Can you hear me now?

I want to thank all of you who have been following Bob's Cancer Blog as he waged his courageous battle with cancer. It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that Bob died early Sunday morning with his wife Nancy at his side at Swedish Hospital in Seattle in peace with God and man. This blog and those who read it received equal parts of pure Bob wit and insights. While sending this blog across the street or across the nation, he touched all of us with colorful stories of his ordeal. He was a beautiful man who showed us all how to live.

As a memorial to Bob, a scholarship has been established in his name at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Contributions to this scholarship will endow in perpetuity an award made to an undergraduate seeking a forestry degree. It is fitting to have Bob's name attached to helping young people who are following in his footsteps. In lieu of flowers or other gifts, the family requests that contributions be made to the ESF Foundation in the name of Bob Maimone. Checks should be mailed to: Mr. Robert Quinn, SUNY ESF, One Forestry Drive, 214 Bray Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13210.

I'm back...

I'd like to say that my absence from blogging was because of something exciting - secret mission, exotic travel, whatever. But no, nothing interesting like that to report. But before I get to what I have been (or not been) doing, let me bring you up to date on how the Relay for Life turned out. Through your extraordinary generosity, the Kent WA area relay raised nearly $200,000, our combined church groups raised $20,500, and I finished up with $4500 (far more than I expected to raise). I ran into one of the American Cancer Society staffers that I usually see at the hospital - he was impressed how our little (OK - it's not that little, but it's still thought of that way in the rest of the county) city had done. The first picture is of me sitting on the track next to the luminaria
(taking a break already!). After dark the luminaria ringing the track are lit - each is dedicated to the honor or memory of a cancer patient. They stay lit all night, or until the candle dies down. The ceremony is quite touching - I cried like a baby halfway through it.

So - the question you've wondering about - where I have been for the past month? Well, to put it quite plainly, I've been sick as a dog. After the Relay, my health has taken turn for the worse. With no active treatment, my tumors have continued to grow and multiply. The fevers have continued, despite vigorous cowbell playing (see earlier post of May 7). The CT scan was not pretty and showed new tumors and expansion of the old and new tumors so that they completely filled my abdominal cavity, squeezing all of the other organs - much like my original condition two years ago at diagnosis (actually worse than what I started with). This makes breathing difficult, and causes extreme pain as the tumors press against my ribs. Sleeping is nearly impossible on many nights because I can't find a comfortable position. I can only eat small portions at any one time because there is not enough room to hold a normal serving. Pain relief is kind of hit or miss. Sometimes, over the counter pain medication works enough to dull the pain. Other times, I have to resort to prescription strength ("Do not operate heavy machinery") stuff which provides a few hours of relief - I can feel the pain, but it's at a manageable level. I can't use the prescription stuff very often because it upsets the extremely delicate balance I have in my lower intestinal tract. Since the last few inches of my rectum has a tumor residing in it, it doesn't behave like the normal smooth muscle there and help pass out waste. I have to take more polyethylene glycol (remember the stuff for the colonoscopy prep?) to help it work. When I take the prescription pain relief meds, they slow down all the rest of the smooth muscles and they all take the day off. Trying to get everything started up again reminds me of trying to start up a pulp mill after a maintenance shutdown - a complicated and highly choreographed process that that has to be done in a precise order and time schedule to work right.

All that being said, not every day has been miserable - there have been a few days where I have been functional and had a "good" day. But chronic pain and fatigue really take a lot out of your day. I have been attempting to continue to work, with mixed results. I have had to get a ride home before lunchtime on a few days, and some days, I just plain can't get up at all. On those days, I just sleep or attempt to catch up on the sleep deficit. Motivation to do much of anything else pretty much disappears other than trying to eat meals with my family and going to the bathroom for a continuation of poop watch. On nice days, I will sleep outside during the day. On most days, staying awake during the day is a struggle. Lots of things have gone undone or late, including replying (or even reading) email and keeping up with this blog. I apologize for waiting so long to update you all, but it has been tough. I probably could have found the time someplace to write a quick note - after all, I did find the time to take an out of town guest for a day trip up to Mt. Rainier, but the trip pretty well wore me out. Lunch at the lodge was nicer than the last time and we had a nice drive up and back. Still lots of snow too.

