New Life

First off, congratulations are in order for my little sis and the birth of her first child. Kianna Louise Connolly joined this world yesterday(Aug 12th) weighing in at 9.5 lbs. And yes it was a C-section. We look forward to seeing her at Christmas. I also got word today that all my blood work from Monday came back within normal limits. This is good news and I finally feel that I gotten over this last hurdle and can now officially start my new life. The infection I had been fighting for over a month is apparently gone. This is wonderful news to me and I can not tell you how excited I feel about it. It makes this last month of off time before work begins feel like it will be a vacation, instead of the constant doctor going, prescription taking, when will it all be over with worrying that we have been doing since this infection began back on July 2nd.

Infection Fight

I wrote my last post on June 24th and just posted it. Things were slow and there was not much to report, so I was not in a hurry. Well my condition has changed again since then, and I will now try to keep this as up to date as I possibly can. Apparently, unbeknown to me, on around June 30th, I developed a nice infection in my jawline near my incision site while we were in Tampa visiting Andrea's parents. This was a complete 28 days after my operation and it came as sort of a surprise to say the least. I thought I was on the road to complete recovery and the possibility of this occurring was slim. I decided to see a Dr. in Tampa as soon as possible, after spending all night chasing drugs down in Tampa to see if we could handle this here. Well after hearing my long story and history, he recommended that I fly home at once to see my own doctors, since they had the best idea of what may be going on with me, or he was going to check me in to the hospital himself. I was on the next flight out of there which was on the first of July, and in my Dr's office on the morning of the 2nd. It was an obviously some type of skin infection and we decided to attack it as aggressively as we could. Since the family was still and Tampa, I agreed to check in to the hospital and treat this as fast and as best as possible and to be done with it and home for the Fourth of July. Needless to say, it did not work out like I had hoped. I spent July 4th in the hospital still dealing with this stubborn infection. I watched the runners going up cardiac hill from my hospital room window during the Peachtree road race. Andrea arrived home that day the fourth, and I was finally able to go home the following day, Sunday the 5th. I had some prescriptions filled and was done with setback we had thought. Well I woke up Monday morning and it was like a golf ball was stuck in my mouth. It was if I had been punched in the jaw. The previous three nights in the hospital had all been for naught. I was back to where it was when I started the whole process six days earlier. This infection was back with a vengeance. Andrea took me to the doctor once again that morning. Fortunately, she had been through something similar to this already with her mother who is a breast cancer survivor going on 9 years. We told the doctor we wanted to see a infection disease doctor and he agreed with us, because we did not think he really new what to do next for me and out of his field of expertise. That new doctor saw me the same day, after I had a CT scan of the site to see if they could figure out what was going on. They discovered no fluid buildup to get a sample from, so they assumed it was the worst type of infection, which in this case means staph. Now this is a nasty type of infection and they do not really know how I got it. Most likely it was a few days before my symptoms appeared. She did have a different game plan for beating it though, and it involved some very strong antibiotics and steroids to reduce the swelling. The good thing in this case, was I would be able to do them at home. First course of action was to get a IV in my arm that was going to be used to administer the drugs. Its called a Pict line. Well knowing my luck, the nurse could not get the line in while in the office, so this meant a date with the radiology department for them to put it in with the help of there ultrasound machine to see things better. This was finally done on Friday the 10th, and I received my antibiotics before that with just regular IV into my arm. I have now been receiving my meds for 10 days and have seen a vast improvement. The swelling is way down. I am still on some type of pain med for the pain that I do have. It seems to radiate in my jaw area like a tooth ache and I also have pain when trying to open my mouth to eat a sandwich or something similar. Since seeing the doctor again today, we agreed to another 7 days of antibiotics to make sure we get this for certain this time around. The only way to make sure of that, is for overkill, so it does not have a chance to come back. I might be on the meds for the week after this as well as far as I can tell. We can not be to cautious in dealing with it, so the best approach is to go aggressively. Blood test do not really give you the complete story of the appearance of the infection or not. Its best just to just try and wipe it out completely. So, this where I am at now. Just laying low and making sure I can beat this. It will delay my return to work, but I still have a vacation to Colorado to look forward to. Nothing will get in the way of that trip I hope, or I will be hiking with a IV line if I have to.

