The schedule is set

OK, the plan is in motion. At least the plan for the next few weeks anyway. I had my regular office visit with Dr. Richards yesterday and after my blood chemistry check revealed nothing out of the ordinary we focused on discussing the plan as it relates to coordinating treatment and my upcoming scan.

We are going to proceed with treatment #4 that is already scheduled for Tuesday, July 6th. I am very happy that it comes AFTER what I’m sure will be an enjoyable 3-day holiday weekend. Dr. Richards then wrote the prescription for a PET/CT scan to start the ball rolling for insurance approval. As Dr. Richards explained to me, while we’re interested in knowing tumor size our primary concern is whether there’s cancer activity. Sometimes tumors “die” and still exist while no longer supporting active cancer. So we’ll start with the PET/CT and take it from there. I assume that with this lead time that we’ll have no trouble getting the scan done very early on the week of July 12th.

So get ready Betsy, Shane, and Nick I’ll be seeing you soon over at Princeton Radiology. I sure wish I could get some frequent flier miles from these visits. I guess that I’ll have to settle for a nuclear “glow”. Ha!

The new excitement though is definitely related to insurance coverage. Our insurance carrier is changing on July 1st so how that does or doesn't play into generating some new entertainment remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

Smell the Roses

Gotta love this Mary Chapin Carpenter lyric from "The Long Way Home" on Time*Sex*Love

"Or you could be the one who takes the long way home
Roll down your window, turn off your phone
See your life as a gift from the great unknown
And your task is to receive it
Tell your kid a story, hold your lover tight
Make a joyful noise, swim naked at night
Read a poem a day, call in well sometimes and
Laugh when they believe it"

Treatment #3 and counting....

Sorry about that… I knew that I needed to make a blog entry but lost touch with exactly how much I had fallen behind.

Yes, chemo treatment #3 was last Tuesday. About all I can say on that subject is that I think the cumulative aspect of chemo is starting to take hold. During the 3-week cycle for treatment #2 I was badass enough to be able to cycle each of the 3 weekends. But despite nice sunny weather there was no way that cycling was in the cards for me this past weekend. I may try to get to the gym tomorrow evening for some easy elliptical spinning to clear my head but I’m really hoping for some flat/easy riding this coming weekend.

Treatments 2 and 3 have had successive increases in the carboplatin dosage. The big impact there is supposedly on my blood counts so we’ll see what the blood chemistry is when I see Dr. Richards on Wednesday afternoon. My expectation is also that we’ll talk about specifics for this next scan. Scheduling craziness had me seeing Dr. Fein for both of my office visits last week and he thought that we might do the scan BEFORE the 4th treatment. I hope to find out scheduling as well as MRI vs. PET/CT info on Wednesday.

As promised, following are a couple of pics from the Union High School alumni reunion where I was surprised with the annual Lifetime Achievement award.

Coach O'Dell and I striking a quick pose

Class of 1977 with Coach O'Dell (l-r Al Schweikert, Coach, Mike Halloran, and me)

Oh yeah? Well I guess I'm a little badass myself

Yesterday morning I happened to notice the following link on the cnn.com website regarding the benefits of exercise during cancer treatment. Obviously this hit close to home so I had to take a look. Click here to read the article. Marika's comment that she "felt a little badass being on my bike during treatment. I was giving cancer the middle finger" was perfect. Of course my thinking is that if she's badass that I must be too! I'm getting a kick by thinking of myself as "badass".... LOL. When I mentioned this to Stephanie Tobler she got a laugh when putting "mentsch" and "badass" in the same sentence.

Funny as it may be I'm going to stick with this badass thing for a while. We rode 31 miles in 90+ degree heat last weekend out of Washington's Crossing and then yesterday I rode a 30-mile loop from my house. The weekend warrior approach to exercise isn't the easiest but I'm enjoying the riding and definitely feeling a little badass about it.

Treatment #3 is Tuesday and since we're rapidly approaching the end of the school year for Amy I'm going to be chaperoned to chemo by Sasha. It'll be fun having her there with me. And with this treatment taking place in the Somerset office she'll get to meet all of my old friends there.

