Mike Judge vs Ewing's Sarcoma

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas! I know I did. It was a great time with my family. So for this post I'm going to discuss my three favorite gifts that I received this year. 1. The gift of keeping my arm. A couple weeks ago my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. For me the answer was simple; For the surgery to go well, and to have good function in my arm. I received both of these gifts this Christmas. I was blessed to have the plan for surgery change to allow for more function in my arm. Now I have a really good chance for full strength, and flexibility. I also was lucky to have such a good surgery team, and for everything about the surgery go well for me. Back in August when I was being diagnosed with all of this I wasn't sure if I would even be able to keep my arm , and now I'm sitting here typing a blog post getting ready for some rehab after I'm finished with this. It's really incredible! Thank You University of Penn. 2. Autographed Football ...

Yesterday was a long day. I had an appointment with my oncologist at 11:15 and my surgeon at 1:15. We left the house at 8, and didn't get back until 5. The appointments....went well. I got all of my questions answered, and I'm now much less nervous about everything. Let's break down where I stand with this cancer.  I now have all of the results of the scans I had before surgery. The last scan result I needed was the bone scan. Its Clean! No spreading of the cancer to my other bones. I asked my oncologist about the 2 mm nodule in my right lung. He's not worried about it at all. Since that was my first pure CT scan of my chest, the nodule could have been there my whole life. Also, 2 mm is the smallest size a CT scan can pick up. In other words...if you were to have 10 CT scans of your chest, not all of them would pick up the nodule. If my oncologist isn't worried about it, then neither am I. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but after surgery my hemoglob...

It's been exactly one week since my last post, and what have I done in this time...not much. I have been sleeping a lot, and when I say a lot I mean it. Like I get around 10 hours every night plus a few naps totaling around 3-4 hours a day. I've been eating well, and doing my exercises whenever I'm up and awake. Even though I don't feel like I'm doing much; I really am doing a lot. I'm recovering. I saw the biggest improvement in my arm yesterday from the day before yesterday. The swelling in my arm went down a lot giving me more flexibility in my elbow. I also didn't take any Dilaudid yesterday, just some Advil. The pain I felt didn't warrant the hardcore painkillers. I did take it this morning, but laying still all night sleeping can do that. I'm improving with all of the exercises except the external rotations. Not making any progress with that one. I'm not really using the sling anymore, not even when I go to sleep. The incision looks good as...

Before I dive into probably my longest post yet I just want to thank everyone for their support and prayers. I really am blessed to have this. It really makes a difference as you already know with the success of my surgery. The prayers have been answered.  Thank you everyone! Alright I'm going to try to keep this as short as I can, but at the same time try to get all of the main events that occurred throughout the week for me. I'm starting this right now at 7 pm Friday night. Let's see if I can get this done in one shot since my arm is pretty sore. Lots of pictures in here. Monday: Made our trip down to Philadelphia, and stayed in a hotel that was only one mile away from the hospital. This was really nice on surgery day allowing us to get more sleep and be less stressed on an already stressful day. Not much really happened this day other than getting down to Philly, and enjoying the hotel which I did greatly. There was a pool, and hot tub in the hotel so I got rid of my ...

Just wanted to let everyone know that surgery went well. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 am. Surgery started at 9:05am. It lasted almost 6 hours. He was taken to the recovery room at 2:45 pm. The surgeon came to see us and informed us that it went well. Michael had healthy margins around the tumor. This means that the cancer didn't go any where else in the arm. This meant that the surgical team didn't need to take as much tissue/muscle as they had originally thought. The other good news was that the bone wasn't as involved with the cancer either. The surgeon had said it was "weird". The bone  was actually speckled. I usually looks more discolored from the cancer. They did have to remove one of his tricep muscles. This means that he will be a little weaker to start with. If you know Mike like I do he won't be hitting the weights too soon. Joel and I were just up to see him in the recovery room. He wanted me to video him but I didn't have the heart to do ...

This Tuesday is going to be a really big day for me. It's my surgery day to get Jimmy out. With the completion of the surgery it also puts me over the halfway point of my cancer treatment since I already had three chemo cycles, and still have three to go after surgery. It's really amazing to see how far I've come with this. I mean for a large portion of my freshman year of college I had no idea what was causing my arm to hurt, and I hoped it would get better. But nothing did, it just got worse eventually leading me to get it checked on. Soon after came the cancer diagnosis. And now after receiving three months of chemotherapy I'm finally getting what brought me here; my arm fixed . It wasn't the path that I expected to take to get my arm healed, but it's going to be worth it. After I rehab this arm, and get it to full strength after surgery it's going to be amazing. It's going to be the best my arm has felt in a year and a half! My arm is going to help m...

