The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I really don't have much more to say about my status between now and January.  I'm pretty much hanging around, waiting for surgery - and you know what Tom Petty says about waiting (if you don't read the title).

Did you know that I went to the same high school as Tom Petty and a bunch of the original Heartbreakers?  Not at the same time, of course, just the same place.  They didn't name the auditorium or gym after him.  But they could have called it the "Tom Petty Junior Parking Lot" because that where the potheads hung out and maybe where he got the inspiration for "Last Dance With Many Jane."
 
Anyway, I wasn't listening to Tom Petty on the radio,but I did hear this story on NPR about a cancer survivor who's humorously dealing with her multiple cancers by creating T-shirts embroidered with various aphorisms.  Some of my favorites:

• Of course they're fake.  The real ones tried to kill me.
• I lost my colon.  But I'm still full of crap.
• Did I take my meds?  When is my appointment?  Do I have meds?

The third one refers to Chemobrain, the impairment of cognitive function that may occur during chemotherapy and last for years afterward.  This phenomenon has been known for years and recent neurological studies of breast cancer patients bear this out.  We cancer patients tend to forget things, not follow instructions, and have difficulty with some tasks that were easy for us. 

I asked the nurses whether I could use chemobrain to explain my forgetfulness before chemotherapy.  They said...  oh, I forget what they said exactly.  Now where did I put all my oncologist's bills?

Places for your stash?

This weekend, Mrs. 270 and I took the kids to Seven Springs for snow tubing and skiing, well, ski lessons because none of us know how to ski.  It was opening weekend, and the place was pretty empty on Friday, so we had the snow tubing lanes almost all to ourselves.  Overall, the boys had fun.  I 'm not sure what they enjoyed more, the snow tubing or the endless supply of cereal and fruit at the breakfast buffet.  One could get the impression that we don't feed them at home.

We had a couple of crashes on the snow tubing slope and a few falls in the beginners' ski area.  Mrs. 270 suffered the worst damage with a dislocated thumb.  Thanks to the tumor, I had a few leftover Percocet in my bag, so she didn't have to wait for the emergency room doc to write a prescription.  One fortunate thing about being at a rural Pennsylvania ski resort on opening weekend is that the emergency room in nearby Somerset wasn't crowded.  Heck, this ER was, at best, one-twentieth the size of the Shady Grove ER but there were only one or two patients ahead of her.  She left the ER with her entire forearm in a splint.  It was quite upsetting for her.  Not the pain or the awkwardness of wearing the splint, but the fact that the color of the Ace bandage didn't go with any of her outfits.

Back to the snow part. When we arrived at Seven Springs, Mrs. 270 and I realized that our outerwear would not keep us sufficiently warm and dry (the kids were properly attired).  So we headed to the ski shop.  This isn't usually a good idea because only the desperate buy stuff at the resort shops.  I tried on some skier pants, but ended up buying a pair of snowboarder pants (on sale of course).  In addition to being baggier than the skier pants, the snowboarder pants have lots of pockets, while the skier pants have none.  Even snowboarder gloves have zippered compartments.  "What," I wondered "do snowboarders carry with them on the slopes that skiers don't?"  Then I remembered Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder who tested positive for marijuana at the 1998 Winter Olympics.  He won his event and gave a new meaning to the term "Pot of Gold."

Breaking News - Updates Later!

My friend complains that I don't update this blog often enough.  Umm, did I write "complain?"  That's no way to talk about someone who just bought me lunch to fatten me up before surgery.  I meant that she made the polite suggestion that I provide more timely information to those extremely concerned about my health.

I got nothin'.

It's pretty much eating and exercising until surgery in January. After that I'll have lots of stuff to write about.

Lunch was really good though.  If you go to P.F. Chang's, try their Banana Spring Rolls - slices of banana wrapped in pastry and fried, then served with coconut-pineapple ice cream.

Grazie amica!

Training for surgery

I never played soccer at at high level.  I was on my high school's junior varsity team.  An ugly foot injury prevented me from spending my senior season on the varsity bench.  Of course, I didn't play at all in college or in grad school because (a) neither school had a soccer team and (b) what did you not understand about my lack of talent?  Only when I moved to MoCo, did I start playing again in a weekly pick-up match, with many foreign post-docs (and a gangly domestic one).  So I quickly developed a three-fold strategy:

1. pass to the Frenchman,
2. pass to the Spaniard (sorry, not you. The other Spaniard),
3) pass to the Brazilian

Early in my pick-up soccer career, I picked up a bad ankle injury.  Later on, I picked up a bad knee.  So nowadays, if I run for more than 1 minute, I have to wrap my knee and ankle and take ibuprofen.

