Just a Bump in the Road

There has been an aspect of this cancer journey that I haven't really touched on, but it's probably the aspect that I have struggled with the most. That aspect is the physical transformation that I've gone through over the last year. Let's get to it... For the vast majority of my life, I have been what I would consider a "scrawny" individual. Despite being scrawny, I've generally been a fit individual. I played soccer my whole life and ran track my senior year. My best mile time was 5:15. I know that's not amazing, but it's pretty good and I think it demonstrates that I've been in good shape. However, my body weight has always been around 130 lbs. On a 5'11" individual that means rather lean! haha There have been a handful of times throughout my life when I tried building muscle. I'd do push ups and pull ups and all that jazz and just could never really seem to make any changes. I eventually accepted what I believed to be the und...

On September 12th, I headed up north for my next set of scans and my first infusion that wasn't the combination of drugs. We were really glad that I was able to get through all four of the combo infusions. It sounds to me like not a whole lot of people are able to get through all four of them. We figure that me being able to do that was better for my immune system and the overall battle. However, there had been some side effects that weren't the greatest... The most concerning side effect is the vision issue in my left eye. The day after my last infusion (August 22nd) I noticed a line going across the middle of my left eye. I went into the eye doctor and, fortunately, my actual eye looked healthy. That was a relief. That likely meant there was an issue being created by inflammation somewhere. Over the course of the next several days, the vision deteriorated. The bottom half of my eye developed this sort of grey blurriness and it made my overall vision a little weird. I was st...

It's been a while since I've posted to the blog or to any of my social media accounts. The reason for that? I got worn out. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. I just got exhausted. My anti-nausea meds took a lot out of me physically. And some of them had fatigue as a side effect. When you're taking several of those at the same time you're going to end up spending a lot of time in bed and not doing a whole lot. My infusions can also contribute to weird energy levels, especially immediately following the infusion. But there's a bigger issue at play with why I disappeared for a while... It was a year ago that I had my first PET scan and was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. While we've been very blessed throughout this journey, it's been a long journey. There's a lot more to this journey than the occasional surgery and treatment. I know that some of you have experienced the journey, some of you may have an idea of what the journey is like, and some of you ma...

It's been a while since I've posted. My last scans (CT scan of my body and MRI of my brain) were on July 31st and my last infusion was on August 1st. However, I was just barely able to talk to the radiation oncologist that has helped with my brain yesterday. I wanted to have a clearer picture before I posted an update. So here's the update... As far as my infusion goes...it went well. For some reason it was taking them a really long time to get my drugs to me. Almost an hour I think. Normally it's about 20-30 minutes. But other than that, my body seems to be handling the infusions well. I've made it through 3 of the 4 scheduled infusions with the combined drugs. My fourth infusion is scheduled for August 22nd. Unless some serious side effects kick in between now and then, I'll get through all four which is great. After that, they'll drop me down to just one of the drugs and that will continue, I believe, for about a year. At that point, they'll reevalu...

About a month ago an old buddy from college, Geoff, reached out to me wanting to help us out financially. He is part of an organization called Midweek Run that helps to organize fundraiser races for individuals. I was very touched that he wanted to help out and that his organization was willing to put in the time and energy to put this together. We did the fundraiser run on July 11th up in Draper, just down the street from where I grew up. It was a humbling experience to have family and friends show up to support my family and me, not just financially, but emotionally and mentally. To know that we aren't in this fight alone helps. At times, this fight against cancer can become somewhat all consuming and it's nice to know that there are individuals we can turn to if we needed to. The race was a lot of fun! The weather was beautiful! In fact, the heat cooled off just in time for the race to start and the rain avoided us as well! The park was a great park for the run AND we even...