Thanksgiving

Well, I finally got around to adding some images to the Thanksgiving post. Hopefully, the Switzerland recap will be up soon. I hope everyone is well and filled with holiday cheer. I am off to chemo Monday morning - I am still just plugging away. A more thorough update should come soon. Good luck to everyone on finishing up their holiday shopping. Keep that economy going!
Take Care and Live Strong,
Tyler

Check out Jessica's new ride. Pretty sweet. I would have rather seen her in a Prius, but you know, I can understand that high schoolers might not think that is the coolest way of getting from A to B.


My dad holding the newest addition to the family. He broke the rule of never taking a happy baby but somehow, managed to keep the kid happy for quite a while. I guess he has had a bit of experience around the little ones.


Who doesn't like a ride on a shark?


A table scene.


Me and the next cutest, I mean youngest, member of the family. I could use some photo posing tips from her. The arm thing is kind-of artsy.



I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you are reading this, you certainly have at least something to be thankful for. I had thought that I did a pretty good job of appreciating what I had before I started this journey, but there is nothing like a cancer diagnosis to make you appreciate every breath, every day, every hug, every moment spent with loved ones. It is a good perspective to have. Views are prettier, games funner, and food tastes better (unless you just had chemo). I really enjoyed my Thanksgiving as I got to spend it with almost all of my family that lives the LA area. It was really great that people from both my mother’s and father’s side got to come together at my folk’s house for a traditional turkey dinner. It had been a while since I had seen a number of them, but it is always great to get together and we always seem to pick up right where we left off. The Uno champion of the night was Aunt Charlotte. She made it look too easy. The newest addition to the family, little cousin Ian, was adorable and animated. Somehow that spoon just ended up on the floor time and time again. When you are that cute, you can do pretty much whatever you want. I wanted to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all of my family members who made it over and for making it a really enjoyable day. I hope everyone is lucky and has as wonderful of a family as I do.

I am sure you have all heard it before, but just to keep pushing it, November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness month. These are the last few days to try to raise awareness in November (not that any effort should be halted just because the month ends). Try to wear as much purple as possible and spread the word. The more awareness that is created, the more money can be raised, research done, and hopefully treatments can be found that are effective against this disease. Recently, the House and Senate tried to override Bush’s veto of the Labor-HHS(Human Health Services)- Education bill, which provides the bulk of the funding for the National Cancer Institute. The current bill has a modest and very needed increase in funding for research in all cancers. Just to give you an idea of what the bill is about and the scope of it, the bill provides for a number of good domestic causes – Education, job training, and health programs that would benefit a number of different diseases in addition to increasing funding for cancer research. The entire bill is estimated to be about 600 billion dollars. The current version of the bill is priced at 606 billion, which was too expensive for Bush. He would like to see the bill come in at 596 billion. So basically congress and the president were quibbling over 10 billion dollars that would greatly help a huge number of Americans. In the same week that the bill was initially voted on, Bush asked for funding for the war next year. His request was for nearly 200 billion dollars with no strings attached. It is just hard for me sometimes to understand how a president that has taken the national debt from 5 trillion dollars to 9 trillion dollars during his 7 years can start to get thrifty on matters that would really help a large number of people in very real ways. I agree that national security is of the utmost importance, but the way that we have pursued that end just seems a bit off track. September 11th was an atrocity and a tragedy, no question, but so is losing 30,000 Americans to pancreatic cancer every year. It is really a question of where to devote resources. It is scary and horrible to think about dying in a terrorist attack, but really, the odds are pretty miniscule. On the other hand, there is a 1 in 3 chance that you will be diagnosed with cancer in your lifetime. Now lets look at the current allocation of resources, the 2006 Nation Cancer Institute budget was 4.8 billion dollars (that is for all forms of cancer and all approaches to stopping it – prevention, diagnosis, and treatment). The next year of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is projected at 190 billion dollars. We are spending nearly 40 times more money to “fight terrorism” than cure a disease that killed an estimated 565,000 Americans in 2006 alone. Anyways, the veto stood by a close 2 votes in the house. www.pancan.org lists the ways representatives voted and if you have a minute, it would really help if you emailed your congressman or woman and let them know how important this legislation is to you. If they voted in favor of the override, thank them, if not maybe ask them why. That money will help us all in very real ways. OK, enough political ranting. Thanks for bearing with me.

