Keepin it Local

We just received word that the cancer is localized to my pancreas. That is awesome news. -uck you cancer. I am going to slay your ass.

My First Tattoo

I went to the radiology oncologist today to review the blaster ray regiment, and learned that I'll need to be mapped in order to properly calibrate my positioning so I'm correctly irradiated each time I go in for treatment. This means I'll be getting some tiny tats in certain areas that'll be used as markers. What can I say. I'm down for my 'hood, yo.

This doctor is indicating I'll be undergoing blasts everyday for approx 6-7 weeks in conjunction with chemotherapy, which may or may not go longer. Again, we are also getting second opinions on this stuff. My wife is AMAZING, as she's keeping track of all this stuff and coordinating with medical staff to make sure everyone is talking with each other and getting the paperwork needed to shuffle it into the right hands.

It's all moving along pretty quickly, which is good: I want to get this started ASAP. However, there's a part of me that thinks there should be a better way of localizing and blasting the affected area. We should have nano structures that could encapsulate the mass, shielding the external organs and tissues, while irradiating the enclosed mass. Can someone get on that please?

In the meantime I will be doing the old school method of external exposure to rads, which will be somewhat rad.

I'm interested to get some feedback: my sis and bro in law came up with some clever slogans for tshirts proclaiming support for my success, which I thought was amazingly considerate and loving. Again I feel totally blessed to have such wonderful people around exuding so much positive energy. It's all good. Let me know what you think.

A Chance to Go Hulk

My brother-in-law drew the wonderful and completely inaccurate, yet perverse graphical representation of my pancreatic adenocarcinoma

I was recently diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. It's apparently one of the more common kinds of cancer if you're gonna get it in your pancreas. Never being one to go half-assed into anything my cancer is very aggressive. I've resolved to kick its ass, however, and will be going through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatment before having surgery to remove some of my plumbing in the affected area.

Thankfully, this gives me the opportunity to explore the option of finally becoming Hulk, or at least Hulk-like, which would be awesome. I will settle for ridding this trash from my body and getting on with my life.

I'm very blessed to have amazing, supportive, caring, and loving family and friends surrounding me throughout this ordeal, which has made it a lot easier to bear given that this has hard to process and emotionally manage at times. In addition, my employer has been monumentally supportive throughout this ordeal.

Part of the reason for this post is to provide folks with information on my state. I'll try to succinctly recap.

At the beginning of June I went into ER because I was jaundiced. Several scans later they found a cyst-like mass on my pancreas which was pushing on the common bile duct in the area, which was causing the jaundice as well as increasing ammonia in my blood level. I was admitted into the hospital and had two endoscopies: upper and then an ERCP, which involved putting a stent in the blocked duct to correct the symptoms caused by the mass. A week or so later I had another endoscopic procedure: an EUS, which involved running yet another scope into my stomach where they Hunt for Red Octobered my pancreas, found what they were looking for and totally fine-needle aspirated the mass (approx 4.2 cm partially cystic tumor: the tumor is approx 2cm) for a biopsy. The doctor afterward said that the preliminary indications were "abnormal", which they treat as cancer. He referred me to a surgeon, and I had to wait for the appointment. While waiting I met with an oncologist, with whom my sister-in-law used to work, who explained the various scenarios we'd face pending the results of the pathology. She explained what the chemo drugs were and what I could expect. The results came back from the biopsy, and the surgeon confirmed that he'd want to do chemo and radiation to clear up the margins around the mass, stop its growth, as well kill other microscopic cancerous encampments elsewhere in my body. The tumor has veins running through it, and needs to be shrunk before resecting. The surgeon indicated that it's Stage 3 cancer, and has likely been there for about a year and a half. I consider myself lucky that I was jaundiced and went to the ER where the medical staff detected it. Otherwise I could've been walking around for another year and a half, or longer, and then have it be much more serious.

Today I'm getting a PET scan, which involves putting radioactive glucose in my blood, and then doing a scan to check how the various cells in my body metabolize the sugar. Cancerous cells are hungrier (the little bastards), and can be differentiated from normal cells. This scan will tell whether the cancer is localized to my pancreas or if it's spread elsewhere in my body.

Tomorrow I start chemo and radiation.

Tomorrow I will see if I can acquire Hulk-like powers, which would be awesome.

I am getting consultations from Stanford and Johns Hopkins as well, and the surgeon I've seen thus far has performed more pancreatic surgeries to remove these kinds of tumors than any other doctor in the US. My oncologist is world class. All the doctors and medical staff I've seen thus far have pointed out that factors dramatically contributing to my survivability are my age, good health (aside from the little bastard jacking up my pancreas), and my attitude.

More important than anything, my wife has been by my side the entire time and an amazing rock for me, and family and friends are effusive with love and support. I'm eager to get this process rolling and kicking the shit out of this stupid cancer. I'm stronger than it.

I'll include more updates as we move on. If you know me, please feel free to contact me, and I would appreciate you not posting anything on Facebook (your pages or mine) relating to this.

