Thursday, July 31st

Hello everyone.
I’m sorry for the blog silence over this past week but you’ll be glad to know that it had nothing whatsoever to do with my health. For you worry warts out there that get nervous when you don’t see a blog entry for a while it’s OK now to assume that no news is good news!! LOL.

With the positive medical news has come a shift to working less from home and also for more total hours per week. The result is that I’ve been a bit tired lately and this is actually the first time this week that I’ve touched my laptop in the evening. Hence no blog entries.

But as for the current medical report the heparin is doing its job and the worst of the blood clot episode is behind us. The swelling in my neck is gone and it’s no longer sensitive to the touch. I began taking coumadin on Monday of this week and based on my visit to Dr. Richards today we hope to be able to stop the heparin by early next week. As expected Amy has been doing an excellent job with administering the heparin injections. My next visit to Dr. Richards will be on Monday afternoon and we’ll assess my blood counts yet again. Once I’m free from the heparin the focus will transition to tweaking the coumadin dosage. It’s expected that I’ll be on coumadin for approximately 2-3 months.

On Tuesday of this week I actually had a very symbolic and unexpectedly emotional milestone. Livingston Infusion Care, the company that provided my visiting nurse Lana and the pump that administered the 5FU chemo drug with each treatment, came to pick-up “the box”. In addition to containing 7 chemo treatments worth of medical waste “the box” contained the pump. They actually came to my office to make the pick-up and upon signing the receipt and returning to my desk I found myself in tears. I suppose it truly was a symbolic end to the chemo process. I hadn’t given much thought to how it might hit me when I really thought about it.

The first Mintz’s Mentschen LiveSTRONG event is getting very close and the TEAM has been really cranking up the miles and hill training in recent weeks. They’re ready. As for me, I’ll be slugging along on the 10-mile route on August 24th (I think the actual mileage is slightly higher then that). If there was something in the 20-30 range I’d do that route but the next event route is 45 hilly miles and there’s no way I can pull that off right now. So, my appearance will be largely symbolic and also so that I can give my teammates a huge hug in thanks for their love and support. Total fundraising is now above $28,900!!