Catching up.... and IT'S LIVESTRONG WEEK!!

Two weeks between posts…. A bit long, I’m sorry about that but really I’ve been a bit distracted with treatment and its side effects, a PET scan, and the build-up to the LiveSTRONG event that is this coming weekend.

Treatment #13 came and went without incident on August 2nd. The pre-treatment blood counts showed that my white blood cell count was low (2.6) but Dr. Richards said it has been low off and on and that he wasn’t concerned. The 2-week cycle went without incident.

That was closely followed by the quarterly PET/CT scan on August 8^th. To make a long story short it didn’t bring the completely clean results I was hoping for. Some of the lesions that we have been watching on my liver actually DID “disappear” from the scan but there were some low-level SUV hits in a couple of other spots that translate into continued treatment. Treatment #14 will be tomorrow and Amy and I will be having a detailed conversation with Dr. Richards regarding the treatment protocol and frequency. I’m sure that we’ll be proceeding with the same 3-drug cocktail but with the SUV levels being so low I’m hoping that we can shift to a 3-week treatment interval so that I get a bit more of a breather in between treatments.

This would also help to conserve the few remaining vacation days that I have. With a bit of luck maybe I’ll get an actual day or two off before the end of the year.

Jacked to the Max!!

As I mentioned, the LiveSTRONG event is this weekend. Amy and I will be picking up Anne Chen as she arrives from Denmark late tomorrow afternoon. The Mentschen will have an international flair this year! Our weekend of fun will start this Friday night when we begin to meet at the event site in Blue Bell and a group of us will participate in a 5K walk/run on Saturday morning. The bike ride is on Sunday and for the first time our tandem will make an appearance as I ride the 20-mile route with Amy. I’ll have a posse of Mentschen with me and as always it will be a blast. Out cumulative team fundraising is now up to $24,731!! I’m sure that we will reach $25,000 before the weekend. Heartfelt thanks to you all for your generosity.

The 2011 version of our custom Mentschen jerseys is very cool (see the picture above). Hopefully the Lance Armstrong Foundation will re-instate their best jersey contest as I think we’d be a top contender to defend our 1^st place finish of two years ago. Last year they didn’t have the contest.

This year I’ll be riding the LiveSTRONG event to honor the memory of dear friends that I lost to cancer recently. They are Danny Millman, Scott Winters, and Jennifer Goodman Linn.