First off, just to let everyone know, the LA cancer Challenge 5K/10K is coming up on October 26th. Last year we had an incredible turn out and raised an amazing amount of money and this year is looking really good as well. We already have over 30 team members and have raised over $2500! Way to go everyone. I cannot fully express how touching all of your support is. Thank you so much for your generosity. I am really looking forward to seeing all of you. Again, we are still looking for ringers so please feel free to invite any friends or co-workers that you would like to. The link to our team page is

http://www.lacancerchallenge.com/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=264394&lis=1&kntae264394=500CD6879C444EE48F466D6D5D16E57D&team=3149367

If running is not your thing, don’t worry. I will certainly be walking and this year we will try to get all the walkers together so that we can chit chat during the race. I used to mock the chit chatters, and now I am one. Oh-well. At least I am still standing.

If walking is not your thing and you are looking for a swanky night out, the PANCAN gala is also coming up on November 15th. The tickets are a little pricey (it really is a bit much) but the last two years they have served some pretty decent food and I find it fun to get dressed up. It feels like I am pretending to be an adult. If you have cancer, the ticket price is waived so I guess that is one positive aspect of being a survivor. More information is available at www.pancan.org.

PANCAN put together a little video about pancreatic cancer that is up on youtube. I make a small appearance though I think I need be a little more animated.




Anyways, health-wise I am still doing pretty well. I was scanned last week and it looks like the cyst may have gotten slightly smaller and the mets in the liver are a little less obvious than before. All in all, very positive. Any scan with little change is really encouraging. On the current two week regimen, I usually feel like crap for the first 3-5 days and then it slowly improves so that the couple days before the next infusion I usually feel pretty good and pretty normal. I have still been throwing up pretty regularly after infusions. That is no fun. I may need to go back on the super calorie diet, as I am a little light on the scales these days. Depending on how much excess water I am carrying, it will end up either in my face or my ankles though the last few days my ankles have been fairly normal for most of the day. If I keep my feet elevated for good portions of the day, I can usually keep the edema to a tolerable level. If I spend all day standing or sitting with my feet down, by the evening my ankles look like the ankles I would imagine a 350-pound man would have.


As far as activities, I had a really good time with some of my college buddies last weekend. We all met up at Pesto’s place down in Newport. Talk about nice digs. It took about 5 minutes before a political discussion erupted and about 7 minutes before Tom and John started wrestling. The guys are always a wonderful distraction and everyone seems to be doing really well. The guys except Pesto were accompanied by their significant others which was really nice so that I had somebody to talk to while the guys were wrestling. I never really wrestled, even when I was living in the trackhouse. I guess it may be just a bit too homoerotic for me. As usual, Coffee managed to use pressure points to his advantage. Here, Coffee, John, and Tom are playing a bit too close to the water’s edge.



Both Saturday and Sunday we spent some time on the sand, which was just so nice. I would have liked to go into the water, but the waves were pretty powerful and breaking right on shore. The color was amazing.


This did not stop Coffee, Tom, and John from “reverse bodysurfing” where they would wait for the wave to break, then lie down and let the water sort of pull them into the ocean. Essentially, a great way to get sand in every orifice. Much to our surprise, Tom arranged for us to attend the symphony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Saturday night. We debated whether the impetus for the symphony was Tom wanting to get as much use as possible out of the suit he had made for himself in Beijing or Tom wanting to impress his new girlfriend Shannon. I think I am leaning towards the latter. The LA phil performed brilliantly, as expected, though I was going a little nuts trying to find where the snare drum was when they played Bolero (hidden between the basses and the cellos). After the concert we got a late dinner at Kendell’s, beneath the Music Center (thanks Dad). It was really tasty though this was the second time I got tricked by the shrimp and avocado salad. I always think they will include lettuce and it really is just shrimp and avocado.


This week was the first full week that I was dialyzing at home again. I am getting more comfortable with starting my own lines and my button holes are coming along nicely. I don’t want to jinx it, but I have been getting a little better and the squirting has eased up a bit. It’s a good thing, too considering that we have white carpet. There was a little excitement yesterday when I was accessing my fistula with my father. I got both needles in ok, but then when I was securing my venous line, I accidentally nudged the needle and it came out. Luckily, there was gauze over the needle all ready and as it started to soak the gauze I just applied pressure and stopped the bleeding. That was a new one. We did not practice that during training. Then as I was applying pressure I was wondering how I was going to create a venous access so that I could proceed with dialysis. For a brief minute we pondered whether or not I could remove the gauze and stick myself really quickly before I bled too much. Yeah, that did not sound like all that great of an idea so we just waited until I had clotted and the bleeding had stopped and then I stuck myself like normal (well, normal for me I guess). After the excitement had subsided, everything went smoothly. The fistula really is an amazing concept. My button holes are barely noticeable yet they get stuck with 15 gauge needles four times a week. I was wondering with my father whether or not there might be a cost benefit to giving drug addicts fistulas and creating button holes to prevent infections and keep them out of the ER. Now that would be a pretty progressive policy. I don’t really see it happening anytime soon.

A big guy in my life over the last few months has been my Home Hemodialysis training nurse, Richard. He trained me to use the Nx Stage system through both my perm-a-cath and my fistula and has become a great friend. His calmness and thoughtfulness made a potentially scary situation (stabbing yourself) very manageable. Thanks Richard!



Here is a pic of the two lines coming out of my fistula. Fun, fun, fun.


Yesterday, after dialysis, my father and I went to the Page museum in Hancock Park. It was a really nice little outing. The museum is small enough that I had no problem walking around the whole thing and it was really enjoyable as it brought back a number of memories from when I was a kid. I still love raising the poles in the tar that gives you a sense of what it would be like if you accidentally stepped in tar. The mammoth skeleton is really impressive and seeing the people actually working on cleaning up fossils was pretty cool. There is something of a fishbowl laboratory where you can actually watch archeology in action. It is just so tempting, though, to taunt the paleontologists who are working. It took a fair amount of restraint to not press my mouth against the glass and inflate my cheeks or lift up my shirt and press my nipple against the glass. I just wonder how they would react. Would they be shocked and possibly drop the specimen they were working on or do they get yahoos like me all the time and by now, it doesn’t even phase them any more. After the museum, my father and I had a wonderful later afternoon meal in the outdoor patio at Marie Calendar’s next door. As we sat there enjoying our happy hour pizzas in the warm sun on a cloudless day, you would hardly even know that the financial world was imploding. Again I just feel incredibly lucky to still be doing very well and am very grateful for the wonderful support from my wife, my parents, and Raytheon. All have done so well by me and I am in each of their debt.

Today, I had an infusion at Dr. Isacoff’s. It was the usual routine of running down my status, checking the blood, and then dripping the chemo. Usually by the time I go in for each infusion I am feeling pretty good so I was wondering, if that is all Dr. Isacoff sees, he probably thinks I just feel great all the time. I should give him an update a couple days after an infusion and I would not be surprised if I got a little puke on the form. Just a little disclaimer-I am writing this post infusion and I did feel like crap about an hour ago so I took a couple oxyir and now am feeling pretty nice between little spells of nausea. I hope this entry is coherent.

Again, I am really looking forward to seeing a lot of you at the Cancer Challenge. Thank you also to those who will be there in spirit. I hope that everyone is doing well.

Take Care and Live Strong,
Tyler