Still NED after scan...

Got my results of my PET/CT scan. I am still cancer free. Making me at least a 2 year survivor. My Remission anniversary just passed. Check up went well. Very quick visit with my Oncologist. Told me I am healthy and that my next scan would be near the end of the year.

But as I wrote in my last post, I have been having various amounts of bone pain with differing degrees of severity. My joints are making noise again and popping or snapping at unexpected times. And at times, very loudly.

Dr L. didnt equate these with any side effect from Chemo just perhaps old age.

So we reviewed my situation, my blood work came back good, he went looking for any signs of swelling of lymph nodes, checked my legs (ankles and calves) for edema. Finding none told me all was well. we shook hands and I was back outside in a heartbeat.

I also have lost about 10 lbs since my last visit with him. Which is a good thing since my weight has been a concern since my treatments stopped.

All I have been doing is eating when I'm honestly hungry and eating enough to curb the craving. No more, no less. I have added an energy bar to substitute for meals like Breakfast when eating on the go. I especially like CLIF Bar.

I don't know if I'm on to something here but to drop about 10 pounds in what has really been about 10 days means at this pace clothes are going to start to fit very differently in the next week or so.

I feel better for the most part...except for my bones. I have considered this to be arthritis but much to the chagrin of my wife I usually do not take any pain killers. Tylenol is all I should be taking since Advil and such are off limits because I only have the one Kidney.

But I shrugged off pain killers when I was on chemo too. I didn't want to become dependent on them if pain was going to be a long term side effect. I didn't want to always respond to pain with a pill.

Besides, they can't be good for you over the long haul. We have all heard stories about Tylenol affecting your liver the anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil and Motrin are no better. They go after the kidneys (or so I heard) and I only have the one.

So I try to deal with the pain as I can. I try and not make my wife too aware of what hurts because she will always recommend Tylenol because "why should you suffer for no reason?"

I read once on an old US ARMY website that "PAIN IS JUST WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY"...I liked that statement but don't want to be a hard ass either. But when a shoulder cracks like thunder or my wrists snap like dry twigs in the Forest I know something is just off in my body because the pains come and go. I have good days and I have bad days.

I have read a good amount about long term damage from Chemo. I was told by some of the oncology nurses that one or more of the drugs I received in my cocktail can and do accelerate osteoporosis, which means arthritis is waiting for me just around the corner.

But as Dr L remarked about the scars I have from surgery as I took my shirt off for my check up, "if slicing and dicing you up means the cancer stays away for ever then it's worth it right?"

I guess so. If bone pain and maybe some form of arthritis is the fall out I get from the chemo but cancer stays away...I guess it was all worth it.

If I have to choose to live something I'll choose the random body pain.

I just hope it doesn't get in the way too much. Only time will tell.


Be well.

PET/CT for tuesday

My first PET/CT for this year is scheduled for Tuesday. Of course, as usual I am anxious.

I am extremely aware of the body pains I still have and at times tie them to the inbred fears everyone who has survived cancer has..."that pain means something" which eventually leads to"what if they find something this time?"

It's totally irrational but human nature nonetheless. I am only scheduled to have two PET/CT scans this year. This is my 2nd year out of treatment and my scans last year were basically every quarter, this year just twice. As it goes next year I will only have one...and so on.

But either way, right now I am sort of sweating this scan. I have experienced more body pain recently than I have in a while. It reminds me of the pain I would get after the white cell booster shot I got the day after chemo.

The large bones ached. My back and hips especially. I was told it was because the shot was making my body create white blood cells. I'm looking for meaning in this pain this far out of treatment...mostly I think it's the early stages of arthritis and then I think it's a sign something is wrong.

I have the routine down. I'll get to St Clares in Dover and find my way to radiology, I will be escorted to the "radioactive closet" where I will be injected with the radioactive isotope and left in the room to let it travel about in my body. It will be looking for activity that shouldn't be there(also known as Cancer)...in about an hour I will be asked to empty my bladder and then spend 20 blissful minutes in the CT machine with my arms over my head as they take a look at my guts in another room. This is approximately my 9th time thru the CT machine, you would think my shoulders would be used to it by now...but no, about 5 minutes into the scan they start to hurt.

Then I'm on my way home and I wait for the phone to ring...


Ahh cancer, making life so much more complicated all the time.



Be well.

I know it's cliche...

I know it's cliche but it seems to help reminding myself that "Life is a Journey" and it's more about "getting there" than actually getting there...where ever "there" is.

As I quickly approach 40 this year I need to keep the horizon in focus not just where I am at the moment. If all we have is this short lifespan on this earth and we waste it trying to accumulate things we don't need trying to fill a void in our lives (whether we admit it or not)...we are wasting our time on the planet.

We need to measure our journey in exactly that light. Yes, I want to write that book and maybe if luck would have it get that book published and be onto a new career...but life doesn't always work that way (if it ever does)...certainly that is possible but I have to find and make the time to write that ever elusive book and then find a way to get it out to the masses...in the meantime it's really about the journey to get there. That's what is important. Maybe it's more about the writing and not the final collection of words?

