This time last year, I wasn't thankful for anything. I know it sounds horrible but being two weeks removed from one month in the hospital doesn't make you very grateful or thankful.
Here is a list (in no particular order) of what I am thankful for this year.
Gabriel, my son. Daddy loves you!
Beau, my brother, without him I wouldn't be writing this list
My family, most notably my parents
My friends - it is really easy to give up on someone when they seem down in and out
My wonderful team of oncologists
All of my new brothers from the Masons
Chinese food
Pizza
Beer (in moderation of course)
Good and Bad comic book movies
The Food Network
and most importantly complete remission from lymphoma
Like I mentioned before, this list is in no particular order but just some of things I am thankful for now and will not take for granted anytime soon. Be thankful for everyday you breath and experience life. Be thankful for the people in your life who love you whether you're being a pain in the ass or a complete angel. Not much more to say.
I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving and you survived black Friday if you were brave enough to go.
Cheers!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Blood on the Down
Neutrophil granulocytes, commonly referred to as Neutrophils, are the most abundant type of white blood cells in humans and form an essential part of the immune system. Neutrophils are typically found in your blood stream. However, in the beginning stages of inflammation, particularly with bacterial infections and some cancers, neutrophils are one of the first responders of inflammatory cells to move toward the inflamed site.
On two separate occasions since my diagnosis with cancer, my Neutrophil count has dropped to zero. On both occasions I’ve been hospitalized. As far as I know you need to have a Neutrophil count of at least five, or at least I needed MY count to be five to be released from the hospital.
My first experience with a low Neutrophil count was following my third treatment of chemotherapy around July 4th of 2008. I had a high temperature, mouth sores, dehydration, and exhaustion. After contacting my oncologist, I went to Dana Farber to be checked out. Upon arrival to the hospital, my temperature was 102.5. As soon as the nurse started to draw blood cultures, I passed out and had the first and only seizure of my life.
Waking up from a seizure and seeing 20 strange faces in front of you, your wife crying and people yelling “Code” and trying to stick you with IV needles is quite the experience. If I hadn’t just regained consciousness, I probably would have passed out again. I didn’t know what happened and no one would answer my two questions. “What happened?” and “What does that mean?”
Regardless, I was placed on a stretcher, put in an ambulance and taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After five days of tests, IV fluids and antibiotics, my Neutrophils rose to a normal level, my temperature dropped but we never found out what kind of infection I had.
Now this past Memorial day, I had no temperature, felt fine and just happened to be at clinic for my regular monthly check-up, but I had no Neutrophils in my blood work. I went to Boston for a check up and ended up staying in the hospital for 5 days. Tons of scans, blood work, and even another bone marrow biopsy found no infections or problems in my body. My Neutrophils were at zero for 3 days. Day four it rose to one and morning five it was at twenty-two and I was released.
I think my point is whether I feel sick or don’t, whenever I have blood work done there is always a chance I will hospitalized. The doctors and nurses will poke and prod. They won’t find any problems and I’ll magically be better 3-4 days. Talk about frustrating!
I want to close this post my saying I am very proud of my son. We just celebrated his 3rd birthday. I don’t remember his birthday last year as I was only 16 days removed from the stem cell transplant. Gabe is adjusting so well to life with his parents separated. He can spell his name, count to 24, sing “you are my sunshine”, ask to use the potty, and wants to help or do everything my himself. He knows his full name, his mommy’s and daddy’s names. He says “I love you” all the time. He is SO special and SO smart. He will be my legacy one day when I’m gone and I couldn’t be prouder.
Daddy loves you, Gabe. Happy Birthday!
~Cheers
On two separate occasions since my diagnosis with cancer, my Neutrophil count has dropped to zero. On both occasions I’ve been hospitalized. As far as I know you need to have a Neutrophil count of at least five, or at least I needed MY count to be five to be released from the hospital.
My first experience with a low Neutrophil count was following my third treatment of chemotherapy around July 4th of 2008. I had a high temperature, mouth sores, dehydration, and exhaustion. After contacting my oncologist, I went to Dana Farber to be checked out. Upon arrival to the hospital, my temperature was 102.5. As soon as the nurse started to draw blood cultures, I passed out and had the first and only seizure of my life.
