of having a breakfast potluck and enjoying skits produced by your coworkers making fun of the year of events.  I dropped in on the last day and had a great laugh.  I don't know how they managed to squeeze in time to do them between the trips to China and long hours.  It was good catching up with coworkers and letting them know that I'm making progress.  Of course they are all curious when I will return, as am I.  

Right now the plan is to finish chemo in January and scan again.  Then we will assess the situation for surgery.  I still haven't talked directly with a urologist surgeon but from what I gather they will give me a few weeks off to recover from the chemo then I will go under the knife.  My guess is that the extent of the surgery and recovery will vary widely as to how well this last half of treatment beats up on the cancer.  I'm hoping to be feeling good by the end of February but something tells me that is a bit wishful and March would be more likely.  

Here are a few pictures of the last few weeks of activity:

 

After Vancouver I headed to the Yakima Valley for a white Christmas (yep it snowed).  My nephew got to go sledding down the same hill we enjoyed as kids.  

 

My brother and I tried to be a little artistic in turning mom's glass cake dome into a snow globe, complete with snowmen.  After making a gallons worth of jello, marshmallow snowmen, and a gummy bear Christmas tree (a sticky mess) we ended up with what you see below.  Turns out we didn't dilute the blue jello near enough and the globe was a bit foggy.  Better luck next time I guess.  

The nephew must not have gotten all he wanted for Christmas as he was still looking at magazines.  Or maybe he was getting hungry :-)

Enjoy the holidays!  I plan on being in Seattle to ring in the New Year. Today marked the end of Round 5 drugs so there is only one more Round left!  So far I was feeling well enough today to go see The Hobbit after I rested up with 3 naps :-) it was worth it.

Good News!

Results are back and there was a 30% reduction across the board and no spread of the disease!!  The cancer groundhog saw his shadow so I'm in for six more weeks of chemo.  Hoping to reduce the tumors as much as possible before surgery. 

Anxious

Today I get to find out how the cancer has reacted to the last 6 weeks of treatment.  The CT Scan was on Monday along with blood draw that is normally done today.  My nurse told me over the phone that the lab work from the blood looked stable from last time which is good.  For those who haven't gotten a CT scan before, the scan itself is usually very quick.  I think this one took all of 5 minutes after I laid down on the moving table.  However, if they want contrast in the scan you get to drink a liter of not great tasting fluid over the course of 45 minutes.  For some reason that isn't enough contrast so they also pump it into your vein during the scan which can make you feel uncomfortably warm, like you pissed yourself.  Then while lying on the table you hold your breath as the move you in and out of the giant donut shaped machine. 

My appointment for the results isn't until 4pm today so I get to practice my patience and try to distract myself until then.  Thanks for all the messages of thoughts and prayers.  It is hard to believe it has been nearly two and a half months since I found out of the spread of the cancer.  In some ways it feels like a year ago.  Regardless of time I have been impressed and humbled by the support I have received and so very thankful I haven't had to go through this alone. 

Halfway point?

Round 3 Day 2.  I've noticed my agenda for the past month has constantly revolved around where I am at in my treatment cycle.  It's a little interesting not being able to plan things out more than two weeks in advance with any sort of commitment.  Hopefully this treatment cycle marks the halfway point and there are less than six weeks to go!  Of course we aren't out of the woods after chemo but it is a definite milestone. 

Speaking of milestones, in less than two weeks I get new CT scans to figure out how the cancer has reacted to the chemo treatment.  I am really looking forward to seeing the results but trying not to get too worked up about them.  It would be great to see nothing on the scans but that is highly unlikely.  I feel like we will see good regression of the cancer cells but of course I fear that we may not see any regression and heaven forbid seeing progression of the cancer.  My blood work came back looking very similar to two weeks ago, good but not great (compared to a healthy, not on chemo person) but definitely good enough to continue treatment.  My medical team says I'm doing very well with the treatment regiment, I even put on a pound since the last weigh in! 

Thanksgiving week was great.  I got to spend it surrounded with good friends and family and plenty of good food.  Even my sis Karin flew in from the East coast to spend time with us.  I was lucky it was my off week and so food was appealing (the appetite tanks for a few days after treatment).  We had dinner at my brothers house with about 15 people present and a couple kids crawling around.  For the turkey we fried and smoked another, both were ridiculously good but the smoked one was better.  Probably was the blanket of bacon on it that gave it the edge.  I also tried frying the pumpkin pie (think individual hand pies, not the whole thing).  It worked well when I could keep the pocket of dough stuck together and not leak out the filling, they were tasty.  Next time I think we will try freezing the filling so it won't spill out so easily.  Even with all the craziness going on in life, there is still plenty to be thankful for. 

Well I haven't shaved in 3 days and it doesn't even look like my usual 5 'o clock shadow.  Quite patchy.  The hair loss has mainly been the top of the head and the beard, still have eyelashes and eyebrows but who knows how long that will stick around.  It seems to go fast when it goes.  Not looking forward to hiccups tomorrow, they did happen again after last treatment so it will probably continue.  Once again, better than nausea.

Looks like we are once again ahead of schedule for infusion for today.  This dual port has definitely been a time saver.  Looking forward to heading back to Richard & Anna's house to hang out with the nephew!

Beard Removal

Sorry for the delay in posting these, hope you enjoy the progression. The soul patch I left behind was slowly disappearing so I'm actually completely beardless now.  After this session of beard trimming (a week ago) I hopped in the shower to clean off.  As I was washing the hair on top of my head I noticed quite a bit of it was left in my hands and in the shower drain. As a result I decided that it wasn't worth trying to hold onto.  It now feels much colder outside.

Yep, cue balled it up :-)

Uhoh

My nephew likes to pull on hair and my beard is starting to get to the shaggy stage.  This morning he got a nice handful and gave it a tug.  Usually this causes me to say ouch.  However, this time Will just made off with a chunk of hair and no pain on my side.  Looks like the hair is starting to fall out.  Any requests for beard/goatee/moustache styles for me to try as I proactively shave this thing off?  I'll take some pictures to share on the blog.  Act quickly as I'm not sure how fast I'm losing it yet and at the same time am not too enthused about shedding into my bowl at meal time.

Chemo Casual

Last week I discovered that regular crew neck T-shirts are not great for access to my ports.  So this week I wore a button up shirt for easy access.  However, walking out of the house this morning with my comfy Adidas sweat pants, I must admit the combination is a bit unorthodox.  What do you think?  I also figured I would pose next to my dancing partner, the rolling pole.  It gets to come with me on jaunts to the bathroom and I get to figure out ways to try and tangle myself in the tubes attached to it.