Pain in Nick's A**: Where the sun don't shine

So back in July I had my clearing colonoscopy. Finally the doc was able to go all the way to the Appendix and Ileocecal valve (where the small intestine joins the large intestine). I should probably be given a discount as the doc doesn’t have go to as far (since they removed about 12” of my large intestine) and the path is most likely less tortuous, but I doubt that will happen. Prior to the procedure I spoke with the Doc and told her that I remembered my last colonoscopy and I’d rather that not be the case this time. She said that must have been unpleasant…yes…yes it was. She knocked me out, took a look around, found the polyp that was seen on the virtual colonoscopy, clipped that sucker off, and sent me on my way. The polyp was determined to be a tubular adenoma with no evidence of cancer. So that’s good. In a year they’ll take another look around.

On Tuesday I had a CT to check for recurrences. There are some nodules in my lungs that the docs are keeping an eye on. They don’t think they’re cancer as they have been stable on all of the previous scans. Well this scan was no different. The nodules continue to be stable. They are the exact same size as the day they found them nearly a year ago. Seeing I went through some nasty chemo and they didn’t get smaller, most assuredly they are not cancer. No doc will give you a 100% guarantee, but I'll take a 'most likely not' at this point. So the scan came back clear.

So as of today I’m considered NED (No Evidence or Disease). They typically don’t start throwing around the ‘cured’ title for colon cancer until you’re out about 5 years without a recurrence. So surveillance mode it is. I’ve got another follow-up in 3 months for blood and a check-up, another CT scan in 6 months, and another colonoscopy next July.

In the meantime I feel great. So getting back to living a normal life is in order and hopefully the last year will just become a bad memory.

Pain in Nick's A**: Chemo...DONE!

So here I am...I take my last Chemo pills in the morning. DONE...Freaking DONE. Oh how glad I am to not have to feel crappy again next week.

Last Chemo Drip Treatment

During my last drip the Stanford Infusion Center staff sang me a little song.

So what are the next steps? Well on the 18th of July I get the pleasure of finally having a full colonoscopy, since they've been unable to get a good look past the first few inches. So that will be fun. After that I'll have a CT scan sometime in the fall just to keep an eye on everything.

As of now I look forward to recovering from the Chemo (little neuropathy in the feet), then hopefully this can all go in the history books as a bad nightmare.

Pain in Nick's A**: Senseless Violence

Right now by the thousands, my cells are being massacred. Destroyed by this nasty cocktail of drugs I'm taking and hopefully for absolutely no reason at all. One might wonder why I say that. Don't I want the drugs to be killing the cancer? Well yes, killing cancer is a good thing, I'm all for it. As a matter of fact I'm one of the biggest fans of dead cancer. But, my best shot of a long healthy life is that all of the cancer was removed by the surgery. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing if the surgeon got it all. So that's where the Chemo comes in, to mop things up. Chemo is good at prolonging life, which is a good thing. Unfortunately it is piss poor at 'curing' cancer, at least colon cancer. So here's for hoping there's some serious senseless violence going on.

I'm about 66% through treatment now, four infusions down, two to go. If the schedule holds, I take my last chemo pill the last week of June. So there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait, I feel so good during my off week, it will be nice to feel good for consecutive weeks. The side effects from the infusions are hanging on a little longer each time. This last infusion kind of sucked. I started getting a tingling sensation around the IV site, by the end the inside of my whole right arm felt like it was asleep. The cold sensitivity is the most annoying, feels like you're swallowing razor blades when you drink cold water. The peripheral nueropathy causes tingling in the hands and feet, isn't great by manageable. So far I've been able to keep the hand/foot syndrome (cracking, swelling and blisters on the palms and sole of your feet) at bay, by slathering up with bagbalm before bed. I think I'm also experiencing a little "Chemo Brain", my short term memory seems to be slipping and forming and saying words in a conversation is challenging from time to time. Telling someone a story I've told before doesn't seem to be affected, but with new speech sometimes the words just don't seem to flow. I see the words in my head, but they just don't get turned into sounds out of my mouth. Really kind of annoying. So if I seem slow from time to time, you'll have to forgive me. Luckily it seems to be temporary.

Once the Chemo is done I'll probably have some scans (CT and another colonoscopy) in the mid Oct. time frame. Oh how I'm looking forward to potentially two consecutive months of no poking an prodding.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I still don't recommend cancer. It's not that fun.

Oliver's Second Year

Here's the video of Oliver's second year on planet earth. The video is a bit long, but I don't know cutting a year of memories into about 20 mins isn't to bad.

Just a quick note the video won't play on the mobile youtube app because of copyright issues with some of the songs we used for what ever reason (probably because they can't efficiently place ads on mobile devices but have no problem on computers). But you should be able to watch it on a browser on a mobile device just fine (worked on my Android phone using Google Chrome).

Pain in Nick's Ass: Serious Bussiness

So probably everyone realizes Cancer is a big deal. If you don't let me tell you from experience, it's a big deal. It's easy for cancer to become the 'elephant in the room', but one of the reasons I decided to write about it in this blog was to at least reduce the size of the elephant. I really have no problem talking about it, if you have a question and I know the answer, it's yours. Beware though, I'm am not a believer in the, "there are no dumb questions," paradigm. Yes, there are dumb questions, some really dumb questions. "Does having cancer suck?" Yes, dumb question. "Are you going to die?" Yes, we are all going to die at some point, dumb question. "Is Chemotherapy fun?" Yeah, I kind of like feeling like poop for days on end...No Chemo is not fun, dumb question. "Does it hurt to have a portion of your colon removed?" No, it tickles...of course it hurts, dumb question. I think you get the point.