20 Days

Since it has been 20 days since my last post, I thought it time for a update. I am slowly healing and starting to heal up. The incision on my neck is still taking more time to heal then I had thought. But it is because the area was well radiated during treatment, that it is taking longer to heal. It is still kind of swollen and numb to the touch because of the nerves being stretched during the operation. Still have some mild pain that comes and goes as well, but that should fade as more time goes by. That is only what I need more of now, time, time to heal up and then get back to my somewhat normal life. I have already started doing some things to help me feel like things are starting to look that way. Going out to eat, seeing some live music, and taking a trip over fathers day weekend with my good buddy Scott, have all been great fun in helping me return to a normal life after six months spent fighting this disease. I do not even have a doctors appointment until next month which helps me forget as well. I am just now starting to reflect on how I am going to end this blog as well as when, since my health is almost back to normal. My next post after this one just might be my last, as it will be a nice round number to end with since it will be post number 25.

Two for Tuesday.

Well, as you can tell by now, I made it through my surgery. Although there was of course a little excitement along the way that seems to be par for the course for me lately. My lymph nodes were removed as planned, and I am now at home on the mend after a night's stay in the hospital. The day started as planned on Tuesday morning as I drove myself to the hospital at around 5 a.m. with the plan for Andrea picking me up later after she got Isabella off to day care. It was my hope to be home later that day. Everything was on schedule, as I was in surgery by 8 a.m. as planned and finished up about 2 hours later. I spent about another 2 hours in recovery and was finally rolled up to a room for further observation around 12:30 ish. I was awake when they arrived at my room and saw Andrea standing there waiting for me. Looking back now and trying to remember some things that occurred on the way up to room, I remember feeling where the incision was and it felt like it had begun to swell up a little bit more then normal. I also noticed, that I was beginning to break out into a cold sweat at the same time. The nurses moving me up to the room also began to comment on the swelling that they had not noticed in the recovery room. On arrival to my room, the room nurse was also concerned and they decided to call my doctor back up, who was at lunch downstairs at the time. They kept asking me if I was having any difficulty in breathing. Andrea knew something was not right because of the sweating I was doing. By this time, there were about six nurses in my room and some of them had panicked looks on their faces. The doctor finally came in and asked for a kit to with tools to open the incision back up. He seemed pretty calm as he began to do this and relived some of the pressure on it. Apparently a clamp on one ofmy blood vessels that were cut to access the nodes had come lose and instead of draining into my drainage tube as planned, a blood vessel was draining into the incision area. This was bad news for me, as I was soon to find out, because it now meant a trip back to the O.R. to find the lose clamp and clean the area out. The nurses were relived he had arrived and put away their tracheotomy kit they had retrieved in case my breathing would have become compromised. Andrea seemed pretty calm as she witnessed all this happen right in front of her and she also seemed in good spirits as I was wheeled out of the room. I later found out she lost it while talking to her mom on the phone while I was in for my second surgery of the day, but her mom as usual said all the right things to her. her mom is a cancer survivor and has been through more things then I have.The second surgery lasted about an hour I was told and I was again pushed into the recovery room for the second time in one day. I was finally moved up to my room around 3 p.m. and was told I was definitely going to be spending the night after what I had just been through. It all seemed sort of surreal for me at the time, for I was on some type of drug the whole time. I never felt like I was in any serious danger or any thing. It was all mostly frustrating, because I felt like I was well enough after the first surgery and was going to be going home and spending a long night in the hospital. Little did I know that the hospital was running a special that day. Two surgeries for the price of one. My brother George helped keep me company after Andrea left to pick up Isabella from some great friends who had picked her up and watched her for us. Well, after a long sleepless night I was finally cleared to go home Wednesday morning. The swelling is still there, as well as a drain tube. The incision is bigger then I thought it would be. It's about six inches instead of the three or four I was told. It does not really bother me though, because it will not be visible in the years to come. After it was all said and done, I am glad the ordeal of dealing with these types of incidences is hopefully finally over for us. Even though this was a rough experience, the fact that the cancer is gone, makes everything else now still seem so inconsequential. I now have a couple of weeks of no lifting and straining and that is tough when Isabella is asking me to play with her every day. I am truly looking forward of being done with everything involved with this cancer. It has been a six month strain on every aspect of our lives. With this last hurdle cleared, we are hoping for smooth sailing ahead. But I also am prepared because of great wife and support from friends and family, that we will be able to weather all the storms heading our way.