I continue to plug away on chemo and do pretty well. I still feel really fortunate that my body seems to handle the chemo in an OK manner. I have moved to a once a week regimen but I seem to only get Taxotere or Mitomycin C when I go in. I barely feel like it is worth it when I only get one chemo. I think I also get the same amount of Decadron (steroids) as when I get 3 or 4 chemos. This usually sort of hypes me up during the day and I end up feeling fairly normal just a few hours after the infusion. The problem usually comes that evening when I go to bed. After my last infusion, I went to bed around 11 and was wide-awake until about 4:45am. I am usually a great sleeper, but that stuff just fires me up. My mind just races. After lying there for a few hours, I surfed the internet for an hour, then went back to bed and eventually fell asleep. If I could direct my energy a little more, I could probably be incredibly productive. Oh-well.

Another little issue came up when I went to the eye doctor a couple weeks ago. Eva had noticed some redness and I have generally been having a little trouble with seeing things that are backlit over the last year. We were wondering if it was chemo related and just thought it would be a good idea to get checked. The doctor was very nice, and what do you know, her mother-in-law had had a whipple just a few months ago – small world. She was a bit taken aback that I was so young and thought that I was in great shape for being on chemo for a year and 3 months. Anyways, the redness was just because I am fairly active and spend a fair amount of time outside, no big deal. Wear the contacts a little less, use some drops if needed. I decided to have my eyes dilated, just because it had been a while since the last time. Turns out I have a small cataract in each eye - right in the center of my field of vision. She asked if I had been on prednisone, hmmm. She agreed that taking the prednisone for the lung fibrosis was the proper course of action and, though it probably caused these cataracts, it was definitely the more urgent problem that needed to be addressed. Right now I can still see very well, but if it ever gets really bad, cataract removal surgery is pretty routine these days and they could actually correct my vision at the same time. And because I would be having it because I needed it to see, it would be covered by insurance. I guess there is always a silver lining. Just in case any one gets any ideas, I have to say, I would not recommend taking prednisone to try to get cataracts, so that you could get cataract removal surgery and basically free laser eye surgery. There are probably much easier and less elaborate ways to defraud you health insurance.

Some of the highlights over the last couple of weeks…
I have had a few fun evening activities over the last few weeks. I went to see “The History Boys” with Eva and my folks at the Ahmanson Theater on Friday the 9th. They were great seats in the second row and the play was very enjoyable. I would not recommend it, though, if you get squeamish at the idea of high school teachers groping male students. It is set in England which I think makes it OK, kidding, just yanking your chains you ol’ Brits. The next evening, the 10th, Aaron Durham and Kevin Word came up to the apartment and we all watched the Cal-USC football game. What a shame. Cal just could not even it up but it was still very exciting and really good to see some old friends. The following Friday, the 16th, Steve and Richard Larson came up for dinner and to catch up a bit. It is always good to see those guys, hang out, and drink some brews (or at least enjoy others drinking some brews). I had half a beer so I figure that I contributed to the effort.

On Sunday morning the 11th, Eva and I got up and jumped into the Ovarian Cancer 5K that started at Cedars. It was good fun and there really is no excuse for not doing a 5K when you can walk to the start. I have to say, I like their logo a bit more than PANCAN’s and their color is a bit more appealing for everyday wear. Kind of a turquoise blue-green. Still bold, but nice. It was a pretty small race but there were still probably over 1000 runners. We got Eva into the right mindset and she did very well. Posting a 24 minute 5K. We run a bit together, but lets just say our “training” runs are very relaxed. I actually tried to see what I could do without killing myself and I managed to post a 33 minute 5K. Shaved 12 minutes off of my time from two weeks prior. I tried to be more focused when I was walking and actually walk fast when I had to. I was also running scared as a marine brigade was on my heals most of the race. Their chants did seem to help my rhythm a bit plus the idea of being run down by 80 big dudes helped me dig deep. As always I also had little nemeses around me. The pudgy couple that I could just not get in front of (though I did beat them in the end) and another little kid (who left me well in the dust, well he was probably like 10, so I think it is OK). Eva and I were very pleased with our performances. Next year, at the LA cancer challenge, we will try to get the team together a bit more. We will still need the XC guys to do their thing, but it might be nice for the heart of the team (the lagers) to all walk together. Eva and I went to town on all the freebees after the race and then returned to the apartment for some post race gorging and napping.

The rest of the time has mostly been spent just doing day-to-day things. I am continuing to work about 75%. Combine that with chemo once a week and sometimes it is good to just take it easy on the weekends. Sorry about the lack of photos on this post. I just have not been carrying around my camera as much as I should be. I will try to get a few from Thanksgiving up on the next post.

Take Care and Live Strong,
Tyler