Status Update - Good News!

I just met with my oncologist, and we went over the results from my latest CT scan:

• The tumors in my lungs have have shrunk 60% - 70% since the last CT scan on April 4th
• The large tumor in my pelvis is the same size. However, there is a pool of fluid on the inside of the tumor, which is caused by necrotic tissue. This indicates that the tumor is dying from the inside out

I expect that I will be seeing my surgical oncologist in the next several weeks. We will be discussing the following surgical opportunities:

• Removal of any remaining tumors in my lungs
• Removal of the tumor in my pelvis
• Some surgical repair of my pelvis, which is fractured. This would reduce the pain in my buttocks

I also discussed whether I would be returning to work after this round of chemotherapy. My oncologist says metastatic osteosarcoma qualifies for long term disability. I will not be returning to work in July, and may not work again ever, unless they can operate to the point where I am 'cured'.

There are still some obstacles to being cured: the tumor in my pelvis would need to be removed (which would be very difficult right now), as well as the tumors in my lungs. I expect that my life expectancy has gone up, at the very least.

Happy Memorial Day!

A Jim Dandy

My sister called a couple of weeks ago. "I'm coming to see you".

"Coming to Michigan on business?"

"I'm going to be in the area, and I thought I would stop by and see you."

I subsequently learned that she was going to be in Harrisburg, PA. Harrisburg PA is NOT "in the area" for Ann Arbor. It takes about 10 hours of driving to go from my house to my sister's house in NJ. Harrisburg is about 2 hours into the ride - only 8 more hours to go!

When people learn that you have cancer, they want to do things for you: drive you to chemo or doctor's appointments, make tasty treats, give you books on how to lick cancer by changing your diet. My next door neighbor actually mowed my lawn for me - which mortified me to no end. (A man who can't take care of his lawn is hardly a man at all, is he?)

Two days before Mary was scheduled to arrive, she called again. "I went on Friendly's web-site and found the closest one to your house. What kind of Fribble do you want?"

Mary and I share an abiding love of Friendly's. Whenever I go to NJ, a stop in Friendly's is always on the agenda. For example, when my nephew John got married, Mary and I convinced our families to stop at Friendly's, where we got Friendly Franks and ice cream. Please keep in mind that this was on the way to an Italian wedding reception, a bacchanal not seen since Roman times, and you will realize how ludicrous this course of action was.

Now, I happen to know that the closest Friendly's is about an hour away. I contemplated what a Fribble would look like after an hour in a hot car.

"Mary, it'll melt."

"I've got a cooler. I figured I could get some dry ice or something."

I pondered this a moment, and said "You know, what I would really like is a Jim Dandy dish".

The Jim Dandy is the ultimate expression of the ice cream confectioner's art. Five scoops of ice cream, three toppings, a banana, whipped cream, chopped nuts and topped off with a marachino cherry. It is presented in a glass bowl not unlike a heavy duty brandy snifter, shouting to the world that this is no ordinary confection, but five thousand calories, a diabetic coma, a root canal and a heart attack all rolled into one. I figured that at least the glass bowl wouldn't melt.

Two days later, Mary arrived at our house. From her insulated lunchbox she pulled a strawberry Fribble. And then, from her knitting bag, she pulled a Jim Dandy dish.

"It's still got Friendly's crud on it!", she said brightly. She then went on to tell the following story, while I sucked contentedly on my Fribble:

"I asked the woman at Friendly's if they ever sold Jim Dandy dishes. She brought one over and set it down in front of me, and went off to make the Fribble. She came back a couple minutes later with the Fribble. She looked at me, and then at the Jim Dandy dish that was still on the counter. 'You don't get it, do you?', she sighed."

My sister is as straight as an Eagle Scout and church camp. She is not meant for a Life of Crime.

"Get what?"

"'They'll never miss it. Do you have a bag to put it in?'" I held up my knitting bag. Two seconds later, it was in the bag, and I ran out the door. The whole way to the Michigan border, I looked in my rearview mirror, waiting for the police car's flashers."

Two gallons of premium ice cream - $10.
One pint of strawberries for strawberry topping - $2
One bag of chopped nuts - $2
Organic bananas - $4
Marachino cherries - $6
Whipped cream - $3
Having your sister drive eight hours out of her way, and embark on a Crime Spree in Ohio to bring you a dirty dish - priceless.