Yes, I'm going to dedicate this blog post to chicken wings, but I'm also going to mention some things that I failed to mention in earlier posts. I love chicken wings, and with my cancer treatment I had to limit the amount of spicy stuff because of mouth sores. But I didn't hold back yesterday, with this big break my mouth is completely healed now. I spent like 5 minutes the other day just feeling around in my mouth with my tongue because I have no life. But seriously, with the chemo, my gums and other parts in my mouth were swollen limiting the movement of my tongue. It was really annoying, but I got used to it. But back to the wings....my mouth isn't even sore today after all of the wings I ate yesterday. Some background on this place. Back in July, actually about two weeks before I found out I had a parasite in my body who would be later called Jimmy, my aunt Diane, and Uncle Paul told me about this awesome restaurant in Stroudsburg called Big Daddy's. They told...

Had a great day yesterday with my family. Dinner was great, and so were the desserts. In my family we have three birthdays in the span of 2 weeks so we celebrate them all on Thanksgiving. This means lots of dessert with cake, and ice cream being added to the usual pumpkin, and apple pies. I don't complain because I eat a little bit of everything. I felt pretty well yesterday considering the lack of sleep I got the night before doing some online holiday shopping. We played video games with our younger cousins. They loved Little Big Planet. It was they're first time playing the game, and in a few hours they got so good that we beat the most difficult level in the game together. It was epic. Way to go Ryan, and Samantha! It was great fun! No Longer a Teen Double Digits! Biggest 10 Year Old Ever Today I feel pretty tired. But I was up a few times last night getting some deals so it's partially my fault. It's worth it because I'm almost done with holida...

I've been getting some of my results over the past few days. I hoped I would have gotten them earlier, but I didn't. The big test result I've been anxious to see was the MRI, and I finally received it this morning. The test results I got are the CT scan, and the MRI, but no bone scan. Let's start with the MRI results because that's what I'm sure you've been waiting for too. I read the report, and from what I can tell, everything looks good. What's left of Jimmy didn't absorb much of the contrast dye meaning the cells aren't active. There was less absorbed this time on the outside, and little to none on the inside. It's like an empty shell. My surgeon said that this happens sometimes. When they take Jimmy out, they are going to run tests on the cells of the tumor to find the necrosis percentage which is the percentage of the tumor that is dead. She said that in cases like mine that they are a lot of times close to 100%, which is awesome! H...

Just finished my last scan. The bone scan, which was the most difficult test for me. The scans yesterday actually weren't too bad. I didn't feel claustrophobic during the MRI, and CAT scans. I think the ativan helped with that, and the tubes weren't as tight as the ones I have been in before. The CAT scan only lasted 5 minutes, but the MRI was a little over an hour. The bone scan was really bad for 5 minutes, but the remainder of the test was easy as 3.14. If you were wondering what the procedure is for a bone scan since you probably never had one/heard of one before. It works like this. They gave me a radioactive injection today at 11am, and told me to come back at 11 for the scans. I had to make sure to drink lots of fluids during this time to lesson the potency of the radioactive material in my body. When I got back, they ran the test. The machine they used looked like this. My head was straight forward, facing the plate during that portion The test took aroun...

I'm writing this post from the hotel. I'm a little bored this morning so I decided to write this. Today I'll be having a catscan of my chest at 9:15, and MRI right after that of my arm to see how much Jimmy shrunk. Hopefully down to nothing! At 12 I'll have a meeting with my surgeon to plan the surgery. If you think these tests would stress me out, then you're absolutely right. The procedure itself is what gets me too. I hate being in those tubes, enclosed like that. I don't think I'm claustrophobic, but I'm definitely MRI, and CAT-phobic. And it doesn't end today with the tests. I got a call yesterday, that the doctor wants me to get a bone scan. So that's scheduled for this Friday. The past few days have been a little hard for me, so I did what I always do when I'm realy stressed out like this..... Exercise ! Yeah, the same kid who didn't do anything but sleep in his bed all of Saturday was on the treadmill that Tuesday. I only was on...