Waking up from a seizure and seeing 20 strange faces in front of you, your wife crying and people yelling “Code” and trying to stick you with IV needles is quite the experience. If I hadn’t just regained consciousness, I probably would have passed out again. I didn’t know what happened and no one would answer my two questions. “What happened?” and “What does that mean?”
Regardless, I was placed on a stretcher, put in an ambulance and taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After five days of tests, IV fluids and antibiotics, my Neutrophils rose to a normal level, my temperature dropped but we never found out what kind of infection I had.
Now this past Memorial day, I had no temperature, felt fine and just happened to be at clinic for my regular monthly check-up, but I had no Neutrophils in my blood work. I went to Boston for a check up and ended up staying in the hospital for 5 days. Tons of scans, blood work, and even another bone marrow biopsy found no infections or problems in my body. My Neutrophils were at zero for 3 days. Day four it rose to one and morning five it was at twenty-two and I was released.
I think my point is whether I feel sick or don’t, whenever I have blood work done there is always a chance I will hospitalized. The doctors and nurses will poke and prod. They won’t find any problems and I’ll magically be better 3-4 days. Talk about frustrating!
I want to close this post my saying I am very proud of my son. We just celebrated his 3rd birthday. I don’t remember his birthday last year as I was only 16 days removed from the stem cell transplant. Gabe is adjusting so well to life with his parents separated. He can spell his name, count to 24, sing “you are my sunshine”, ask to use the potty, and wants to help or do everything my himself. He knows his full name, his mommy’s and daddy’s names. He says “I love you” all the time. He is SO special and SO smart. He will be my legacy one day when I’m gone and I couldn’t be prouder.
Daddy loves you, Gabe. Happy Birthday!
~Cheers
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Coming Home Again
Who says you can never go home? I’ve done it several times in the past. Thanks to my parents I have always had that option. I came home after college. I came home after a failed apartment experiment. And most recently I came home after a failed marriage.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my parents for their continued love and support throughout all my endeavors in life. They’ve dealt with my best on the stage, on the field, in high school, in college, at the workplace and my worst with relationships, my struggles with teenage angst, depression, suicide, and cancer.
Several of my supporters have asked me to write about a topic I wasn’t truly ready to tackle. For the love of my son Gabriel, I won’t go into great detail and will keep this somewhat short.
Let me say I have no regrets In life, but Lord knows, I have made my fair share mistakes. Just a few being attempting suicide in high school, attacking a friend in college, buying a house far out of my financial means and my marriage. Hindsight is always 20/20 and you can‘t change the past. All we can do is learn from it.
My wife and I were engaged three months before finding out we were pregnant with our first and only child, Gabriel. His due date and our wedding date were set only weeks apart. So, we cancelled our wedding plans, got back what deposits we could, flew out to Las Vegas on May 21, 2006 and got hitched. On November 21st of that same year, Gabriel was born.
Less than three years after our Las Vegas marriage, my wife asked for a divorce. There are many reasons she asked for a divorce and I know my sickness was one of them. Life hasn’t been easy for me but I know it must not have been easy for her either, dealing with someone sick on a daily basis for 10 months. Going in and out of Boston for treatments. Taking care of a toddler by herself while I lay in a hospital bed. Living with someone who didn’t share compassion and had all but lost his passion for life.
Perhaps, I am naïve but I always thought marriage was taking the good with the bad. Sickness and health. Richer or poorer. Until death due us part. I now know this is just rhetoric and doesn’t mean much. I actually had to keep myself from laughing at a recent wedding when I heard these vows repeated by the bride and groom. How sad is that?
And despite everything that’s happened, I still believe in love and would like to find my happy ending. My happily ever after. But I realize, it won’t come from someone else. I need to find my own happiness as does everyone. Whether it is cooking, sewing, music, art, religion, exercise or doing nothing at all. If you can’t make yourself smile, don’t expect someone else too.
I love my son so much I am not going to divulge anymore of my feelings here. I could go on for much, much longer, but I’ll keep my harsher feelings on this matter between me, my journal, and my counselor.
Thank you again for taking the time to read. I still have so much to say but am so unorganized. Stay with me. There is MUCH more to come.
~Cheers
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my parents for their continued love and support throughout all my endeavors in life. They’ve dealt with my best on the stage, on the field, in high school, in college, at the workplace and my worst with relationships, my struggles with teenage angst, depression, suicide, and cancer.
