Schedules and dates and such

Yesterday we had a very good meeting with the oncologist. We nailed down some dates and some better projections for the future, both of which I was really glad to have. In a nutshell:

• This week's chemo treatment is the last I'll have for a while, so as to build up strength for the first surgery. I'm off the Avastin now for good. My next chemo treatment won't be until January 26th, so I can expect to feel really good through the Xmas and New Year holidays. That's nice!
• Liver resection surgery is scheduled for January 7th. Though this is no small thing, the liver is a fast-growing organ that we hope will re-grow itself to much of its function in only a several weeks. The oncologist says I will have "normal" liver function with only perhaps 15% of it, and it should re-grow to perhaps 60 or 70% of its original size, so I should be good-to-go there in the future.
• About as soon as I am strong enough to take it, we'll do the colon surgery. I don't know when that will be, maybe in March or somewhere around there.
• Beginning January 26th, I will go back on chemotherapy and start radiation treatments as well. That's to make "really really sure" that the cancer won't spread any farther from the initial site, and to ensure that the lymph nodes around there are all cleaned out and not harboring additional malignant cells.
• The chemo and radiation treatments will go on for quite a while after that. We were a little surprised to hear it will be through the month of June or so, but in the big picture that's not so long. I've been doing this for almost 3 months now, so I have come almost 1/3 of the way down the road. So far, so good.

Last week I was really busy. It was the end of my "non-chemo" week and I felt pretty good, though with more side effects than from the previous cycle. I attended the Christmas party that the Chattanooga Grotto of the NSS put on. I was president of that group for a few years, a few years ago, and am still friends with most of them. It was good to catch up with the local cavers.

Also, I got to help my friend Benjy with a filming project that he is working on. I did a little bit of rigging inside Mystery Falls Cave, right over a nearly 90m (300') pit. He is making a documentary film about the Jews who hid in Priest Cave in the Ukraine during WWII, and will use some of this footage to represent conditions there. It was a bit tiring for me, but it was great to be inside a real cave again, doing some actual rigging. Even so, I felt like a puppy who has his nose to the window but who can't come out to play as I watch the other rigger re-bolting and negotiating a dicey traverse around the pit.

Finally, on Sunday, step-son Nic wanted to check out his new rock climbing shoes at the local crag, so I said I would be his "belay slave." It turned into a big family outing as Pam came along with Nic's wife Jessica and their 4-month-old baby Adley. We hiked to Sunset Rock and rigged an easy, fun climb of about 20m (60') up the sandstone caprock. Nic nailed his climb with ease. Jessica did great as well, but elected to stop about halfway up. Mustering up all the courage I could find, I took a crack at the wall, and stumbled upward even though I was wearing gloves and hiking boots. It made the climb more challenging, but that was good for me.

All the activity left me really tired and slightly feverish at the end of each day. I am still deciding if that was just my body's healthy reaction to the exercise as it worked to purge these diseased cells or if that means that I worked too hard and I was hurting myself. I'll probably have it all mapped out by about next June or so...

In the meantime, other than turning grey at first and now mellowing to a kind of green color, I'm doing well with this round of chemo. Things even taste kind of good to me. Mostly, I am looking forward to a good "quality of life" experience over the holidays with friends and family. All y'all.

Cheers,

Clem

Silver Linings

Today's topic is "Silver Linings", the good things that have come about over the past few months. It turns out that there are more than a few of them.

Spending time at home. I live in a lovely log house, deep enough in the woods that only in the winter can I see the lights of my neighbors, and then only barely. It has been wonderful to watch the season change. I got back here just in time for the leaves to turn. Each morning, the huge picture windows in the bedroom would light up with a new brilliant color, reflected from the rising sun. Moving into the new "man-pad" has been a pleasure, too. It's still too full of junk and disorder, but every day it gets closer to being my perfect little sanctuary (or lair...)

Family time has been a pleasure, too. Usually I'm on the road, either for work or just to be rolling along, so I just "catch as catch can" any quality time with friends and family. With a new grandbaby in the house (4 months old now) there is something new to see every day. He always has a smile for me, and wants to come and be held. Pam has been glad of the studio time and the "together time" we've had, even though some of it is for the wrong reason. This has brought us closer together, which we have needed lately. My parents dropped by this past weekend, bearing gifts! How sweet of them. They brought me a huge, snuggly-warm cotton bathrobe (perfect for dashing to and from the hot tub) and hauled off some chairs and boxes of stuff we had for them. A great deal all the way around.

Working has been good, too. Not exactly the kind of high-adventure that I signed up for, but not bad all the same. I attended a 3-day professional course on Confined Space work and wrote a short presentation for the guys at Ropeworks. They enjoyed it and found it helpful, and it fulfills a requirement for annual training. Next semester I will teach a course for a good friend over at the Southern Adventist University. They have an outdoor leadership program that is really taking off, and I keep in close touch with the people there. The program director there said "Now that you are captive in town for a while, would you like to teach?" He cheers me in my travels (and generally beats them with his own) but he knows an opportunity when he sees one. It works for me.

My friends have rallied and gotten behind me in ways that I would never have dreamed before. I've always appreciated them and treasured their presence in my life, but now it is at a whole new level. If you're reading this, then you are either one of those friends or family, and your renewed closeness with me is the shiniest silver lining of all.

I'd better close this now, before I get too maudlin and start weeping or something. Cheers!

The Surgical Oncologist says...

Breaking news: they'll be breaking into my liver in January. So far, even with the new pictures, there's no reason not to do a big liver resection, and it looks like the date is January 5th or 6th. The surgeon was cautiously enthusiastic. This is a pretty big operation, and there is a significant risk associated with it, including infection, liver shutdown, and death. His plan is to peek in there with a 'scope, verify that there is no additional cancer in the area, then to make the big cut and take out 50-60% of my liver, almost the entire right lobe. There is still a possibility that he won't be able to complete the operation, but all we can tell so far indicates that we're ok.

With that, things will be pretty stable until then. I will continue my chemo treatments, but without the Avastin drug (it can cause bleeding, which I don't want after surgery.) I'll be off a week, then on a week, for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for checking in, and for appreciating the new blog format.

Good News from the Oncologist!

So I'm on treatment number 4, and the side effects are indeed getting worse each time. That's not bothering me, though, because the oncologist said today that the chemo was working very well! The scans reveal that there are no new tumors, that the existing tumors are all shrinking (not exactly "melting away", he said, but shrinking), and all my blood tests were in the green. As far as he's concerned, I will be ready for surgery either the week after December 15th or the week between X-mas and New Year's day. Everyone seems to be very leery of the surgery, but I'm inclined to think "bring it on" and let's get another step in this process checked off the list.

I'm looking forward to life after cancer.