Man bag

He's back. The condom perpetrator in my hood is back. He'd gone dark months ago. In fact, I thought he might've either contracted some more glamorous position, such as "crack vial discarder", but alas he still graces the gutters of my street with his DNA wrapped cleverly in laytex.

Just this week I was fortunate to find a pale sheath laying in the gutter by my house. It had been raining, and there was something of the non-flora variety of usual detritus in the gutter. On closer inspection it was a spent vessel.

Immediately I knew what that meant: he was back. I don't have clear evidence of who "he" is. It's been theorized that he is a neighbor or one of many johns in a clandestine suburban prostitution ring. I'm a member of the former school of thought, as a certain neighbor around the corner has two sons who are of age, and likely engaging in such activity. Why they choose to do it in (I'm guessing) a car in front of their mom's house is something I can't understand, nor the discarding of such personal material in such close proximity.

My strongest, albeit far-fetched, theory is that he is an alien trying to disseminate his seed via the sewage system, as he is somehow related to Cthulhu. Perhaps it's a pre-emptive strike to mutate us all into above sea level R'lyehians.

Regardless, I'll be installing a motion activated night vision wifi cams in several strategic locations in order to catch the ejaculator in the act of disposing of the evidence in such an un-neighborly manner. Maybe I'll also film the elusive owner of the dog, who is allowed to wander up on my lawn to empty his man-sized, Alpo-powered bowels on my lawn. Jeez, that'd be swell.

Tethered

During the first leg of an adventure I am now fortunate enough to take once a week instead of five, I sat in a coffeeshop in the Mission and battled connecting to an unsecured wifi network and saw a motorcycle cop park out front and prepare himself for a similar beverage procured behind the counter from where I was sitting.


I watched as he took his helmet off, and laid it on the handlebars, and I wondered what would happen if, as soon as he turned his back, some rogue individual scurried up and snatched it.

It's not like it's his service firearm, but a motorcycle cop without his helmet is like a Ron without his Jeremy, if you catch my meaning.

After ordering his coffee, he strided over to a corner seat, which offered an optimal defensive and viewing position and proceeded to nosh on his bagel.

I remarked at the uniform, which reminded me of the staties in Boston: near knee-high boots, bloused pants, jacket shoulders punctuated with Judge Dredd-like authority, and a helmet, which did nothing but remind me of the T1000 with all its inventive talents proferred by a mimetic poly-alloy.

Without the helmet he looked like an over-grown child in a very realistic Halloween costume, or maybe an zealous uncle taking the kids out for trick or treating. At the very least it was evident that he was older than I, and probably was enjoying his tenured position while the retirement pension window shortened with each passing shift.

Would he miss the helmet? What would happen to it after retirement? Would the department let him keep the uniform if he wanted?

I could stand losing corporate supplied laptops and mobile devices: I could always find the same ones elsewhere. The helmet, however, is probably less replaceable.
Which leads me back to my original thought: why simply leave it on the handlebars? Must be some American frontier artifact...like tying off your hoss in front of the saloon.

Ambient Music

I wanted to take a moment out of the early start of my day to thank my youngest for being such a fitful and vocal sleeper. It really made my sleep, I mean, micro-naps that much more enjoyable.

I likened the experience to that of the members of the Inception troupe having an Edith Piaf inspired bellow take hold of their slumber and dash it into a bathtub of cold water.

One day, when you're shooting over the celestial plains of a far away moon in your fancy extra-system Planet Runner with the gleam of starlight in your eyes, I hope you'll think of me and your mother and launch an Apple Insta-Constellator™ device into the cosmos on our behalf, ensuring that it blossoms in the heavens so that we may view it with our naked, cybernetically enhanced eyeballs from afar, and know that you appreciated our sacrifice of sanity during your early years on your home planet.

Only took 2 years to get back in the swing

As soon as I start writing for my bloggy, I end up thinking I'm already going off topic. I've gotten so used to tweeting, and synching content to Facebook.

I'm not sure why I stopped blogging. Less time? Lost passion? I can't say for sure.
I came back on a whim and saw my old content spread across the interwebs, and instantly removed all the gadgets I'd added. What was I thinking? Gonna keep it simple for now.

Content will also need to be simpler and more relevant. How this will manifest I'll need to mull.

I don't game as much as I used to, but still love it. Politics are always going to be there, and I've never been too keen on sharing my private life on a blog or tweet. Perhaps I'll focus more on my bizarre and random thoughts that fire like so many ill-timed sparkplugs.

With mobile device access, a Posterous site with multi-post action, and an unlimited data plan I'm sure I can figure something out.

The world is now throbbing with immediacy, hence the million-plus followers in a 24 hour period for Charlie Sheen. Sad really. Everyone wants to be there to see his internal timer hit 0, so they can say "check it, his detonator blows right here at interval 3.32" and be there to watch his mushroom cloud take to the sky.

That being said, maybe I'll just post random clips of plastic bags soaring a la American Beauty to see if anyone gets the reference. Whatever happened to Wes Bentley anyway? Duh, dude. Wikipedia.

Holy snaps, he was in Jonah Hex!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Bentley

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