I also refused to miss our annual camping and clamming trip. I didn't think that I was up to sleeping on the ground, even with an inflatable bed, so I made reservations at the motel in town. As it turned out, we shortened it to just a day trip (normally a 3 day weekend trip) and didn't even spend the night. I kept my activities to sitting on a bucket on the tide flats and shucking oysters - nothing really physically challenging, but still able to sit with friends and chat. I had big plans to prepare Bananas Foster for desert, but ran out of energy really quickly after doing dinner - we'll save it for a later date. We sat and talked with our friends around the fire for a bit longer and then headed for home.

Well, I need to wrap this up - I'm running out of energy again and need to take a short nap before I try to knock off a few of the tasks on my to-do list. I'll try not to wait so long before writing again.

Poop watch - when will it end?

As part of the fun that comes along with the colorectal cancer ride, it is occasionally necessary to gather more direct information about your tumor(s) besides imagery from CT and PET scans. A colonoscopy or flexible sigmoidoscopy (which only views the up to the first leg of the colon) provides a direct observation to a gastroenterologist and helps assess colon and rectal health. Not to repeat myself, but having a colonoscopy done at age 50, or earlier if there is any family history of colorectal cancer, is the best way to detect pre-cancerous or cancerous polyps or tumors and have them removed or treated early. In my case this week, a flexible sigmoidoscopy was in order to assess the condition of my primary tumor. I don't want to discourage anyone from getting colonoscopies or sigmoidoscopies, but I'll be honest - it is not really a fun procedure. Actually, the procedure itself is not that bad - it's the legendary preparation the day before that is so unpleasant. With the procedure scheduled for Tuesday, that meant that Monday (Memorial Day) was prep day. The diet for prep day was "clear liquids" - juice, jello, broth, tea. This just seemed wrong for Memorial Day - sorry, no cookout on the grill, no juicy burgers. Masochist that I am, I did actually smoke a pork shoulder to make some Carolina-style pulled pork barbecue for the family unit to eat. Why would I do such a thing? 1) Practice with a new recipe; 2) I like to cook; 3) I made plenty so that when the whole procedure was over, I could have as much as I wanted for my first solid meal. It was hard to drink the beef broth and pretend it was a liquid hamburger - sorry, it's a pretty poor substitute. After "dinner" is when the fun starts. Your next task is to mix up and consume 4 liters of a vile tasting (no flavor packet can completely mask the salty taste) solution of polyethylene glycol solution (PEG) at a rate of 8oz. every 10 minutes. Pretend it's a fraternity party - if only they made ale flavor, this mental imagery might work. (Note: PEG is also used to preserve green wood and wood salvaged from sunken ships and logs!) You already know what the result is from consuming the PEG, so I won't go any further with what happens next. My question is why is this stuff only available by prescription? Who would voluntarily buy this as an over-the-counter medication? And why did I have such a difficult time finding a pharmacy that had it in stock? After dropping my prescription off at the supermarket pharmacy (complete with comments about having a "fun weekend"), I was called back over the store's public address system to find out that they had none in stock. Next stop - Walgreens. Again, a sly comment about having a "fun" weekend when I dropped off the prescription, but they did have it in stock - but it was the last one. Am I missing something? Is there some sort of traditional Memorial Day cleansing ritual I don't know about (I really don't care to know about it if there is)?

The procedure itself was easy - the gastroenterologist was great, the nurses were great. I was given the option of staying awake or being sedated - one look at the coiled up camera reminds me that as interesting as this might be, perhaps it would be better to sleep through this one. But not to fear - the doctor made prints for me so that I could see what he saw. In the interest of decorum (not a word used often here), I am not posting the pictures. If you have a burning desire to see my insides, ask and I'll send you the images. I do know what my enemy looks like now though - it's pretty ugly, red, and angry looking. I did enjoy my barbecue (Lexington-style for you Carolina barbecue scholars), although the gurgly stomach from the procedure did make it sound like I had an alien inside me (well, I do come to think of it). The gurgles come from being inflated with air during the procedure - I do have to wonder about the wisdom of inflating middle aged people, especially men, with air. Given enough time and the right diet, I think I could have done that job myself.

Is this too much information? Sorry - but it's not pretty. But it would be worse to not have this procedure available for early detection and screening. Yet many insurance companies won't pay for it if you are under age 50, unless there is compelling evidence in a request from a physician. Fortunately, legislation has been passed in a few states that allow easier access and insurance coverage for colonoscopies for those under the age of 50.