Several of my supporters have asked me to write about a topic I wasn’t truly ready to tackle. For the love of my son Gabriel, I won’t go into great detail and will keep this somewhat short.
Let me say I have no regrets In life, but Lord knows, I have made my fair share mistakes. Just a few being attempting suicide in high school, attacking a friend in college, buying a house far out of my financial means and my marriage. Hindsight is always 20/20 and you can‘t change the past. All we can do is learn from it.
My wife and I were engaged three months before finding out we were pregnant with our first and only child, Gabriel. His due date and our wedding date were set only weeks apart. So, we cancelled our wedding plans, got back what deposits we could, flew out to Las Vegas on May 21, 2006 and got hitched. On November 21st of that same year, Gabriel was born.
Less than three years after our Las Vegas marriage, my wife asked for a divorce. There are many reasons she asked for a divorce and I know my sickness was one of them. Life hasn’t been easy for me but I know it must not have been easy for her either, dealing with someone sick on a daily basis for 10 months. Going in and out of Boston for treatments. Taking care of a toddler by herself while I lay in a hospital bed. Living with someone who didn’t share compassion and had all but lost his passion for life.
Perhaps, I am naïve but I always thought marriage was taking the good with the bad. Sickness and health. Richer or poorer. Until death due us part. I now know this is just rhetoric and doesn’t mean much. I actually had to keep myself from laughing at a recent wedding when I heard these vows repeated by the bride and groom. How sad is that?
And despite everything that’s happened, I still believe in love and would like to find my happy ending. My happily ever after. But I realize, it won’t come from someone else. I need to find my own happiness as does everyone. Whether it is cooking, sewing, music, art, religion, exercise or doing nothing at all. If you can’t make yourself smile, don’t expect someone else too.
I love my son so much I am not going to divulge anymore of my feelings here. I could go on for much, much longer, but I’ll keep my harsher feelings on this matter between me, my journal, and my counselor.
Thank you again for taking the time to read. I still have so much to say but am so unorganized. Stay with me. There is MUCH more to come.
~Cheers
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Chimerism
“Chimerism (Marrow Transplant Engraftment) Monitoring assesses the relative ratio of donor and recipient cell populations in the post-transplant peripheral blood and/or bone marrow of the patient.”
Since the stem cell transplant, my oncologists perform chimerism studies (blood work) every couple of months to determine the percentage of my brother’s cells in my blood stream. My most recent study just came back and I am 100% my brother’s cells. Obviously this is outstanding news.
However it isn’t always peaches and cream. There are many things that can go wrong with a donor stem cell transplant. The same way things can go wrong with an organ transplant. Even with a perfect match, complications can occur. The worst, of course, resulting in death.
Wikipedia states Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a common complication of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in which functional immune cells in the transplanted marrow recognize the recipient as "foreign" and mount an immunologic attack. It can also take place in a blood transfusion under certain circumstances.
In simpler terms, your body rejects the new stuff and tries to fight it off by any means necessary. I have some first hand experience with GVHD, even with a 100% chimerism of Beau’s cells.
Seven months ago, my breathing became so labored I was using an oxygen machine. I landed in the hospital for 4 days over Memorial Day weekend and have been taking steroids ever since. Luckily, the steroids corrected my breathing but left my body a battered, bloated, and fluid-filled mess.
Funny thing about steroids…the first 4-6 weeks I felt empowered and unstoppable. This must be the reason why athletes use them but only in cycles. Since those initial weeks, the muscles in my legs and lower back deteriorated to the point where I had to push myself up from chairs because my legs were too weak. I actually fractured my lower back trying to pick up my son and needed 2 weeks of bed rest and 3 months of physical therapy.
And don’t get me started on the hunger and eating related problems. There wasn’t enough food in the house to keep my appetite at bay. I am a good eater anyway and this just made things worse. But once the energy went away, the pounds packed on as did the fluid. Unfortunately, now the fluid is in my skin and not my veins, so I have to wait until the steroids are completely tapered down before the fluid will hopefully flush out of my body. Ugh!!!
The moral of this story is. You need to take the good with the bad. I wouldn’t have gotten to this point (cancer free) without having been through many struggles. The initial battle is over but the war still rages on.