Another hurdle to clear

Well, after speaking with a third doctor yesterday about the removal of some lymph nodes in my neck, I have decided to go ahead and do it. It will be next Tuesday morning June 2nd. My E.N.T. doctor communicated with the other two docs, and they all concluded that they would be happy with either choice I made. Leaving them in is perfectly O.K., so getting them removed is more of a piece of mind sort of thing for me. My goal is to get as close to zero percent chance of re-occurrence of this cancer that I can get to. Even this procedure might only slightly be doing that, but it is a chance that I am willing to take. The surgery takes about 2-3 hours and could require a one night stay in the hospital, depending on how I recover. It will leave about a 3 inch scar that will become less visible over the years. They will remove about 5 lymph nodes and they will be biopsied to check for cancer once removed. They do not suspect to find any, but you never know. To me, I want them out so they are not providing a refuge for any remaining cancer cells to reappear in the coming years. The chance of that is small I am told, but my piece of mind will of more important to me then anything right now. I would not wish my treatment for this on anyone. It has been a helluva ordeal these last 5 months, and I can not wait for it to become a distant memory. Besides, I have the time off from work and should do it while I've got the time to take care of it. It should take about a week to fully recover afterward, but I hope to get cleared and hopefully back to work(light duty) by July 13 th. That is my goal anyway.Hope all is well with everybody and I will keep on posting when I have something to at least post about.

The 21st on the 21st.

Life is for living, so I am ready to get back to doing some of it. Most of everybody knows by now, that my PET scan results came back clean on the 18th and that I am now officially cancer free. The phrase remission is also used in this situation as well, but I like cancer free better. I had a CT scan on Monday the 18th as well that will be used as base line for my future scans. I will be scanned every 3 months for a year to make sure there are no more cancer cells trying to build something in that same area again. I received those results today and it was mostly good news except that I do have a lymph node that did not shrink to under one centimeter as the doctors had hoped. The size of it is right on the cusp of requiring it to be removed surgically(it's size in 1.077). I meet with my E.N.T. next week to get his opinion as to whether I should go ahead and take it out and be done with it. My thought is that if there in any chance that taking it out will decrease the chances of the cancer reappearing, I will not hesitate removing it and schedule the surgery that same day. Leaving the node in may be leaving a additional place for cancer cells to grow and reproduce and I don't want that. It is not to complex a surgery and does not require a nights stay in the hospital. So I will let you know how that conversation goes next week. It has been a crazy week for Andrea and I. The news on Monday took a while to sink in for us and it was almost unreal. We called our families first and the tears of joy began to flow. After calling as many people we could get a hold of, I e-mailed other folks and even posted a status on facebook. I wanted to tell everyone I knew personally that I was cancer free, but soon realized that was going to be impossible. It was quite a relief at last to know that my life was not going to be cut short by this disease. So many thoughts and what ifs were going through my head at the time we got the news, that when the doctor finally came in to give us the news so calmly, I thought there was a chance he was joking with us. When I realized that this was not a good idea for him, I just did not know what to say. A sense of relief flowed through my body like nothing ever before. Andreas looked at me and said "see, I told you so". I personally thanked him for the good work he had done with my case, which I know was not a easy one for him. He tried to deflect the attention to others in a modest way, but I know that the radiation treatments he administered played a big part in riding me of this. I am thankful to all the people at Piedmont who worked to diligently over the last 5 months in getting me to this point in my recovery. I still have little way to go to get back to my normal self, but with there help and my loving family and friends, I know I will make it back to living the full life I did before all this happen.

