4-30-2007 through 5-5-2007

Early last week I mostly just hung around the apartment and tried to take care of a few minor things. I have been reading a bit these days and Eva and I have been enjoying the West Hollywood Library just up the street from us. Unfortunately, days filled with educating myself do not make for very exciting blog entries. I suppose I’ll just skip ahead to the highlights, but first, a brief health update.

Everything is just moving along as normal as things get these days. I have had a few chemo sessions since the last scan and a full round last Monday. That was the first full round in a while and it was nice to hang around the office for more than a half hour or so. Eva and I are still getting a feel for the new regimen but even after about three months, what I get and when I get it still seems fairly fluid. I suppose I should request that Dr. Isacoff would just lay out the schedule for me, but I would rather spend the brief interactions kidding about various life happenings than worrying about the exact day I get the next bit of poison. I keep rough tabs on what I am getting and speak up when I think I am due for more (though I keep quiet when it might be a bit early). The best I can figure is that I get Mitomycin C every 4 to 6 weeks. I get Taxotere, Epirubicin, and Erbitux about every 2 to 3 weeks, though not in the same week as Mitomycin C. I will also get other doses of Erbitux on the in between weeks. I am still doing 2 weeks of Xeloda throughout all this which is just a couple of pills that I take in the morning and at night. This regimen is harder and easier in different ways. I still think I should be getting much more chemo, especially after the scan in January and the slight increase of the cyst but I cannot argue with the stability that was seen in the April scan. Though I do enjoy spending time in the office, the old GFLIP regimen was pretty time intensive and did take quite a toll on me. I would spend about 4 hours one day getting Gemzar, Irrenotecan, and Erbitux one day and then come back the next day for about 5 hours of hydration and Cisplatin. Then I would go home, sit on the couch like a blob and receive loving comments from my wife like, “My, you look like the cutest little bloated squirrel I have ever seen. Are your cheeks really that big or are you just carrying around a jar of nuts in case you get hungry?” Anyways, I am still just plugging away. I take what they give me and so far it has worked pretty well. I do think that my mood is affected some days, though not severely, and I also do not feel like myself, physically, some days, but that is to be expected. I am not sure if it was the chemo or the heat but the first few days of this week have been pretty draining. Maybe I should go back to work just for the air conditioning. I do not know how productive I would be but I think I would be more comfortable.

Again, like I said, the beginning of last week was not all that exciting. Just a brief environmental plug... I switched out all of the light bulbs in our apartment for fluorescent bulbs and would recommend for everyone out there to do the same. They are supposed to last for like 8 years, sounds like another challenge for me. Can I outlive my lightbulbs? The gauntlet has been laid down. This will be a bigger challenge than outliving my credit card’s expiration dates or making it to my next birthday (check, oh-yeah!). We will see how I do.

On Wednesday evening, Eva and I met Adam and Tran at Holmby and played a bit of golf. It was Tran’s first time playing golf and she did really well for the amount of effort she put into it. Once she got onto the greens, golf sort of morphed into hockey and she just sort of guided the ball into the hole. Luckily we play double par as max and she just took her sixes like a champ. It was good to see both of them and they seem to be doing really well. They are about halfway through dental school and are actually performing dentistry on real people. I am not sure how it is set up, but I am imagining something like the hair salon training studios where you can get a free hair cut if you do not mind the risk of uneven sideburns. I am sure that the dental students are all very proficient; you just might want to ask for an extra bit of novacane before getting started.



My father was off on Thursday, so my mother and he came up and we all went off to the Getty Villa in Malibu. We met my friend Tiana and her father David up there and it was just a gorgeous day. Both Gettys are just incredible places to hang out. The ambiance is really unbeatable. Where else can you go, pay $8 to park, and relax in the lap of luxury surrounded by incredible works of art. The Villa houses the antiquities and nearly everything on display was in excess of 2000 years old. There were even some pieces from the stone age that were pushing the 4 to 5 thousand year old mark. Pretty amazing. Flowers were blooming in the gardens and the light breeze off of the ocean was just right. My poor father was going in for a minor check up the next day and in preparation was restricted to clear fluids the day before. While the rest of us enjoyed a wonderful lunch on the terrace, he managed to make the most of some hot tea and a coke. I tried to make him feel better by
telling him that my pasta pomodoro was horrible and tasteless though in actuality, it was delicious. He managed to maintain quite a pleasant demeanor, which I have found extremely hard to do during the mornings I have had to fast for my CT scans. Well done, dad.