Keep me in your prayers and I’ll keep up my spirit and the fight.
~Cheers
Since the stem cell transplant, my oncologists perform chimerism studies (blood work) every couple of months to determine the percentage of my brother’s cells in my blood stream. My most recent study just came back and I am 100% my brother’s cells. Obviously this is outstanding news.
However it isn’t always peaches and cream. There are many things that can go wrong with a donor stem cell transplant. The same way things can go wrong with an organ transplant. Even with a perfect match, complications can occur. The worst, of course, resulting in death.
Wikipedia states Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a common complication of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in which functional immune cells in the transplanted marrow recognize the recipient as "foreign" and mount an immunologic attack. It can also take place in a blood transfusion under certain circumstances.
In simpler terms, your body rejects the new stuff and tries to fight it off by any means necessary. I have some first hand experience with GVHD, even with a 100% chimerism of Beau’s cells.
Seven months ago, my breathing became so labored I was using an oxygen machine. I landed in the hospital for 4 days over Memorial Day weekend and have been taking steroids ever since. Luckily, the steroids corrected my breathing but left my body a battered, bloated, and fluid-filled mess.
Funny thing about steroids…the first 4-6 weeks I felt empowered and unstoppable. This must be the reason why athletes use them but only in cycles. Since those initial weeks, the muscles in my legs and lower back deteriorated to the point where I had to push myself up from chairs because my legs were too weak. I actually fractured my lower back trying to pick up my son and needed 2 weeks of bed rest and 3 months of physical therapy.
And don’t get me started on the hunger and eating related problems. There wasn’t enough food in the house to keep my appetite at bay. I am a good eater anyway and this just made things worse. But once the energy went away, the pounds packed on as did the fluid. Unfortunately, now the fluid is in my skin and not my veins, so I have to wait until the steroids are completely tapered down before the fluid will hopefully flush out of my body. Ugh!!!
The moral of this story is. You need to take the good with the bad. I wouldn’t have gotten to this point (cancer free) without having been through many struggles. The initial battle is over but the war still rages on.
Keep me in your prayers and I’ll keep up my spirit and the fight.
~Cheers
Friday, November 6, 2009
Looking for a New Direction
Good day to all my friends, family, and brethren. Today, we will be covering an interesting topic. That topic being…drum roll please - What do I do now?
Ok, ok, I know this sounds ridiculous but just hear me out. As you know, a week ago I was diagnosed cancer free. For the past 18 months, besides thinking and caring for my son, my only concern, focus, and identity has been on me and my battle with lymphoma.
Granted I am still on several medications (immune suppressants and steroids), which keep me from resuming a regular work schedule and social life. Also, I am in the midst of getting divorced, attempting to sell a house, and eventually moving out from under my parents’ roof and living on my own again. Outside of these items, I am getting closer to the light at the end of the tunnel.
My problem…when I reach that light what do I do? I have been so self contained with cancer, I am not sure where to begin or how. I want to travel. I want to find a new career. I want to spend more quality time with my son. I want to be able to find someone to share life experiences with (although I am unprepared for that now). I want to find more happiness in my daily life.
I am reaching out to anyone reading this blog. I am open to comments, criticisms, ideas, reflections, all of the above. Give me your insight as I am looking for a path.
Thank you and as always cheers!
Ok, ok, I know this sounds ridiculous but just hear me out. As you know, a week ago I was diagnosed cancer free. For the past 18 months, besides thinking and caring for my son, my only concern, focus, and identity has been on me and my battle with lymphoma.
Granted I am still on several medications (immune suppressants and steroids), which keep me from resuming a regular work schedule and social life. Also, I am in the midst of getting divorced, attempting to sell a house, and eventually moving out from under my parents’ roof and living on my own again. Outside of these items, I am getting closer to the light at the end of the tunnel.
My problem…when I reach that light what do I do? I have been so self contained with cancer, I am not sure where to begin or how. I want to travel. I want to find a new career. I want to spend more quality time with my son. I want to be able to find someone to share life experiences with (although I am unprepared for that now). I want to find more happiness in my daily life.
I am reaching out to anyone reading this blog. I am open to comments, criticisms, ideas, reflections, all of the above. Give me your insight as I am looking for a path.
Thank you and as always cheers!
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