Just the 20th post.

When I decided to write this blog about my treatments, I never thought I would only be at number 20 at this point in time. I was diagnosed just over 4 months ago and thought I would at least be to number 50 by now. I guess my tendency to over explain things with run on sentences has made each entry a little longer that it should have been. I could have keep them short at times, but I just had to much to say after a week or so had past, so I just keep on typing. Most of the time I was dealing with the side effects of the treatments and the desire to write anything just was not there. At times, I would not even mention something about my condition, because it just got to be a little to much.(i.e. I was in the hospital for a procedure three hours before my grandmothers memorial service.) Anyhow, all is well as we head into this final week before my PET scan on Friday. I was well enough to attend Andrea's sister graduation ceremony yesterday. Marcia Christine Gomez graduated from the Goizueta Business School at Emory and received her MBA degree. Her whole family is here to celebrate, and we are all very proud of her. She is now off to Columbus, Oh for work and we will miss her very much after the two years she had spent here. We got used to seeing her around, but I think Isabella will miss her the most. I will post number 21 next week with my test results. I wanted again to thank everybody again for their help over these last few months. Whither it was with a ride, giving food, having a conversation, sending prayers and or good thoughts my way, whatever it was, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. Maybe with all the help and support I have gotten, next weeks post can be the last one. We can then call it lucky number 21. I let you know then.

In Memory

I just want to share a few memories this week about my grandmother who passed away this past Sunday. She was 99 years young, and had lived a long and wonderful life. I have found that talking to her through the years, I was able to learn quite a bit about who I was, and maybe even why I was the person I had become. She was born and lived during a time in this country, when woman just did not do a lot of things that she was able to accomplish over the course of her long life. One of her early memories though, was losing her father to the influenza of 1918 when she was nine. This would have I think, an effect on her and her family for the rest of her life. She was raised by a loving mother who taught her a strong work ethic and also taught her how to make a living for herself. But, by the time she was in her twenties it was the great depression, so there were not many jobs to go around. This was also during prohibition as well, and she could remember seeing folks going into speakeasies to get illegal drinks. She never said she was in one of them, but now I am starting to wonder why she mentioned it. She married young like most women, only to divorce him after eight years at a time when divorces were a not very popular thing. She was to have only one child (my father) with him, knowing that having more would lead to further poverty in the middle of the depression. My grandfather did not seem to be a very good provider for her, she would say, and she ended up moving back in with her mother. She raised my Dad as a single mom when this was something also not very popular with most people. During the second world war, she would continue her pioneering ways and go on to work in a bank, not a factory. This was at a time when woman were not a very common sight in many executive type jobs. She ended up becoming an assistant vice president at that bank, and would retired after 31 years. Although she married again, she never had or wanted to depend on anyone else, for anything. She hated to burden the grand kids or any body else with anything other then maybe changing a light bulb in her house. She relished in her independence, something she must have learned from her mother. She always wore a smile on her face, and was quick with a witty comment. A trait that was passed on to my dad, and I feel down to me as well. She traveled a lot and saw most of the country from a Winnebago that she just adorned. She did this before settling down retired with her second husband in central Florida. I have many great memories of visited them at their home there. From fishing, to just getting to sleep out on the patio. She lived there until his death in 1978 and then my dad moved her up here to Atlanta. She lived by herself here, up to and around her 98th birthday, before being moved to assisted living. I was lucky she always lived closed by to me, and felt guilty if I did not visit her more often. I always enjoy talking with her about what it was like to grow up in such a different time period then me. She would at times, have a keen memory of events that had occurred so long ago that I just soaked up. She loved to read and was not a outwardly religious person, she keep her beliefs to herself and did not judge you for your own. She, like my father, never attended church regularly. When I would prod her about why she did not to seem the very religious type, she would always say something like "well, we were always to busy for that sort of stuff while growing up". She and her mother worked together making dresses during the twenties and must of also worked on Sundays as well to make ends meet. She never had a course word to say about anybody and I never once saw her lose her temper. I may have missed all of this as well, for she might have been a different person when she was younger. But, I doubt it very much. I do not think she would have lived such a long and harmonious life, without being the loving, tender, and kind person she was for the 43 years I knew her. She was already 56 when I was born. I was her fourth grand child and I was born on her birthday, November 20th. My parents decided on giving me as a middle name, her maiden name, as a sort of tribute to her. I was always kind of embarrassed by it as a kid and just wanted to have a normal sounding name like everybody else. Something to go with my very common first name. Now, I don't mind it as much, and sort of like hearing it because it is not very common name at all, especially here in the south. So in honor of grandmother, feel free to call me that name the next time you see me. It is a name I am now very proud to call myself. Only because of the type of woman she was and the life that she lived. One that influenced me more then I will ever imagine. One life that we would all hope to live ourselves. You can call me "Gridley" anytime, and I will gladly turn to you with a smile on my face. I love you grandma.