Friday morning I met David and Tiana on the links at the Heartwell par 3 course in Long Beach. This was something more than the little pitch and putt that is Holmby. There were actually holes that exceed 100 yards here, no messing around. Luckily, everyone was OK with the infinite mulligans rule and we all took a pretty relaxed attitude towards the game (that is the only way to maintain any semblance of sanity in golf). I posted a few pars and was pleased with my play, though I got more familiar with the trees lining the right side of the fairways than I would like to admit. David is a really good golfer and Tiana and I could certainly learn a thing or two from him. What I would give for a bit of consistency. I can hit some nice shots from time to time but the shots in between are pretty abominable. Oh-well. On the 15th, David put a nice little shot right onto the green and somehow Tiana managed to end up right next to him in two shots. I was, again, off in the trees to the right of the hole but still managed to recover for a bogey.


After golf, I made my way back up to the apartment and Eva and I found a new way to be decadent without ever stepping outside. Don’t worry, I will keep it clean. We ordered delivery and then watched a dvd on our home theater. Not exactly making the scene as you might expect from a couple of twenty-somethings but we have settled rather nicely into our old married couple niche and are quite happy being there. We ordered sushi from the place a couple blocks away, a half hour later it was at our door and we were good to go. What a world we live in. The feature for the night was Happy Feet. I will say that it was an Eva pick just to maintain some sense of manliness. It was a fun little movie and I know I am just repeating myself, but I really enjoy the projector. It has been an enjoyable splurge. My friend Nick also really likes his, though I think he is getting a touch of grief from his fiancé as he hesitates to go out to movies anymore because he argues that they basically have a theater in their own house.

For the weekend, Eva and I got up fairly early and got out on a run/ride. Eva was feeling good so we ended up going all the way to Holmby where I parked the bike and walked a couple of laps. It was amazing, there were really only about five groups on the golf course. I guess people do not get up very early for the public course in Beverly Hills. Somehow we did not have any cash on us (we usually carry at least a few bucks) so we could not even rent clubs to get out and play a bit. Bummer. We enjoyed our little stroll and eventually made our way back to our apartment. Using the GPS throughout the morning’s trip, I found that we covered exactly 8.67 miles. How I lived without knowing that before, I do not know. We got cleaned up at the apartment and then Eva made another idea materialize and set us up with tickets for 12 Angry Men which was playing at the Ahmanson. We caught the afternoon matinee and it was a great performance. George Wendt (a fellow big guy) played the juror #1 and Richard Thomas played the questioning juror #8 (both are TV actors though they were a bit before my time). It was kind of neat going to a matinee because after the performance we still had a good portion of the day available to us. Since we were in downtown, we decided to hit the fashion district and see if we could find any sweet deals for Eva. It may not be that manly, but I really enjoy the fashion district. The cultural diversity and activity that is going on really give it a unique feel; as if you are in a whole other country, especially when you compare it to the Beverly Center or the other shopping Meccas close to where we live. We saw some nice things though the only item we came home with was a belt for Eva, which she added to her ensemble right then and there.

We cruised back towards West Hollywood and decided to grab dinner at Barney’s Beanery. I did not realize until we were seated, but Saturday night was 10 months since diagnosis. Pretty amazing. Who knows what the future will hold, but I have to say that it has been an incredible 10 months and I would like to thank everyone who has helped make it quite a remarkable time for me. Each one of you has helped me along my way in one way or another and for that I am truly grateful. Just to single out a few, my parents and new parents have been incredibly kind and loving to me, and Eva has been beyond description. Her love and support has given me the strength and outlook to make it this far and I am really working hard on getter her the 80 years I owe her. We joked the other night, “10 months down, 79 years and 2 months to go.” We raised a glass to that sentiment, and enjoyed a nice meal at one of our favorite spots. Just to put this out there, if anyone is in the area and has a hankering for smores, just give me a call and I will be there.

Take care and live strong,
TN