But the doctors want me to get in better shape before surgery.  The surgeon says I should focus on cardio exercises and the oncologist says I should do some weight training to build muscle mass.  It's a good thing I didn't ask the gasteroenterologist and the radiation oncologist too, or I'd have to add pilates and jazzercise to the regimen. So now I'm resuming my pre-cancer exercise routine - OK, truthfully, I slacked off months before the diagnosis. 

Instead of actually running, I use an elliptical. It's not one of the fancy ones with many electronic controls and readouts.  It's a pretty simple one that displays the wrong speed and the wrong distance. That doesn't really matter, my goal is to get up to 20 minutes in the "green zone" of the display.  The yellow zone means I'm moving too slowly and the red zone means my ego thinks I'm a lot younger than my body is.  The lack of any lateral motion saves my ankle.  In addition to the joint-sparing, no impact workout, I can use the elliptical in any weather and, when I get tired, I don't have to worry about how far from home I am.  I also have a knock-off of the Total Gym - you know, that resistance machine advertised by Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley.  I bought the knock-off because I'm cheap and because it's reasonable for a limited amount of upper and lower body exercise, but I'm not going to get buff with this.

So, If I keep to a rigorous schedule, I'll be in decent shape for surgery.  After surgery, of course, I'll lose weight and stamina again and have to start all over again.  If all goes well though, I will be in game form when the World Cup starts in June.  With the current injuries to our crucial players, the US will need a good bench warmer.  I hope the gangly guy gets in shape too.  We may need him on set pieces.

Thank you. Gracias. Grazie. Merci. תודה

Thanks for the moral support, the practical support, the comments, the e-mails, the phone calls.

Thanks for letting me talk about this in a way that's (I hope) interesting and entertaining.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Cuts Like a Knife (or Light Saber)

I had another meeting with the surgeon to consider surgery dates.  This time, the appointment was at his Chevy Chase office, not in Washington. By the way, Chevy Chase is not named after the comedian.  It gets its name from a 14th century battle between the English and the Scots over deer-hunting.  Usually they fight over soccer and rugby.

Even though I finished the therapy at the end of September, the tumor continues to shrink.  A small part of it seems to be detaching from the lumen of the colon, which probably means that the cells in that area are dying.  A little longer wait before surgery may allow the tumor to shrink more and save some of the surrounding tissue.  On the other hand, too long would increase the chance that those tumor cells that were "missed" by or resisted by the therapy will continue to grow.  The medical literature isn't really clear on the best time to have the surgery once chemo/radiation is over.  Some of the reports from the 1990's claim that it's 6-8 weeks.  Reports from this century claim that waiting up to 12 weeks is OK.

The standard practice in Europe, however, is to wait at least 12 weeks.  Maybe that's how long it takes to get into the hospital in their communist health care systems.  Over here (where capitalism roolz!), the highest bidder gets the premium time slot. So it helps for them to think you're associated with Chevy Chase (median household income of $160K).

Anyway, the plan is to have the surgery in early January.  The surgeon thinks that's not waiting too long.  The advantage is that I'll be able to spend the holidays on my feet and without Percocet.  Also, when the boys are back in school in January, I'll be able to recover at home without having to play Count Dooku in light saber duel against Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.

Tie A [insert color here] Ribbon

Have you noticed that every disease and condition has an awareness ribbon. I think it started with HIV/AIDS activists wearing a red one. Then Susie G came up with the pink ribbon for breast cancer. Those are the most recognizable and you see them on everywhere. Inspired by the quick recognition of those two ribbons and the "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbon, every advocacy group had to have a ribbon, from the obscure (congenital diaphragmatic hernia - a cloud patterned ribbon) to the paradoxical (targeted individuals - indigo). Ummm... if you don't want to be targeted, don't wear a freakin' indigo ribbon. When all the ribbon colors were used up, the cause mongers moved on to bracelets. Full disclosure, I wear a yellow LiveStrong bracelet... I mean wristband, men wear wristbands not bracelets... You can get these in all colors and for all causes too, like a green one to support democracy in Iran or you can simply order a set with your own cause stamped into the silicone.

As noted by Timothy Noah in his Slate article, the proliferation of ribbon and wristband campaigns has diluted their impact to the point where they have become mere fashion statements. Some of the ribbon colors even have several meanings. Orange, for example, stands for Leukemia And Lymphoma awareness, Energy awareness in Nigeria, ADHD awareness, and six more causes. Oddly enough, it does not stand for "Protestants Marching Through A Catholic Neighborhood In Belfast" awareness. The oddest one of the orange ribbon causes is Self-Injury awareness. What do these people do, carefully pin on a ribbon and look in the mirror?

The LiveStrong wristbands encompass awareness of all forms of cancer. But the raison d'etre of an advocacy group is to stand out from the pack in order to attract attention and money. So each form of cancer has to have it's own color. Colon cancer awareness is blue. I'm quite puzzled by that, as it should be brown.