Another cycle of chemo in the books! This one was definitely the most difficult for me. It hit me really hard in comparison to what I've come to expect from this treatment. On Monday morning I felt really well and recovered from the last treatment, like I usually do. By the middle of the week I felt like I was a zombie; just going through the motions. Same routine everyday; wake-up, go to Radnor, get my treatment, go home, eat, then sleep. The latest I fell asleep this week was like 7. But I can't blame everything on the chemo. I got off to a bad start on Monday right when I walked into the office. They were surprised to see me there, and for some reason I wasn't on the schedule for the day. It wouldn't of been a problem if an oncologist didn't have to be there to receive chemo, but the oncologist was scheduled to leave at 11. So I was out of luck since my chemo runs until 2. I got my treatment at Penn in Philly, which I didn't like at all. I could write a w...

Since my last post I have had ups and downs as far as I feel. I felt like I was beginning to get over the chemo on Thursday, but then on Friday I got like a second wind of it or something. I felt worse on Saturday, and really bad on Sunday, especially after church. When I woke up I felt a bit better than Saturday so I decided to go to church since I haven't gone in 2 weeks. Big Mistake! Church was like a workout. I didn't realize how tired I really was until I had to stand for a few minutes. Standing, kneeling, and sitting...a workout, that's sad for me. The standing parts of mass were killing me.  My heart was racing like I ran sprints during those parts. When I got home I slept on the couch for hours, and went to bed early too(7:00). On these bad days, the only thing that was making me feel crappy was the fatigue; nothing else. But it was so intense. Sleeping, and resting didn't seem to even help much. Fortunately for me I started feeling a little better today. I ...

Not much has happened since my last post. Last week I pretty much just chilled out at home for the most part. I felt pretty well, especially by the weekend. I probably could have gone out or had people over or something last week, but I've been pretty active, and I'm happy that I just kept it easy last week. If it was warmer on Saturday, I would have gone outside to shoot some hoops. On Sunday we had a family gathering at my Grandma's house. I got to see my cousins' halloween costumes. It was a fun afternoon! Ryan and Samantha in their costumes On Monday I had my last A treatment before surgery. My last treatment of Doxorubicin(The Red Devil), Vincristine, and Cyclophosphamide until January when I'm back from surgery. I got some dates now as far surgery, and scans. My surgery is planned for December 10th (one week after my birthday, thank God!). I have my MRI, and CT scan of my lungs on the morning of November 21st(to make sure the cancer didn't spread). ...

I can't believe I'm already two cycles into treatment! When I look back on these past two months, it seems like the time has really gone fast. Last week didn't seem much more difficult than the first time that I got the B treatment. This time I listened to my body much better and went into bed around 7 every night. I also took ativan at the end of my treatment(like 30 minutes before I left) for nausea, and to help with sleep. It helped tremendously because the car ride home was probably the most difficult part of the B treatment. I would feel so sick, but it would get better when I would get home. But with taking Ativan, I was in and out of sleeping for the ride home, and I was much more comfortable. It was good that I didn't have to get Lasix this week because that would have sucked. The nurses said that I have good kidneys cause I pee like every 10-15 minutes when I get my treatment. I still get a little swelled up, but my kidneys do a really good job of getting the d...

Today I passed the midway point of my second B treatment. So far this week I have felt more tired everyday which was expected. I'm reacting to the chemo exactly like I did the first time. The only complaints that I have about my health right now is the fatigue, and urinary frequency. The mouth sores are healed, and I only have mild nausea right now. I took ativan for the first time today towards the end of my chemo, and it made me feel so much better on the car ride home. On Monday and Tuesday I was pretty carsick on the way home, but today I felt pretty well coming home. It's been a pretty long week thus far, but in two more days it'll be over. I'm exhausted right now, but I wanted to get something on here since I haven't posted in over a week. I'll have a longer post about this week sometime after this week is finished. Prayer Requests: That I continue to have my strength, and that I don't get too much more tired tomorrow. For all of the other childre...

Since my last post I have felt better everyday like I thought. I'm still not 100% like I thought I would be by now, but I'm feeling much better than I did a few days ago. I'm not nauseous at all, but the mouth sores haven't changed. Things taste normal now. So i can drink my favorite liquid...water. I would say my energy right now is inconsistent at best. I'll have a few hours in the day where I feel great followed by hours of lethargy. I'm thinking this could be due to my red blood cell count being low which should be at there lowest right now(7-10 days after treatment). I hope they're not too low because I don't want to get a transfusion already. I feel like I have had more energy today since using the incentive spirometer which I got yesterday. I have been laying around too much and haven't been exercising my lungs. This tool helps get my lungs working optimally. Right after using it the first time yesterday I was coughing up crud which has been l...