Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend.

I’m still in the hospital (St. Luke’s East), and will likely be here through the middle of this week. We’re not 100% certain what caused the emergency from last week, so I’ll be here until we have that mystery figured out.

For what it’s worth, though, I’m feeling fine. Even after five days of laying in the same damn bed and being constantly poked and prodded, I still look at least somewhat human.

Fig. 1 – Large North American Male after being subjected to one week of the American Health Care system.

Here’s what we do know:

• When I was admitted, I was in sepsis (aka severe blood poisoning).
• I also had a fever of over 103 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Lastly, scans of my lungs showed a large amount of blockages that weren’t there the previous week.

After several days of additional scans and tests, and a lung biopsy* (more on that one later), we’ve lowered the main possibilities to two:

• Due to my wasted immune system and crazy low white blood cell count, I caught some kind of infection (my wife and son were sick last week, which could account for this) that resulted in severe pneumonia. This would be a pretty good result, because we could simply treat the infection and take care of my immune system moving forward.
• The other possibility is that my Lymphoma suddenly exploded without warning or obvious reason, and spread to and throughout my lungs. While this is very, very unlikely, it would also be very bad news, and would mean that we’ll need to again adjust my chemotherapy.

As I mentioned previously, one of the tests they performed to try and diagnose my lung issue was a lung biopsy. As it was explained to me, it’s a simple procedure where a needle is inserted into a numbed spot in my side, and a piece of the abnormal lung is pulled out in order to be studied. And, as far as I can tell, the biopsy was successful, and a piece of lung was successfully extracted for testing. Hooray!

However! There was a little surprise in addition to the biopsy, a surprise called Pneumothorax. This is a condition where the doctor accidentally lets out some of the air that’s supposed to be hanging out in my lung, and isn’t immediately able to replace that air. Soooo I ended up with a partially collapsed lung. Not so Hooray!

It wasn’t life threatening, but any type of deep breath resulted in the kind of pain where your eyes pop out like that lady who was popular on talk shows in the 90s. I would not refer to the next few days as an enjoyable experience.

Anyway, we’ve got it fixed now, and I have to really try hard to get that pain to come back. For now my breathing hurts just the normal amount.

So that’s where we are, mostly in a holding pattern waiting for those test results. Obviously I’ll share them once they come through, and we can all celebrate together or maybe just stare at a wall or something.

There’s also Christmas coming, and family is in town, so I have lots to blog about. Hopefully I’ll have the time and energy to get back on a pretty regular writing schedule. Have a great night, everyone!

Hey everyone! Another week, time for another update.

It’s been a fairly dead week in terms of medical appointments due to the holiday, but things are going to pick up again next week. I have another Spinal Tap scheduled for first thing Monday morning, where I’ll get another set of chemo drugs delivered to my brain.

It’s been a few posts since I’ve gotten into it, but a refresher on how the Spinal Tap works:

I’m wheeled into a normal procedure room and laid face down, the position I’ll stay in for the following three hours. The main technicians then inject a large needle into the lower part of my spine, which is used for two purposes. Firstly, cerebrospinal fluid is removed for testing purposes, so we can see exactly how much of the cancer has reached my brain and/or central nervous system.

Secondly, the same injection site is used to administer chemotherapy drugs in a method known as “intrathecal,” where the medication is delivered directly into the brain.

This is obviously an artist’s representation, because I don’t own blue shorts this tight.

This’ll all be followed by a visit with the full medical team on Wednesday morning, where we’ll see where we’re at. My hope is that we’re back on track toward obliterating the existing lymphoma, but there’s a real wide set of possibilities that we could come back with… anything from “the cancer is getting its ass kicked!” to “let’s start talking about our palliative care options.”

Energy wise and health wise I’ve been feeling pretty good the past few days. My sleep schedule has been gradually making its way back toward normal, even with all of the various and assorted medications I’ve been prescribed.

I’ve tried to focus most of the medications to be taken at 8AM and 8PM, which is convenient, but it also leaves an awful lot of other medications, mostly painkillers, to be taken throughout the day and night, every three hours. It makes it a little difficult to keep that normal sleep schedule, but I’m doing what I can.

Of course, I have a lot more topics I’d like to write about, and I still need to record the Daddy School videos that I’ve started, but for now things are going pretty well. Certainly better than they appeared to be going a few weeks ago.

And, of course, close and extended members of my family are coming and going for the foreseeable future, which is wonderful. It’s also teaching me quite a bit about accepting help, about actually sitting back and letting people help me, which is something that I’m not used to and is taking a surprising amount of effort to get used to and accept.

So we have spinal taps, medical reviews, family, holidays, and a hundred other topics I want to write about that I’m not going to get a chance to go over today. In the meantime I’m going to keep living, and doing what my doctors tell me, and fighting this stupid thing that’s in my blood every way I know how.

As always, please direct all questions, comments, threats and requests for nudes to the comments here on the blog, and I’ll get around to them. Take care everyone!

Hey everyone!

Things have been going pretty well since I was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. My legs have been regaining their strength even quicker than I had hoped, and I’m able to walk around the house without any issues. My appetite is still completely gone, but that’s not that big of a deal; As long as Haley keeps forcing Ensure into me so I have some nutrients and whatnot, I should be doing just fine.

We’re still on Operation Egg Salad, which involves “normal” Chemo every three weeks and a special drug delivered to my brain and central nervous system via Spinal Tap

Pictured: Typical Spinal Tap Process

I’m going to give up a whole bunch of sympathy points right now, and tell you all that getting a Spinal Tap is not quite as bad as you’ve heard. It ain’t pleasant, but once the needle is in the pain is very manageable.

The worst part is what happens after the Spinal Tap, which is that you have to remain completely flat for two hours. The way the chemicals and gravity and your spine all work together, getting up and moving around after a spinal tap could give you a headache so bad that you are likely to want to murder everyone around you.

Luckily, I have several years of experience in laying flat for several hours, so it hasn’t been a problem for me so far.

So what’s next? I currently have another Spinal Tap scheduled for Wednesday, but I think that one is a mistake and is going to be cancelled in favor of one on Friday or some other time. Basically scheduling is a little bit of a mess right now.

We’re having family come in and out of town for the next few months; Right now Haley’s brother is in town, which is great for everyone. The boys love him, he gets along great with everyone, and it’s always a blast when he’s in town.

My father will be in town starting in a week or two, and then my best friend (and former boss) Mike Armstrong will be staying out here for a week as well. We’re all looking forward to these visits, especially since they coincide with the holidays. Thanksgiving should be a blast, and, of course, I have my usual way over the top Christmas plans.

That’s it for today, I’m going to try to post more frequent updates to keep more people in the loop, but for now I’m going to go see about taking a quick nap. I love you all, and feel free to drop into the comments!