What happens when I write that book and it gets published? Is my life going to be perfect? No...I still have life ahead of me to live and now if I were to sign a contract for another book (say in a perfect in world...who knows...a guy can dream) I would then have more work to do...suddenly my dream is "work" and I often wondered the same thing when I was a practicing cartoonist...thinking about how much I enjoyed the process and creating and making art that I lost sight of the "what happens if..." I get that syndication deal and now I have to produce a comic strip every single day.???

Part of me wants to believe I would have been ecstatic and loving life but part of me also thinks the beauty of it would get lost in the translation and I would hate the drudgery of the grind.

So along the way you have to reset your priorities and allow yourself to see life is about the voyage not the destination. It's a marathon not a sprint. It's how you lived your life not what you acquired along the way. The man who dies with the most toys, still dies.

This lets me concentrate on where I am at 40. What have I accomplished? what have I done? Who cares? who I am trying to impress? Do I need letters behind my name "PhD? Esq?"
I can put them there anyway what does it matter? Even if someone else went to school and earned their MBA who gives a crap? What is it all worth?

A hill of beans. That's it.

In the end we all die. In the end we all will have our blood replaced with embalming fluid and people will come to pay their last respects as we lay in a box. We will take that final trip to Shady Acres cemetery and we will be left in the ground to rot. Our legacy is what we did while we walked the earth, not what we earned or how big our house was. Certainly there are opportunities to do good and leave behind a better place than we found it, but in the long run (and this is all about the long run) everything we collected amounts to nothing. It's about how we live not what we have.

We will live, We will breed, We will die and We will disappear.

What happened in between DOB and DOD is what matters. It's all about that "dash" between those dates.

Life is a journey...pay attention, take some notes and enjoy the ride.

I Doodle...

Borrowed from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-smalley/doodling-and-the-wanderin_b_166440.html

Doodling is the expression of a wandering mind and new research is suggesting that a wandering mind may be a good thing for humanity. A wandering mind appears to be a time when our brains are not 'doing' but rather 'being' and in that state (called a default brain state) we seem to increase in self-awareness. By that I mean we gain a greater intuitive understanding of 'who we are' in relation to our bodies, thoughts, feelings, and actions, to others, and the universe at large. This increase in intuitive self-awareness may be a key to authentic happiness.

Daydreaming is a process associated with the default brain state and one likely important for "integrating lessons learned from the past into our plans for the future" (New Scientist, Nov 15, 2008). In light of these new findings, it is a bit disturbing that we seem to be reducing daydreaming in our children's lives through the extreme emphasis in schools on doing and producing at the expense of 'wandering'. The environments that enhance such wandering may be things like being in nature, unstructured play, boredom, and probably many of the arts, particularly when unstructured (painting, singing, etc.).

I find this very encouraging. See For as long as I wanted to be a "professional cartoonist" I have also doodled. It is the one thing that comes naturally to me. But I find no real enjoyment in calling it art but I have filled several sketch books with complicated doodles over the years.

I caught myself suddenly doodling the other day after a long sabbatical (if you will)...I have been concentrating on "writing" for a while now and as other stresses in my life built up over time recently I found my pen doodling at work... ?!?

I was surprised. it was almost as if my subconscious mind said "Enough! we have to let off some steam!" and the doodles flowed.

I have often found doodling calms me down, much like jazz does. It seems to function as my reset button. I don't understand it but it works. I have suppressed it for a while now as I pursued other endeavors...but somewhere deep inside my "self" knew better.

Within the framework of Taoism is the mindset of allowing Nature to do what it does. And as human beings never content without messing things up, a result of our interfering with nature is our unhappiness in life. Ultimately a result of our "forcing" life into compartments that fit or suit our needs and wants. We grow more unhappy and we more often than not fail. Thereby adding more unhappiness to our daily lives. It's simple math really...

Doodling comes naturally for me, as it does for thousands of people. I have known this about myself for years but always ignored it. Perhaps if I capitalized on what comes naturally I'd find some satisfaction in life.

There is a lesson here.

Live Life, Make Art, Be Happy.

Let it happen naturally. Find what you do without thinking about it and there you will find happiness. They say "Do what you love..."

I need to listen to my "Self" more often.


Be Well
Doodle on...Be Happy

Remission Day!

Today is 2 years to the day that my Oncologist called me with the results of my CT scan 4 cycles into my treatment and told me I showed No Evidence of Disease.

I am up before the Sun.

Last year I did the same thing, wanting to watch the day begin on what should be a second birthday for me. This year with a lot of added stress feels a little less dramatic to me but it's kind of bitter sweet really.

From the looks of the sky today should be a really gorgeous day.

Have a good one.


Be well.

Something that should keep me in check.

I always feel like I'm playing "beat the reaper" with my goals to some how, some day make a go of being a "writer" but with all the accumulated stress in my life right now I am trying to throttle back a bit and resign myself to recognizing that I can't be in a rush to accomplish something.