All good things.

Saw my medical oncologist today. Special thanks to Michelle B. and the boy's for the ride. Just a routine follow up to check on me and make sure all is going as planned. Blood counts were fine and the weight was up from my last appointment with him. All and all a good visit that had me in good spirits afterward. He scheduled a CT scan for me on the date that I get my PET scan results. The reason for that is a CT scan will be to actually give him a idea of weather or not there is anything left inside my tonsil area. He especially wants to see if there is any lymph node tissue still left in there. He suspects the tumor is gone, just obliterated from the radiation. If any lymph node tissue is still there, and is larger then one centimeter, it will have to come out, although he does not foresee that being a issue with me. The PET scan looks for cancer cells only, where the CT is more like a 3-D X-ray, if that makes any sense. I do not know how else to explain the difference in the two types of scans I will be having other than that. All I can do is hope they both come back clean. My condition improves with each couple of days as well as my attitude. I got out of the house last weekend and enjoyed a small parade close to home with Isabella. I think it helps to get out and to try and start doing some normal things. I curse the Georgia pollen though, allergies are one thing I do not need on top of everything else going on. I can now get some water down and had some ice cream the other day. My throat seems to improve each day and the doctor said I should start attempting soft foods, such as eggs. We have become excited enough to start talking about what type of vacation to take this summer for a sorta of celebration if all goes well. I hope we are not getting ahead of ourselves, but it helps to remain optimistic and to look forward to something. Right now that would be a trip in late August to Colorado thanks to a offer from old friend Lauren Mitchell to use her condo. After seeing the info on the place, it was a offer we thought was to good to let go by. Many thanks to her and her husband Micheal for this opportunity that I hope we can take advantage of. We will just have to wait now and see how it all goes next month.

On the road again.

This week in my road to full recovery was much better then the previous week as you can tell from the last post. I think my body is starting to shake the effects of all that radiation and is now starting to get back into a somewhat normal state. I am holding steady at 190 lbs. now that I am back to getting the needed amount of calories per day that is required for me to not lose weight. I am also now down to using just one of my pain killers that have been prescribed for me. I still can not swallow to well, but I am making attempts to try and drink some water every day. I saw my radiation oncologist yesterday, and he thinks I am making good progress. He stated that progress is independent for each patient and reminded me to not rush things, and that recovery came in 3 and 4 day increments. He scheduled my PET scan for May 15th, and I would get my results on the 18th. He made no predictions as to when I would be able to eat soft foods. I too, have no idea when this will happen, but am so looking forward to it. The simple pleasure of just drinking a glass of water that we all take for granted, would bring the greatest joy in the world to me right now. All good things in all good time I suppose. On a different note, Andrea and Isabella got to spent a wonderful spring break in Tampa with her parents. She had a great time and so deserved the time away from me and her job, to take a break and re energize herself. They almost did not go because of my condition at the time, but I insisted I was OK and would be alright with out them. I really wanted this for her because I thought nobody deserved it more then her for everything she had done for me since I was diagnosed. My hope now, is for all of us to take a trip together to celebrate this whole ordeal being over and maybe getting our life's back to somewhat normal. We will know if this is so on May 18th I am guessing.