I got a new back last week. You may recall from earlier posts that I managed to injure my back. As part of my campaign to fix all the little broken things on my beat-up frame, I saw a specialist who gave me an epidural injection of steroids. I got a really nice view of the fluoroscopic image of the L4/L5 vertebrae that showed they were just slightly out of alignment (sorry, no images to share on this one). The steroids, including my favorite from chemotherapy - dexamethasone, would reduce the inflammation of the nerves and allow them some more room and not get pinched. Just another big needle, which didn't bother me until he hit the vertebrae with it - I may have bent his table. But the relief was nearly immediate. While the response was not expected for some time later, I noticed it before I left the office. I'm trying hard not to overdo it while it heals up.

Relay for Life Update!

Final Relay update before the big event - just a few days now before Relay day this Friday. I am excited about participating in the Survivor Lap at the beginning of the Relay - all the survivors wear the official purple "Survivor" shirt and it's kind of a moving sight to see the track filled with all those purple shirts. It's good to see that people do manage to survive this journey. Your generous contributions have brought my part of the campaign to nearly $4400 now and helped my team hold onto the number two fundraising team in this year's Relay. (Aside to the wags at work who said that I missed an easy joke with the "number two" reference - a little decorum please - that's twice I've used that word now.) To reach my page and make a last minute contribution on line, click here. Thank you so much for your support.

My daughter and I attended a demonstration on preparing trees for bonsai on Sunday at the Weyerhaeuser Bonsai Garden. An example of an beautiful older specimen is shown above. My daughter notices my luxuriant eyebrows (a chemo side-effect) during the demonstration and whispers "Dad - I need to prune your eyebrows", to which I reply, "Perhaps with wires, I can train them". The scissors won out of over the wires.

Poop watch

When you have colorectal cancer, a substantial part of your world involves your rear end and everything that comes out of it. It's not any kind of weird Freudian fixation, but as the primary source of your cancer and the jumping off point for possible later metastases, it really is kind of important to observe everything - it could be a sign of tumor growth or activity. Changes in size, shape, color, presence of blood in the stool can all be signs of polyps or perhaps pre-cancerous or cancerous tissue growth that are easy to ignore. If you've never had colorectal cancer this kind of attention seems kind of strange, but once you've been diagnosed and know that these observations are important and should be shared with your oncologist, it's not so weird. It's not like we observe and then score or grade our work (8.....8.5.....8.....9....and a 6 from the Russian judge.....). It's just important to be able to make an accurate observation and also be subtle and quick if in a public restroom. These are things that you would never have thought about prior to your diagnosis, and someday you hope that you won't have to think about any further.

I find myself in kind of an unusual place these days. It's like someone has reset the clock back to June 2006, with maybe a few things changed in sequence. I have the same symptoms I did when I was first diagnosed back in 2006 - difficulty and pain in my rear, pains in my abdomen and chest - signs of growing tumors. In the coming weeks, I will enjoy a "cleansing" evening after drinking a gallon of polyethylene glycol, visits to the gastroenterologist and oncologist for scans, doubt and uncertainty about the diagnosis, and optimism that whatever form of treatment I end up will kill the tumors that they will find in my rectum and liver.

Optimism is a powerful thing, and while sometimes hard to maintain, is sometimes all you have to keep you going. At the risk of getting in trouble with another joke, the subject of optimism reminds me of an old joke. There are lots of versions of it, and I've found several citations that this joke was one of Ronald Reagan's favorites. Here goes: The parents of two sons are concerned about the behavior and attitudes of their boys. One son is depressingly and hopelessly pessimistic, the other unrealistically cheerful and optimistic. They consult a family counselor who suggests some drastic therapy to shock the boys to bring them back to a more realistic outlook in life. With Christmas approaching, the counselor suggests that they fill the room of the pessimistic boy with toys, and fill the room of the optimistic boy with horse manure. On Christmas morning, the parents hear the boys stirring, and get up to see how the therapy is working. They visit the pessimistic boy's room first and find him fretting with the toys - "They might break, and the batteries will run out...". Dismayed, they check in on the optimistic boy. They look in and find him up to his chin in manure wearing a grin a mile wide. They ask him what is going on and the boy cheerfully replies, "With all this poop in here, there must be a pony in here somewhere....!". There it is - a joke about optimism that actually ties in poop. I'll keep looking for the pony.

