Happy holidays

Believe me, I know how much of an understatement this is but I’ll say it anyway… It sure feels good to be looking at a new year and with no medical issues pending.
I had a regular 6-week checkup with Dr. Richards yesterday and everything was very much status quo.

There was a moment of muted excitement when Vicki, one of the oncology nurses that I feel blessed to have had caring for me, questioned why I still had my medi-port. I say “muted” because even without Dr. Richards input I knew that it would be on the hasty side to be looking to have it removed right now. And that’s exactly what Dr. Richards said when he came into the room. My status is in a middle ground where we’ll see how it goes with the next PET/CT, or two, or…. LOL.

But the good part is that the port is continuing to work trouble free. With each office visit they use it to take blood to check my blood chemistry and then flush it to make sure it stays in good working order.

So, as I continue to make plans for what I hope to be an active and exciting new year of bicycling events I wish you all a terrific holiday season and a happy, healthy 2010.

As I was saying...

I just registered to ride with "The Missy Express" in May to help raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I met Missy Gervasini while we were both participating in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training program and I recently learned that Missy has been diagnosed with MS.

I'm thrilled to be able to do this in support of Missy as well as Amy's aunt Ruth Rabinowitz.

If you're local to NJ maybe you can ride with us? There are a number of options to choose from when it comes to mileage. As for me I'm shooting for the whole enchilada... either a 1 day 100-miler or the two-day 170-mile ride.

Otherwise, you can support us with a donation on my event fundraising page, http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/JackMintz

Thanks.

The results are in....

I received a call from Dr. Richards at about 5:30 tonight with preliminary feedback on the PET/CT results. Similar to my prior scan this one also showed low levels of "activity" but the readings were a little lower this time around. So, while not 100% clean these are definitely good results. I'm not sure yet but I'd expect that an endoscopy won't be needed right now either.

As always I'll pass along any other information that becomes available.

But NOW I feel better about locking into those 2010 cycling plans that I've been mentioning. I will be registering to ride with "The Missy Express" and also trying to decide which LiveSTRONG event(s) I will do.

And in anticipation of my joining the Cheben family in Philadelphia this weekend, "Go Army beat Navy"!!

Game on

OK… game on.
After a small hiccup on the first attempt for insurance approval my next PET/CT is scheduled for this Wednesday at 7:45am. I’m ready. I look forward to seeing my friends at Princeton Radiology and hope to get the chance to express my appreciation for how they've been a comforting presence to me during the two year roller-coaster ride I've been on. We’ll see what the PET/CT shows and, if necessary, we’ll schedule a follow-up endoscopic ultra-sound for a closer look.

I haven’t been able to get to the gym nearly as much as I had hoped but weekend cycling has been awesome. A couple of weekends ago I did 34-mile rides on both Saturday and Sunday. This was followed by a significant milestone ride last weekend where I rode 36 miles at Washington’s Crossing including two of the more challenging climbs that we do in that area (for the Mentschen and TNT’ers out there these were Mine Rd. and Pleasant Valley). The best part is that I felt much better then I could have expected on those climbs. Overnight snow (slush) cancelled our early morning group ride today but I waited until the temperature got in the 40 degree range and hit the road for my familiar 34-mile loop. My objective is to continue this through the winter, hopefully with more consistent weekday spin classes, so that I can handle an ambitious 2010 event schedule. I plan to ride in support of my friend Missy Gervasini with her team “The Missy Express” in the May 2010 Coast the Coast event to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. And, of course, we’ll also be doing one or more LiveSTRONG events in 2010.