Anyway this got me thinking about other colors and patterns and what they could mean.

• Checkered: NASCAR disease awareness. Help stop hundreds of thousands of southerners from watching cars turn left then crash.
• Peach: Beat Florida awareness. Worn by University of Georgia fans until they win another game. Buy a few of these, Dawgs. You'll wear them out waiting.
  
• Plaid: Catholic Girls Start Much Too Late awareness. Nuff said.
• Paisley: Formerly The Artist Formerly Known As Prince And Now Again Known As Prince awareness. Please help this man make up his mind.
  
• Polka Dot: Chicken Dance awareness. Stop the gratuitous use of this song at every wedding, office party, and neighborhood block party.
• Suede: Let the National Zoo Lions Eat The Stupid Deer That Jump Into Their Enclosure awareness.
• Leather: Real Meat Is Tastier Than Tofu awareness. Soy burgers? Puh-leeze!
• Leather with studs: Punk Rock awareness. Like they need more attention.
  
• Black and Red: DC United Needs Another MLS Cup awareness, aka the Fifth Star campaign.
• Anthracite: Stop US Soccer from Wearing Ugly-Ass Colors awareness. Whatever happened to red, white, or blue?

Did I forget any?.

Copa Mundial-Coup du Mond-World Cup

Sometimes I forget that this is a soccer blog too. Because readers of this blog come from all over the world, here's my take on how our countries did in qualifying for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

• El Salvador - Lo siento amiga.
  
• England - Qualified easily, but will still lose to Germany in the tournament.
  
• Israel - Had resounding win over Luxtensteinbourg or something, but failed to earn even a playoff spot, falling behind Greece and Latvia. Seriously, Latvia?
  
• Ireland - Earned a playoff position. No Roy Keane means no distracting drama. In a playoff with France. How do you say "au revoir" in Gaelic?
  
• Italy - The Azurri are headed to South Africa and will need to atone for their Confederations Cup disaster.By the way, I'm still looking for the blue on Italy's flag. If you find it, let me know.
• Scotland - Too bad you didn't qualify. It always fun to see the Tartan Army at the World Cup finals. Come to think of it, they have a habit of cheering for another small country so that they can attend the World Cup, drink, and sing obscene songs about the English.
• Spain - Also qualified easily, upholding their tradition of waiting until the knock-out rounds of the tournament to disappoint todo el pais.
• Trinidad and Tobago - Have another Carib. Rough times after a tremendous effort in 2006, but thank you for keeping Mexico in second place..
  
• United States - Yes, we qualified and finished in first place, but will can we really be happy with that? Honestly? Raise your hand if you dreading the draw.
  

I've got to admit it's getting better

As mi amigo madrileño told me, "The problem with giving people updates is that they expect to get them all the time." So, as you've noticed, I've been inattentive to my updating. And with the excusable position that not much has happened.

My chemo/radiation ended on October 2. For about two weeks after that, I was at a very low energy level and needed to get i.v. fluids several times for dehydration. As I wrote in a previous blog entry, I just watched military discovery and military history channels.

Aside to local soccer fans: surprisingly, Vercingetorix was not featured on any episode of "Barbarians." However, I did see quite a few on the various invasions of Great Britain by the Saxons, Vikings, and... ummm... West Indians, thereby proving that the History Channel is just as anglophilic as Fox Soccer Channel.

There are a few good things to report. My appetite is returning. Which is good as I had dropped 10 lbs. on the adenocarcinoma diet plan. My energy is slowly returning and my blood pressure seems to be climbing back to normal after weeks of being in double digits (for both systolic and diastolic).

Finally, I had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon. He thinks the tumor shrank by about 50%. That's consistent with the absence of pain in the area since the fifth week of therapy. The radiation oncologist thinks it may have shrunk more than that, as it's hard to differentiate the tumor from dead tissue with that kind of exam. But the only way to tell is to inspect it upon surgery.

Here [He] Comes Again

OK. This is the first blog entry in about 3 weeks. If you're expecting a lot of news, then you'll be disappointed. In the last three weeks, the effects of chemo and radiation have really caught up to me. In addition to radiation burns, I've had low blood pressure and needed to get i.v fluids because I haven't been my usual, perky self. Also missing are my appetite and ambition to do much other than watch WWII documentaries on the Military Channel and Military History (I can tell you a lot about the P51 Mustang and the B17 Flying Fortress).

I did finish the chemo/radiation therapy last week. That was a huge relief because the end of radiation means that the tissue damage won't get any worse. Now I'm healing for a few weeks until my tissues are again damaged by surgery. Then more healing.

Then more chemo.

Then more healing.


When I'm in remission and have recaptured my energy, I want to start a rec league soccer team of radiation therapy survivors called "Nuclear Boots." And yes, the goalkeeper will wear drip-dry gloves.