I decided that Friday was a good day to go look for the pony. Springtime this year has been a long time in coming and Friday was an unusually warm and sunny day - after months of cloudy and cool weather, it was too difficult to concentrate on work, and frankly, I needed some time to think. I used a little vacation time and took a drive up to Mt. Rainier. The lodge at Paradise has been closed for the past two years for renovations, and Friday was the grand re-opening. I managed to get there just in time for the first lunch served in the newly re-opened restaurant. Seating was limited, so I enjoyed the company of a group of retired Park Service employees over lunch and met with the current park superintendent. I stayed at the lodge long enough to tour the grand hall, see the dignitaries and look at the cakes, and then left for a quick walk in the snow before returning home. There is still a lot of snow, almost as much as the last time I was there a few months ago, and it's the middle of May!

Relay for Life Update!

Two weeks left to go before relay weekend. Your contributions have brought my part of the campaign to nearly $3800 and helped my team to be the number two fundraising team in this year's Relay. To reach my page to contribute on line, click here. Let's keep going!

Swamp cabbage in bloom in the snow-melt fed swamps. Looking up the Nisqually River into the head of the glacier.

More cowbell...!

I'd like to report that the first few weeks with no treatment have been wonderful, but I really can't. I can say that my skin is starting to behave like normal again - no red face, no burning, no blistering/peeling, no more splitting fingers and heels - this part is good. But the problem is that I developed a fever that lasted an entire week - from last Monday until this past Monday - it would start out as a low grade fever in the afternoon, and spike to 102-103F within a few hours. It pretty much wiped my motivation to do much besides sleep. The fever is apparently linked somehow to my tumors either growing or dying or perhaps both. The title of this post is a reference to a skit that appeared on Saturday Night Live in April 2008 that spoofs the VH-1 series "Behind the Music". The skit purports to be the real recording episode of Blue Oyster Cult's hit "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and the cowbell part in the song's introduction. The band's cowbell player (played as the fictional band member Gene Frenkle by Will Ferrel) beats the cowbell intensely, and the band protests. The producer (played in the skit by Christopher Walken) comes out of the booth and encourages them to keep the cowbell. They try the song again but stop after the cowbell overpowers the entire band. The producer comes out of the booth once more and encourages the band with this statement: "Guess what?! I got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!" . I have to give my daughter credit for this - while I was suffering through a fever spike last week, she came up to me and whispered in my ear "You need....more cowbell" - a priceless moment for me. Thankfully, the fever finally seems to have broken.

Also tied to the fever is your new phrase for the day: "referred pain". All the malevolent activity in my liver has manifested itself as severe pain in my right shoulder and neck down to my waist (this in addition to the already existing lower back pain from some still undetermined prior injury). The pain reliever of choice is the active ingredient in Alleve - naproxen sodium - it seemed to work, and is a staple in my box 'o drugs.

I remain optimistic that alternate treatment will be the magic bullet that moves me past this present state. As I said in my last post, I'm kind of creeped out knowing that the critters are growing as I write this. I don't expect that they'll burst from my chest like the baby aliens in the movie "Alien", but I know the signs now that I didn't know when I was first diagnosed.
Pains in the chest and back, trouble in the bathroom (I won't elaborate), etc - all were signs before that I attributed to other problems, but turned out to be symptoms that I didn't catch the first time around. I'm not seeing these problems yet, but I can't help but be mindful of every pain, every unusual bowel movement and wondering if this is happening all over again.

To those readers who are subscribers and have this blog sent to their email, I apologize for the unusual behavior. You recently received an old posting in your email about getting screened (Oct. 21, 2007 post) - I didn't send it, although it did seem timely. I'm not sure what happened, although it did occur while I was editing my last real posting to correct an error after it was published. Let's see what happens this week....

Relay for Life Update!
I don't know what to say - at this point, I am nearly $1700 over my original goal and nearly $2000 above what I raised last year. Our relay is May 30-31, so we still have a few weeks to go. Let's keep going! To reach my page to contribute on line, click here. If you'd like, my daughter is also walking - if you want to spread the donations out (it all goes to the same place - our friends at the American Cancer Society), you can reach her Relay page by clicking here.

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

The title is from an old joke, and appears appropriate for this week's posting. I really had a hard time coming up with a title and had a few others as possibilities: Good news/bad news (because of a fairly humorous exchange between Robert Schimmel and his oncologist in "Cancer on $5 a Day"); The "New Normal"; Not the solution I was expecting....

So, where to begin with this. Let's start with the bone scan. I guess the good news is that the pain in my back is NOT a bone metastasis - nope, not cancer. The bad news is that it looks like I really did hurt my back, although we can't exactly tell when or what was the cause might have been precisely. Some overall mild degenerative in my mid-spine, but a marked abnormality on the end of vertebrae L4, possibly an endplate compression fracture. I'm not really sure what the hell that means, other than it makes my back sore if I stand or walk. Is the result of having that old woman run me over back in July? Did the razor clam incident last month finish it off? Who knows. I'll be contacting my regular physician on Monday to get a referral with someone who can get me a start on fixing it. I'll have her look at a few other things that aren't working quite right - I've got some time to get the body work taken care of here in the next few weeks.

