Everybody-

 

I have reached my critical mass for harassment.  So I sit to journal.  I would have thought that having cancer would earn you a break, but no such luck (tongue severely in cheek).  As it turns out, I can barely get away with anything (tongue through cheek).

 

Since the last time I posted, we have reached or neared some pretty surprising and refreshing milestones.   This past Monday was my seventh chemo treatment, bringing me halfway through Dr. K’s chemistry experiments!  Tuesday of this week will be my final radiation treatment to the banished primary tumor.  Radiation to the lungs will not commence until the very end of chemo treatment.  This is good, since I have recently embraced road rage at incompetent Atlanta driving with frighteningly open arms. 

 

Since I am done with radiation, I will recap:  It gave me a 51-yr-old bladder (temporarily of course).  I think I only missed 45min of the Auburn game last weekend for bathroom breaks.  It made me pretty sleepy; naps and I are on exceedingly good terms.  It BLASTED my blood counts.  I was pretty disappointed with this, having convinced myself that I was Superman.  Indeed, I am not.   Although I am holding out for my hair to grow back jet black, my muscles to come back huge, flight… well, you get the idea.  The only other side effect was a little spot on my lower back that looks like sunburn.  This hurts a little in some seated positions and is exacerbated by the waistband in my underwear and shorts.  My solution was to wear no pants, but there were some objections and concerns voiced.  Oh well…

 

I am sure ya’ll must get tired of hearing this, but I am doing awesome.  It would be easier to look you in the face when I say this to convey my sincerity, hope, elation and resolve.  But for now you will have to trust these inadequate words.  God has blessed this whole ordeal.  That your prayers have reached Him, there is no doubt.  THANK YOU!

 

Sam

 

ps- i'll get better about updating my site. peace. 

Everybody-

I am still feeling great. This week, from an unknowing outsider's perspective, would have appeared completely normal, almost. I started losing my hair on Tuesday. :)

Other than that I have had a perfectly normal summer week. Abby came and visited on Monday, and we spent the week having fun w/ Cait, Kara and Kyle (cousins). Yesterday, I went over to Alpharetta w/ Abby. By this morning I was in a knock-down-drag-out shedding contest with the Johnson's(Abby's parents) third child, Palmer the Dog. I won.

I would have been enjoying this thoroughly, except that my scalp was pretty sensitive. So upon arriving home this evening, I shaved my head completely bald. My ears stick out a little, but I think that people probably won't stare. In fact, they probably won't be able to glance in my direction until I get some sunless tanner. Pictures are forthcoming.

These festivities aside, things have been going very well. While I am still very ready to get back to the treatment, I have enjoyed a week of feeling full-strength and I am glad for the weekend, too. I really appreciate everyone's advice on entertaining hospital activities. I am looking forward to using your ideas.

Please continue to pray.

Sam

Everybody-

I had my surgical biopsy this morning with Dr. Monson. We got to the hospital at 5:30 this morning. UGH. Then I slept sprawled out on one of the couches in Crawford W Long for the next hour. The lobby of that hospital is awesome, it looks like a nice hotel.

Once we finally got my paperwork taken care of I went back into the prep room. I had to do my two current least-favorite things: put on hospital gowns, get stuck in the arm... again(I think that makes 8 times in 18 days). Then comes the questions...

nurse: Are you allergic to anything?
sam: no
nurse: Do you have a history of falling?
sam: well, kinda, but not like you mean.
nurse: oh okay, Do you have any known infections?
sam: no ma'am.
nurse: Have you ever had a heart attack?
sam: no
nurse: okay, now we can start over... Are you allergic to anything?
sam: give me the drugs now.

So, after answering the same four questions for about 45 minutes and the signing my soul away on a waiver(just kidding), They wheeled me off to the operating room. The anesthesiologist was a funny guy, and he kept me entertained while they were getting everything ready.

Here's the good part. Last year when I had a bunionectomy, they gave me what the doctor called a 'margarita.' So today the doc said, 'here comes happy time!' To which I responded, 'Is this like a margarita?' He laughed an said, 'No, you will be eating the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle in about 8 seconds.' Boy was he right. I had no idea the spins could be soooo fun. They put me out shortly thereafter. I think I heard someone say I was enjoying myself too much.

I came to at about 8:45ish. Obviously I was very groggy at first because of the general anesthesia, but I had a clear head after about 20 minutes. I think the first thing I said to my wonderful post-op nurse traci was, 'can I have something to eat.' She gave me a diet coke, and I was grateful for the no-calorie carbonated caffeine. Abby, mom and Aunt Stefanie(great surprise) got the call to come get me after I took the awful hospital gown off. We left pretty soon after that.

Considering that I had a hole cut in me this morning, I feel amazing. But it could be that the local anesthetic hasn't worn off yet. :)

Shouldn't be too much going on this weekend, but I will try to write something everyday. As long as I am not too sore, I am going to try and go to the Twilight Criterium, a crazy fun bike race in downtown Athens.

Have a great weekend.

sam


ps- my awesome nurse today (Traci) has a sister with breast cancer and i have her website, but its in the car, so I will post it in a minute

December 22: I first had lower back pain, originating in my SI(sacroiliac) joint, which connects your hip-bone(sacrum) to your tail-bone(iliac).  I was training hard for a marathon and for collegiate bike racing, so the pain seemed understandable and after a few days rest it was tolerable, too.

January - March:  I had little or no pain for the majority of this time, I trained pretty hard, although various injuries (including my back "injury") kept me from doing the kind of volume I wanted.  I completed the marathon very comfortably and strangely my back felt great for about a week after it.

