Thank you, thank you, thank you....

I am absolutely overwhelmed by your generosity in contributing to my Relay for Life fundraising. I had set my original goal at $250, and within hours, I was well over this goal. I decided to adjust my goal upwards to $1000 and as of this writing, we stand at $925! This is the total after just one week! Thank you so much -this means a lot to me and will mean a lot to all the people who benefit from the work that the American Cancer Society does.

Where does your donation go? When I was first diagnosed back in June 2006, I'll admit that I was an emotional wreck with a million thoughts racing through my head... "What do I do now... I haven't a clue what to do next... I've been told not to take to much time deciding on an oncologist, because frankly, things don't look too good... How do I even start looking for an oncologist? Where can I find out more about the kind of cancer I have and its treatment options?" Fortunately, the ACS provides a huge volume of on-line and print information that helped me with these questions. They also fund basic research including grants to major cancer centers and universities around the country, including those here in the Seattle area. Their funding was instrumental in the release of tamoxifen, which is used to treat breast cancers. Closer to home, they also fund a "Cancer Navigator" who is assigned to my hospital (Swedish Hospital, and the Swedish Cancer Institute) - her job is to help new (and old) patients "navigate" through the crush of information that comes with a cancer diagnosis. And still closer to home, they maintain a library of videotapes and books in my treatment clinic for those day-long stays while we get to sit in the "big green chair" and also provide food and refreshments for the patients. Please feel free to continue with your generosity. If you wish to make your donation anonymously, I think you can type "Anonymous" or anything else you want to use as an alias if federal agents or mob hit-men are after you, in the space for your name (I haven't tried this), and then type your real information in the secure credit card information blocks.

I was going to title this post "A tale of two scans". I'm mostly pleased with the results of the PET scans I had done last week - they showed significantly less activity in my remaining liver tumors and some shrinkage in my largest tumor. I got a hard copy of the radiologist's report on Saturday when I went in to have "Silent Bob" (my take-home infusion pump) disconnected. While it's great to have access to my scans and reports, it's a two-edged sword. Closer examination of the radiologist's report indicates that I had two nodules on my lungs (one on each lobe), which I don't remember discussing before - the good news is that they're either stable or have shrunk since last time. Also, there appears to be some new metabolic activity in my lymph nodes that wasn't in my previous scans. So what does this new information mean? Damned if I know. The visit I had last week with my oncologist was cut short because of some delays we had collecting blood samples for my lab work, so we didn't really have a chance to discuss the report in detail. This week was an Erbitux-only week, so I don't normally see the oncologist. I did express my concern to the nurse who relayed the information to Dr. Gold - he sent back the message "Everything's fine!". We'll discuss this more next Thursday when we meet. Maybe access to information is not such a good thing sometimes...

A reminder to listen to NPR's Morning Edition program this coming Friday, May 4. My 90 seconds of fame (see my March 31st post) will air on a story that they are doing about a Discovery Channel special on cancer (http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/koppel/koppel.html?dcitc=w99-502-ah-0056).

Morning Edition is a 2-hour program that airs on NPR affiliate stations usually between 6:00 and 8:00 AM. Some stations start airing the program as early as 5:00 and run it until 9:00, rebroadcasting the program a second time. I can't tell you when the story will air within that 2-hour period, so you may have to listen to the whole thing - they usually indicate at the top of the hour what stories will follow in the next hour. Not sure where your local NPR station is? Check out NPR's web site and type in your zip code: http://www.npr.org/stations/. You can check the station(s) web site and find out when they air the show. If you miss it completely, you do have a second chance - they archive the stories on the NPR web site and you can listen on your computer. I'll post the link to the story next week.

It's been a busy week...

...what with PET scans and treatment and marker number results. I went in for a new set of scans on Tuesday to see what kind of progress we've made since the set we took last October. I was able to bring a CD home with all the images and compare them with the October set. I am not a radiologist but I can compare an old scan with a new scan and see differences. My oncologist confirmed what I thought looked like much cleaner looking pictures with fewer and much smaller active tumors than before. And to add to this bit of good news, my marker number dropped from 10.5 two weeks ago to 7.5 from yesterday's testing, even after skipping an Erbitux treatment last week while I was vacationing. With this kind of progress, my oncologist says that I could conceivably be back in the "normal" range in a few weeks. When we get to that point, I guess we'll have plenty to discuss with our treatment team on where to go next.

I owe a lot of this progress to the advances made in colorectal cancer treatment in the past few years. Had I been given the same diagnosis only 5 years ago, I might not have made it this far. Now it's my turn to start paying back. I've walked for the past few years in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life in remembrance of my mother's battle against breast cancer. It's my turn to walk in the Relay this year and raise money to keep funding cancer research so that others may continue to benefit. I will be participating in the Relay for Life here in Kent WA on May 18th and would like to ask you to support my walk with a contribution - the link to my Relay website is now on the link section on the right side of this page. You can make a secure on-line pledge with a credit card or download a form that you can send back to me with your check (reply with a comment to my blog and I'll send you the address). I've set a moderate goal of $250, but won't stop accepting contributions if I reach the goal. Thanks in advance for your pledge and support.

I am sooooooo cutting edge....

OK - maybe on the edge is a better description. Actually, I'm sitting in the Charlotte NC airport, waiting on a weather-delayed flight back home. Sorry I didn't write last week, but I was on vacation, and my ability to get a good enough wireless signal to connect my laptop to the outside world was nearly non-existent. So, my description of being on the cutting edge has some caveats. Only cutting edge if I can get a signal, like in a metropolitan airport maybe.

For those of you who I was able to see in the NC Piedmont Triad area and in New Bern, it was really good to see you all. For those of you who I missed or couldn't meet up with, I apologize - it just gives me a reason to come back as soon as I can. This week's picture is of Tryon Palace, the colonial governor's mansion in New Bern.

Last week's posting about my fleeting moment of fame was nearly repeated again today. In one of the brief bursts of email I was able to get in last week, I got another message from National Public Radio. This time it was from one of the producers of the show "Talk of the Nation" which airs on many public radio stations from 2-3:00 eastern time. They were doing a live call-in show today about cancer, and more specifically about Leroy Sievers' My Cancer blog and how it has become an important forum for us patients. They wanted me to be a guest on the show, and if I was close to their studios in Washington DC, they'd love to have me for the show. If not in DC, then coming to a member station near me was the next best option. I ended up doing a fairly extensive phone interview with the producer, which was also kind of comedy of errors in keeping a good connection as we drove the wilds of western North Carolina at the time. He figured out where the nearest several public radio stations were and really tried to get me to get to one of them for the show. Unfortunately, the time of the show was during the drive from Winston-Salem to Charlotte to return to the airport, so I couldn't stop during the drive to hit any of the three stations he had picked out for me try. I did try to call in to the show during the drive, but between poor cell phone coverage and busy signals at NPR, I wasn't able to get through. I did listen to the show, and thought it was great. If you want to hear the broadcast on your computer or as an MP3 podcast, you can visit their site at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9604340

And an update on my last numbers - the marker has dropped to around 10.5, so we have made a little more progress. I skipped my Erbitux treatment last week, and will get the full treatment again this week. Also - tomorrow is PET scan today, so I hope I get some good pictures to back up the drop in the marker numbers. Or at the very least, some more images to play with on Photoshop - who knew radiology could be so much fun?