No More Treatments!

It has been a while since I have added to the blog. I've been busy.

This Friday, October 10th, was the last day of the main part of the clinical trial. I got through the entire eight weeks without any significant problems. Throughout the trial I have I had "flu like symptoms" but nothing too debilitating. Each week has been something different. Sore throat, ear aches, headaches, fatigue and joint pain have all come and gone in different weeks. The worst part has been driving up and back the clinic each week (2 hours each way). Now that the main part of the trial is over, I only have to go back every six weeks for booster shots. Next week I have go back for a blood test, see the doctor, and take a "quality of life" survey. That will be the last visit until November 21st, when I get my first booster. Sometime in November I also have to have a PET and CT Scans to check on whether there is any progression of the disease.

What are my current symptoms? I have some pain in the nasal passages in my forehead...feels like a black and blue just above my eyebrows. I can not open my mouth fully. I have what feels like lock-jaw when I try to take a big bite of something. I have peripheral neuropathy, which I feel mostly in my toes and feet. My fingers are also a bit affected. My feet feel numb and so do my fingers a little. I have costcocondritis, which only hurts if I am stationary too long. It bothers me if I sit for two hours in a chair, say watching football. If I get up and stretch, it goes away. I have noticed that I do not get through the night without having to get up to pee at least once. I guess my kidneys are not what they were. I have a cough and I wheeze a bit, probably a result of the radiation. My hair has not yet grown back, but it appears to be making some "headway"! All of this probably paints an image of me coming apart piece by piece, but in fact I look and feel pretty healthy, all things considered.

The next stage of my recovery has got to be working on my mental state and trying to stay positive. The severe drop in the stock market these last few weeks has been very wearing. First I get diagnosed with cancer....and just when we are getting over this disaster, we experience the worst week in the market since the great depression! Give me a break!

I have been thinking for years that a dark cloud has been following me around, since my days at Arthur Andersen. I guess life was just too good back then and now we are paying the price! (In Japanese, Bachi ga attaru.) Think about the disasters we have weathered in the last 10 years: loss of my business and most of our savings in 1997, the stock market collapse starting in 2000 right after joining Smith Barney, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001; the death of Yoko's Dad in 2001, my Dad in 2002 and Yoko's Mom in 2004, the loss of our house in hurricane Charley in 2004 and living in temporary housing in 2005; the shut down of Smith Barney's office in 2007 and then my diagnosis of cancer last October. This year has been about the market meltdown, which has turned the financial services industry upside down. Somehow, we have gotten through it all. That's life, I guess.

Next week Yoko and I are leaving for a two week tour of Italy. I am going to try to just forget all our worries for the next few weeks and enjoy. Right now I am feeling a little guilty about leaving when there is such market turmoil, but we've been planning this trip for the last six months. I don't know when I would again be in a position to travel like this, so we are going. I would feel better about leaving if the market begins to come back next week! Let's hope for sunshine and fair weather!