I am forcing nature to fit my plans and instead of trying to "go with the flow"

It would be so much easier if I let what comes naturally happen naturally...but that doesn't feel natural to me. (??)

Hence this quote by Stephen King: "Life is not a support system for art, it's the other way around"

This is important. I struggle to write down everything I feel I need to in order to capture a moment in time. To record my bout with Cancer and to keep a history of life since my diagnosis, among other things I think are important to remember. But in the process the joy is lost. I work so hard to "work" at this and I have lost my enjoyment of making art. (or writing the book I want to write)

I used to want to cartoon for a living and I have lost any desire I ever had for that too. I've grown impatient, that is my problem. I think Cancer did that to me, but then again turning 40 also has its motivations as well.

Life continually gets in the way and it drags me down. I have bills to pay, food to buy, etc etc. Responsibility takes away a lot of freedom. I have to learn to work around that and still enjoy life.

My new Motto (I am trying to stick to) is this...

"Live Life, Make Art, Be Happy"

What I have lost is a child like wonder and fun of making art, doodling and cartooning and even now writing is a job (not anything I am getting paid for yet...but a job as in a Task) and it's no longer fun. I need to rediscover that child like wonder of art...making art for arts sake.

When I decided I wanted to be a syndicated cartoonist with a comic strip in the papers (This was in 8th grade mind you) I began losing sight of doing it for fun. It was a goal and my life's work I wanted to achieve.

I have not achieved that goal at all, and in today's day and age of self publishing and the Internet who needs a syndicate? I can produce a web comic but my issues with making art stem from the question: "Who am I making it for?"

Who is my audience?

If I was a fine artist would I only paint my still lifes if I knew it would be hung in a gallery? If not why the hell make art if no one is going to see it?

I lost the reason for making art. Life has gotten in the way. There is a saying that says every child is given a box of crayons in kindergarten... but as we grow up we stop drawing...or something like that. I can relate to this.

My position on making art for an audience to consume sounds like I'm a performer. I need an audience to consume my art. It needs to be seen and then forgotten. Like the comics in the newspapers...who remembers what Doonesbury was about today? No one. But the art is made for an audience and I am stuck on that. It influences my decisions on how I make art and what art I make. I think that's why I leaned into writing...it seemed a more correct place to speak from than drawing funny pictures no one was going to see.

At least the written word can find an outlet.

But then again...I could self publish, that would be the only way to go these days. With the Amazon Kindle slowly killing newspapers and books who needs a newspaper syndicate to publish a comic I can get on the web. That's what the Kindle allows you to do anyway.

And if books are going to just be another thing you down load and read digitally who needs printers and presses and book stores? But then I get stuck on why do anything at all and then I feel worse and don't see a purpose for anything.

Ahh Crap.

I need to step back and not worry about beating the reaper or trying to establish myself in my 40's...I need to live my life, find a way to make art and just be freakin' happy.

How hard is that?

Walking off aggression...

Last night I fired up the Wii and played Wii Bowling. I bowled about 15 or 20 games. I nailed a fair amount of strikes. Prior to bowling I got on the Fit Board and checked my weight and BMI and set a goal for one month from now. Starting weight last night was just below 257. (my highest weight was once in the neighborhood of 270)...yeah I know.

My point in all this is to start to "MOVE" some how. 30 minutes "playing" games on the Wii balance board does a lot of good. I noticed the difference in my balance tests last night, I was definitely "off" from my last set of tests almost 60 odd days ago. (the Wii reminded me it had been a while)

So activity being what it is...along with the balance board I plan on starting slow and adding a Walking program. There is a jogging feature on the Wii Fit and a few rounds of that low speed jog gets your heart rate going. I know this because I have felt it.

Like I said I am starting small. I want my body to crave the movement and have it become an actual part of my routine.

I will track my progress here and use this for accountability.

In the meantime here are some tips for establishing a walking program.


Experts recommend at least 2½ hours of moderate activity (such as brisk walking, brisk cycling, or yard work) a week.1 It's fine to walk in spurts of 10 minutes or more throughout your day and week.

Key points:
Before you start, talk with your doctor to make sure it's okay for you to begin a walking program.

Start with a short-term goal. For example, walk for 5 or 10 minutes every day. Or increase your number of steps by 300 to 500 each day.

After you've made walking a habit, set a longer-term goal. You may want to set a goal of walking briskly for at least 30 minutes a day or work up to 10,000 steps a day. You can try to do this 5 days a week or more.

You can wear a pedometer to track your steps each day.

To stay motivated, find a walking partner, such as a family member, friend, or coworker. Daily dog walks are also a great way to keep up your walking routine.


My wife came home last night saw me whipping the bowling ball down the lane and asked of I was working off some of my frustration...I didn't set out to do that but I suppose that is what happened.

So walking off aggression seems like a plan as well.


Here's to starting small and blogging about it.

Be well.