Why do I have time for this? Well, I also had a CT scan done on Wednesday. Nothing special - just a normal quarterly scan - maybe it could also shed some light on the back pain as well. Well, it was almost normal, although I did give the technicians, who now recognize me as a "regular" there, something of a scare. On the second full body scan, one of the techs came out in a hurry and asked - "Have you had any other surgical work done on your left side that maybe you forgot to put on the form?". Nope. A check quick revealed that I had forgotten that I had taken off my reading glasses as I had laid down on the table, and left them at my side. See picture at left - glasses are pretty obvious. In the upper left, you can also see the speedy new "Power Port" which the techs accessed to put in the contrast solution. Another minor glitch happened here - since it is a power port, they can put the contrast solution in at a higher rate and pressure than a conventional intravenous infusion...except if there is a small kink in the tubing. After the iodine contrast solution is injected, a saline solution is used to flush the line. A kink in the line caused too much back pressure when the saline was introduced, causing the line to shoot off and cover my shoulder with saline. Ha, ha - radiology slapstick! OK, let's get on with the real pictures. I brought the CD back to the office and looked at the images, as usual. Didn't really see much that looked different - if anything, the critters there could be 1mm bigger, or a 1mm smaller - probably within measurement error from last time...or so I thought.

When I went in on Thursday for treatment, my labwork orders had a note "See Dr. Gold before labs." Either I was going to have to stay after and clean the erasers for irritating the nurses last time, or there was going to be a change in my tests. My serum potassium has been acting a little strange lately, so maybe it had something to do with that. Wrong. Way wrong. Those pictures from Wednesday's portrait sitting at the radiologists showed that I have new liver tumors, and my existing tumors have grown, including the primary tumor in my rectum. Ulp. I guess that explains the jump in the marker numbers. Another set of words went through my mind, and I can assure you that none of them is printable. So - no treatment today - actually no more treatment with these drugs at all. There is no sense in continuing to take drugs that are not killing or slowing down the tumors and only making me miserable. I was afraid that this would happen sooner or later, and I guess that it happened this late in the game is better than having it happen a year ago. This is all just an evolutionary race - we treat the cancer with drugs and hope that we can kill it before it adapts to the drug and tolerates it. When the cancer adapts, you throw another drug at it and start the race over and hope that you get it this time. Basically, we ran out of drugs before the cancer adapted to them.

Are we done then? Nah. I'm getting a few weeks off (at least four) from treatment to enjoy life and get all the drugs out of my system. I will enjoy this time and can't wait to get my body back.

We'll be evaluating alternatives, although it's a little unsettling to be doing so, knowing that my critters are still growing and I'm not doing anything to actively fight back.

Since I'm ending my present treatment, this means that Silent Bob has been officially retired. I didn't get to say goodbye to him, but just as well because our relationship really had become kind of a drag - I just dragged him around for a few days every two weeks and all he did was squeak every 90 seconds and then whine like a banshee when he was empty. I had to keep him dry and make sure his line into me wasn't kinked or knotted. It was sort of like having to care for an infant tied around your neck - OK, I didn't have to feed or change him, but he was still kind of a nuisance. I also don't have to go to the hospital, which I'll kind of miss. I like my nurses, and we had a two-week cycle that we all got used to, and I will miss my friends who are receiving treatment. I didn't really get to say goodbye to them on Thursday, but I will get the chance when I go in to get checked up and to get my port flushed out. I will bring them treats.

Relay for Life Update

Wow. Our official kickoff campaign starts on Sunday night, and I'm already over my goal of $2000 (now at $2220), thanks to your generosity. The change in my situation will cause a change in the talk that I'm giving for the kickoff event - I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say yet, and I may end up winging like I did last time. I'll let you know how it goes. I've only gotten one response to the question in my last post regarding whether I should simply raise the bar a little higher, or keep the original goal and let you continue to contribute and see how far I get over the original goal. The response indicated I should keep the original goal. OK with me - I still want you to continue to contribute to my Relay (click for link to my website) even more than ever. If my present condition doesn't emphasize the need for funding cancer research, I don't know what does. Sure, drug companies pay for research, but they can't cover all the bases - research funding also needs to go to universities and medical centers and other non-profit institutions. I join other friends now who are in clinical trials - this could be our last shot, unless we can participate in other trials if our present trials don't pan out. So please, please keep your contributions coming in. Thank you again for your generosity so far. The Relay is at the end of May, so we have another month to go.