Status Update

It's been a week since I finished my last chemo. I have been religious about various mouth rinses,  and I have had minimal mouth sores as a result. I have been struggling with gastro-intestinal distress, but Pepto seems to have helped that.

My sister came last weekend, and she, Sue and I went to Mary James' party for her daughter Lucy. Lucy is getting married the Saturday after I finish my last chemo, in a sunrise ceremony in a park in Chicago. A good time was had by all at the party, and I ended up with a bunch of choclate covered strawberries.

I hope to go see Percy Jones and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief at the dollar movie today. This movie, if nothing else, wins the award for most awkward movie title. I have to hope that it will be worth a dollar...

Painting continues to drag on. The painters did the master bedroom and bath. When Sue came home she realized that they didn't mix the paint right, and that the wrong paint was on the walls. So the painters are coming back next week to repaint the walls in the master bedroom and bath. Hopefully with the correct color paint this time.

My brother Gerald is supposed to come visit for a few days next week. More on that later.

Me in the Four-Star General's Hat

By popular demand, here is a picture of me in my four-star general's hat.

Here is the backstory: in my first blog posting, I mentioned that I needed a hat, and that I had asked my cancer buddy Frank to see if his daughter Natalie (who is an officer on an AWACS for the Air Force) to see if she could get me an unusal unit baseball cap. Natalie replied that the Air Force doesn't have unit hats, although she sent a very cool AWACS hat.

It turns out Frank's neighbor is a retired four star general. He was generous and gracious enough to order two fitted four-star general caps. The result is pictured above.

I must admit that I rarely wear these. I never served in the Armed Forces, and I am somewhat concerned that wearing the hats would be somehow disrespectful to those who did serve.

But it is an incredibly cool hat. Eat your hearts out!

Battling cancer

It seems that everyone I talk to wants to talk about "battling cancer". This evokes a mental image of a knight in shining armor facing off against a hideous dragon labeled "cancer". The battle is usually described as a heroic encounter, and the incredible bravery of the cancer patient is invoked.

I personally think that this is a crock.

You don't battle cancer, people. Cancer is a condition that happens to you. You then throw yourself into the maw of the medical establishment, who subject you to any number of indignities, including: pumping poison into your veins so that your hair falls out; bombarding you with radiation until your flesh burns and slicing you open like the Thanksgiving turkey and scooping out bits that you had previously been well, attached to.

Primarily, your job as the patient is to cooperate and suffer. You can comport yourself with dignity and equanimity, trying not to bite the heads off the people around you. You do this as you gradually waste away (or not). I guess if you can pull this off, it can be heroic - facing your fate resolutely. But it's not a battle.

A battle implies that you have some say in the outcome. Really, the only say that you have is to follow the instructions of your doctor, and what attitude you have while you do it. If it's a battle, then you are the battlefield, not a combatant: it's mutant cells against your doctors.

I dislike this metaphor because it implies that the cancer patient is somehow responsible for the outcome of their treatment. This is true up to a point, but only to a point. Mostly, it seems from my perspective that the outcome is largely out of your hands, and you are along for the ride.

I have struggled to come up with a different metaphor, but I haven't found one yet. Perhaps it is more like a sea journey in a small boat. You can set your sails for your destination, but if the seas and the winds don't cooperate, you aren't going where you want to.

Status Update

I had a meeting with the oncologist yesterday. The good news is that tumor in my pelvis appears to have shrunk. I am pretty much done with all chemo side effects. Next round starts on Monday, May 10th. <yea.>

We got the oncologist to talk about Life after Chemo. It seems that one of the tumors in my lungs is pretty inoperable - it would require removal of at least the lobe it is in, if not the entire lung. He doesn't think that they will want to do that. They also aren't going to want to operate on the pelivic tumor if it has grown into the sacrum. This is because it would (a) cause paralysis (b) require a colostomy bag for the rest of my life (c) require rerouting my ureter so that it emptied into the colon, and thence to the colostomy bag.

So the bottom line is - if the tumor in my lung isn't gone after the last round of chemo, they aren't going to operate. Instead, I would get two or three months off, and then they would start me on a different kind of chemo. The only way that they will operate on the pelvis is if the lung tumor is gone, and if the tumor isn't in the sacrum.

On the other hand, if the tumor is gone in the lungs, and the tumor in the pelvis has retreated from the sacrum, they will operate within weeks of the end of chemo. He even used the "C" word . (CURE) Wow.