One of the first things you do when you have a serious health issue, is you look at the odds of a good outcome. It's human nature to try and correlate those odds to your individual case. The problem is each case is individual. As of 2000 stage IIIB Rectal Cancer had a 5 year survival rate of about 45% according to the American Cancer Society. Yeah...55 out of 100 people with my Cancer don't make it 5 years. That number is a bit sobering, huh? On the other hand 45 do survive, unfortunately there's no way for anyone to know what group you're in. The 45% is a bit of a worst case number as it includes non-cancer deaths and the data is a bit old. A better number is probably is probably in the 60-70% range.  Even then I have a number of things on my side, my age being probably the biggest one. If the cancer comes back, I'll be strong enough to kick in the teeth again. But, the fact is, there just isn't enough data of people my age to get at the survivability rate for my little demographic for my particular cancer. In the end, I'm not sure it matters. What if the survivability is 90%, that is still 10 people dying out of 100. Is that suppose to be comforting? Not if your one of the 10. In the end the odds are what they are. It really doesn't matter what the odds of getting struck by lightening are to the guy that gets struck by lightening, because his day just got really bad. I have basically been struck by lightening. Out of 300,000,000 people in the US about 150,000 are diagnosed with Colon Cancer. Of that 150,000 only 10% are younger than 50. So that takes the 150,000 to 15,000. The numbers are a little sketchy, but of the 15,000 approximately 1500 are less than 35 when diagnosed. So, I'm one of 1500 in the entire US to get Colon Cancer under 35. About 400 people a year get struck by lightening. So really you have two options let the scary numbers scare you or not worry about them knowing that I will do everything in my power to punch caner in the nose over and over again until one of us wins. I'll choose the later.

One of the other things that go through one's mind is, "what caused this?" Unfortunately a question like this could drive you crazy, because no one knows what exactly flips the switch of a epithelial cells that gets them to start multiplying unchecked. There are risk factors like smoking, obesity, drinking, to much red meat, lack of physical exercise and genetics. But all they prove is correlation not causation. Maybe 'Fat Nick' and all those burritos I ate for lunch were the cause, but there are plenty of people who are infinitely less healthy than 'Fat Nick' ever was, yet they never get Colon Cancer. So in the end I'll never know what caused the runaway cells and it was likely some mutation that there was no way to control. With that said I'll probably be living a bit healthier, so don't expect the return of 'Fat Nick'. Yeah I know, he was a fun guy and his head doubled as a basket ball, but he's gone from this world.

I will say it sucks to have to start contemplating your morality at such a young age. No fun at all.  Lindsey and I were forced to have hard conversations about the future of our family. We were going to start trying for kid number two last October. But, "surprise you have cancer", kind of put a halt to those plans. So kid number two goes on hold, or is there even going to be a kid number two? It's really easy to say, "oh just live your life," or some other free spirit BS. To some extent I agree, you don't want every waking thought to be, "damn...I might die in a couple months." With that said a more than healthy percentage of stage 3 cancer patients, don't make it to five years. Would it be responsible of Lindsey and I knowing that, to pop out kids like Pez candy? I personally don't think so. If I'm gone who's going to kill the spiders in the house? It's crappy to have to think about these things, but in the end we both have responsibilities and not taking into account a future potential issue is irresponsible, in my opinion.

With all of that said given the free and clear signal, the significant reduction in the amount of crazy drugs I'm taking, and appropriate length of time to ensure there are no 3 eyed swimmers left in me, we are going to try for another kid. With Linds and I both having siblings and how cool it is, we just can't imagine Oliver going through life without that.

This all might sound a bit pessimistic to some, but it's real and sometimes reality isn't all that great.

Pain in Nick's A**: Adjuvant Chemo Started Today

So I started Chemo today...yippee. The first drug on the cocktail for the day is Oxaliplatin, it screws with the DNA synthesis in the tumor cells due to it cytotoxic (toxic to cells) effects. It's pretty nasty stuff, the nurse came in with a with a gown and thick gloves carrying the IV bag. Makes you feel real comfortable they're about to pump this stuff through your veins. Also got a steroid, Calcium, Magnesium and an anti-nausea drug. The whole thing took about 7 hours. I started getting some of the symptoms by the time the drip finished. Cold sensitivity, soreness in my arm the put it in. etc... There's a huge list and I had more by the time I got home. Good times...

I started the Xeloda again tonight, I only have one more pill to take a day than I did before, so I'm hopeful it won't be much worse than last time.

Found this little video on the Xeloda...kind of interesting.



With all of that said hopefully this is all for nothing and the radiation and surgery did the job to remove the tumor.

Oliver's First Haircut

Last week Oliver got his first haircut. He went from our baby to our little boy. It's amazing how a little haircut changed the look of our little monkey.

Getting ready for the cut, he got to sit in a car and watch Winnie the Pooh so he was pretty happy about that.

Getting the cut.

He had fun wearing his 'Batman' cape.

All done with the cut.

Our little guy...all growed up.