Happy, sad, angry

The past week has been a mix of emotions - happy, sad, angry - the issue is cancer survival. The happy is pretty easy to deal with - there are plenty of people who manage to get through their cancer treatment and resume reasonably normal lives. I have friends who started treatment around the same time I did who have been given the good news and have started life again - this makes me happy. Someday, I hope to join them on the other side of that fence and be able to look back at a closed chapter.

But with the happy also comes sad - sadness for those who have fought the good fight, but ultimately lost. For me this has come closer and closer to home this year. Earlier in the year I experienced the first loss of a friend from our online cancer community, which hit me harder than I expected for someone that I emailed occasionally, but never spoke to or met in person. Now it has hit much closer with the loss last week of a friend who started treatment at the same time I did and was part of our church "cancer club" (motto: "We really don't want you as a member, but will do our best to help you once you're in."). In the end, it was a slow and emotionally trying time for her family that I can't imagine putting my family through. Her memorial service was last night, and I made it all of 15 seconds into the service before my eyes filled with tears, and had a pretty tough time not breaking down completely when her husband reminisced about her as images from her life were projected above him on the wall. I'm very sad about this and will likely be sad for some time. I'm also sad for friends for whom treatment started out optimistically, but have now seen progression (I have come to hate that word - "progression") of their cancer and are trying experimental treatment with the hope that the magic bullet will do the trick. I'm hoping I don't join their ranks and I'll admit that the last big jump in my marker numbers does have me a little rattled. I'll have results from my bone scan on Friday and a CT scan this coming Wednesday when I see my oncologist for my next treatment on Thursday.

And I'm angry, and I think I have a right to be angry, as does every cancer patient. As I prepare to give the opening talk at our Relay for Life kickoff on Sunday evening, I've been doing a little research so that I get my facts straight. Richard Nixon declared a "War on Cancer" in his 1971 State of the Union address and signed into law the National Cancer Act in December 1971. The National Cancer Act established additional funding for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the National Institute of Health. Whether this war has been successful in the intervening years is open to debate - incidence of cancer appears to have declined a few percent in recent years, perhaps some measure of success. But as a patient, I can't help but be more than ticked off - 500,000 Americans will die from cancer this year. Five Hundred Thousand people in a single year - no conventional war in our history has killed this number of Americans in a single year. Can this be regarded as a "success"? Why isn't a war that kills this many people front page news every day, with a list of casualties and media coverage of every battle won and lost? I will spare you any additional soapbox on how much we've spent on "conventional" war in the past five years, and note that funding for NCI has been cut every year since 2005 and is more than 1000 times smaller than funding the present "conventional" war. Ask me why I'm angry.

OK - angry time needs to be over - it's not healthy. Back to happy. Maybe more than happy - more like ecstatic over your generosity with my Relay for Life campaign. As I write this, I am at 84% of my goal of $2000 in the first 17 days of announcing this year's campaign. At this pace, I will make this goal by the time I make the presentation for our team's kickoff on Sunday night! This poses a pleasant dilemna for me - should I ease off when I reach the goal, should I keep plugging away and keep going and see how far I get beyond the original goal, or should I raise the goal and campaign furiously until the event on May 30-31? If I raise the goal, am I changing the rules in the middle of the game? Is that OK? Give me your feedback - haydnprong@yahoo.com; your comments are confidential (unless you specifically tell me - "Use my name" in your blog, I won't publish your name - you deserve privacy too). The link to my Relay for Life page: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeGreatWestDivision?px=3638111&pg=personal&fr_id=5800

And finally - the great Oyster hunt continues (see November 25, 2007 post: http://haydnprong.blogspot.com/2007/11/happy-thanksgiving.html ). My buddy Tim scored big yesterday and brought over a dozen nice specimens - three each of four different varieties. Scoring for this round: #1 - Totten Inlet Virginica; #2 - Kumamoto; #3 - tie Hama Hama (very briny) & Penn Cove Select. The #1 and 2 positions remain unchanged in the overall scoring for tastiness, and the hunt will continue until we sample everything that is reasonably available for sale locally or by our own digging. And people say that I'm easily amused - maybe so - sometimes a good oyster will do it for me. Thanks Tim!