NOTE.... for all of the fans of the COMMENT feature on this blog please be aware that I have turned it back on. Last night while at our Union High School track team reunion I was lucky enough to receive some free consulting from Mike Halloran. Silly me to not focus enough on the fact that when I, as owner of the blog, sign in that there's a trash can icon that allows me to delete unwanted comments. I will take care of any stray comments that happen to appear.

Our 8th annual track team reunion was a lot of fun. It always is. Our alumni group presented our $2,500 Robert O'Dell scholarship to a very worthy graduating senior and then I got surprised when I was presented with a "Lifetime Achievement" award. To receive this award from Coach O'Dell and to be surrounded by so many old friends means a lot to me. To have been able to experience an evening such as this is just one more in a growing list of blessings that is so easy for me to see. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I take NONE of it for granted and feel very very lucky. I am incredibly humbled by the love that continues to come my way.

The words seem so inadequate but, thank you one and all. (I may post some pictures from the reunion sometime soon).

TGIF

10-day checkup today and both my white blood cell count and hemoglobin were good. 10 days of normalcy until treatment #3. Hopefully the weather will cooperate enough this weekend and I'll be able to get some bike riding in.

My thoughts this Sunday will be with Dan Nies' sister Erin who is out in Lake Tahoe with Team in Training. It's her first Tahoe experience. I vow to get back there for that event... next year would be awesome.

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

OK… OK…. I’m way overdue with this and I’m already catching a bit too much flak about it so here goes….

The trip to Colorado was fun and way too short. That’s probably a description that can be applied to all of my trips to Colorado as I always wish I could stay longer. It was a unique trip though because in addition to having the chance to hang out with the Quinn family I also had Sasha there as well as Bailey and her boyfriend Trevor. We got up to Fort Collins a couple of times with moving Sasha’s stuff out of her dorm and the always fun loop through the mountains was not only a winter wonderland of snow but also chock full of elk as we passed through Rocky Mountain National Park and the town of Estes Park.

Bailey has enjoyed the first few weeks of her time with the Colorado Rapids MLS team. She was on the field for her first home game last weekend and I think that it’s already given her some memories that will last a lifetime.

A week after my return from Colorado Amy and I rode our tandem on May 22nd in the MS Coast the Coast bike ride along with Dan Nies, Stephanie Tobler, and Grace Capato to support our friend MaryEllen Gervasini. Our original plan was to do the 170-mile two day ride but Amy and I scaled it way back and enjoyed the 25-miler. I’ve done this ride before but I think that Amy got a kick out of riding along the ocean and past familiar towns and beaches.

I then had treatment #2 on Tuesday, May 25th. Treatment week in each 3-week cycle has been a bit tough bit I also haven’t had to deal with anything ridiculous yet. Nausea has been very manageable and the worst of it has been aches/pains that are only difficult for 2-3 days. I do feel like I’m plodding through these treatments with a focus on our next scan since that will be the first opportunity we’ll have for knowing how the chemo is doing. Treatment #3 is on June 15th and I expect that we’ll discuss general plans for the scan that will come in July.

This past weekend was my 51st birthday. Three in a row with chemo, am I a lucky guy or what!? The weather was good and I was just coming out of my treatment week funk so it actually turned out to be a fun Memorial Day birthday weekend. There was a local township bike ride that some of us ride in annually and I pushed it a bit to participate. Amy and I rode the tandem and did the 20-mile route along with friends as well as with Erin who was home for the weekend. The weather was fantastic and a good time was had by all.

Brianne's birthday is the day after mine so in this pic she's the lucky one with the hat

Our Mintz’s Mentschen 2010 campaign, using the slogan “Third Time is a Charm, F-Cancer, We’ve Had Enough Tour.”, is well underway. We’ve established goals of raising $30,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and with 40 team members. We currently have 19 registered walkers and riders with a cumulative fundraising total over $4,500. You can join us and/or donate to our fundraising effort via the links on the left margin of this blog. Or, you can click here to make donations on my fundraising page. As always, thanks for supporting our team effort to raise money for cancer research and support services.