March 24: I completed a triathlon on the weekend before spring break and did pretty well.  I had wanted to do a little better, but I think the lung metastases can explain that.

- For the next few days after the triathlon I worked out and enjoyed myself at the beach, but I had started taking a lot of advil and some excedrin, too.  I was having a lot of pain in my upper butt muscles and in my back.  I could feel a fair amount of spasm in the muscles surrounding the pain.
- It was at this point that I realized that there must be something wrong beyond a simple muscle tear or something like that.  So I quit training and decided to go see a chiropractor when I got back to Auburn.

April 3 & 5: I go to a chiropractor in Auburn (a wonderful lady named Tracy Hartford) who sees something a little funny on my X-ray.  She treated me and suggested that if things didn't get better I should go get an MRI.

April 6: My dad suggests that I go to Athens Orthopedic Clinic and he and my mom pull some strings to get me in on friday before Easter.  Kelly Ward, the PA that has been awesome and very helpful, makes the same diagnosis that my massage therapist and chiropractor had: some problem with my SI joint.  His idea from the X-ray was that it was a stress fracture, but ordered some more tests to get a good read on it.  That afternoon I had an MRI (awful) and some blood work.  We schedule another appointment on Wednesday.

April 9: I have a bone scan in the morning, which involves getting a radioactive fluid pumped into you which sticks to problem areas, and the looked at with a ridiculously expensive machine.  Sometime during all this, Kelly Ward calls and asks if I can come in for my appointment at lunch that day.  I should have known something was wrong then, but I figured they were trying to save me a trip back and forth from Auburn.  

1:30 pm- I find out I have a lesion (tumor) in my lower back, pelvis area.  They have no clue what it is, but have a good idea that it is not benign, since it had jumped from bone to muscle.

1:31 pm- I am in pure, unaldulterated shock for about two hours.  I say that I am okay, but this is difficult news to take considering I thought I had a stress fracture, at worst.

The rest of that afternoon and the next day we spend calling family/friends and setting up the biopsy.  To tell the truth I was in a fog.  If I can't remember much, its because my brain was too busy running through all possible outcomes and possibilities.

April 10: my birthday kinda got lost in the shuffle this year.  no worries, though.

April 11: I had a biospy done at Athens Regional Hospital.  This is where they stick a magnificent needle into your lower back.  Luckily, I like needles and I was drugged.  Recovery is easy.  The worst part about being in the hospital is the stupid gown they make you wear, and the fact that you have to ride in a wheelchair for liability reasons.  LIKE I AM GOING TO SUE YOU IF I FALL DOWN!!  More likely is that I would be really embarrased and make a joke about the nurse pushing me.  

April 12: My official diagnosis.  Kelly Ward called the house before lunch and asked if he could come by and talk to us.  So I knew it was bad before he even got there.  In fact I knew that there was something wrong when I saw these ameobas in my chest on the CT during the biopsy.  He told us that it was cancerous and that there were at least 3 metastases in my lung.  

Now i should tell ya'll that this was not a shock to me.  I had been prepared for the worst, and in my heart and head, I already knew.  I had noticed about a month before in my training where my average heart rate would be elevated by 5-10 beats for the effort level, and I did not feel as fit.  So I kinda knew something more was going on.  In hindsight this is easy to see, but at the time I attributed it to overtraining and stress.

The hardest thing for me to deal with was to tell Abby about it.  Telling her on Monday was awful because I had to do it over the phone.  So, after much deliberation and schedule shuffling, we decided to go to Auburn to get Abby and Cait and tell them face to face.  Mom, Dad and I pile into the wagon and go.  We get there, tell them and proceed to pack up what clothes and supplies I will need, since we know I will be at home for a while.  

April, Friday 13: By now the news has spread to the four corners and Family and folks come pouring in.  We have a full house all day.  Somewhere in all this, me and dad sneak away to buy an engagment ring, a task which has been unjustly postponed due to all the cancer-ruckus.

April 14: Abby and I get engaged.  That is the only thing worth writing about.

April 16: Mom and dad and I go to a local oncologist, Dr. Splichal.  He tells us the name of this unseen abomination: Ewing's Sarcoma.  He was ready to pump me full of drugs on the spot it seemed, but he was unaware we already had an appointment in Emory.  Once everybody was on the same page he did answer some burning questions.  We knew that my treatment would be heavy chemotherapy and radiation.  Afterwards I went to the pool and swam for the first time in a few weeks.  I had been walking, but this was WAAAY better.

April 17: I had an abdominal CT scan for which I ingested Barium and starved myself.  Luckily, I didn't eat the machine.  The results come back clean, which is the first good news we have hear in over a week.

April 19: We meet with Dr. Dave Monson at his off-campus Emory facility.  This was the first doctors appointment that I felt comfortable with, and after a typical feeling-out Dr. Monson was a very nice guy.  He is everything you want in a medical professional: uber-nerd, relaxed, gloriously confident.  He gave us some particulars on Ewing's, and suggested a course of action.

April 20: I go back to Athens Regional for an echo-cardiogram, and meet the nicest technicician, Mrs. Dillard.  She promises to pray for me like so many of you have, which really sets my mind at ease.

April 23: I have a PET scan done, which confirms what doctors have already told me.  tumor in the pelvis with multiple metastases to the lungs.  We then have a chemotherapy teaching appointment, which gave me a good idea of the treatment process: about a year, with 5 days in the hospital every 6 weeks, and one outpatient day.

April 24:  I meet with Doctor K, who wins me over, and will begin treating me next week.

 This is just a crude introduction to my situation, sorry for the length.   

Sam Haygood