Mike Judge vs Ewing's Sarcoma

What a busy week this has been! I'm really surprised how my body has been handling things this week. I would have never been able to do what I did this week on my fourth cycle, and I couldn't be more grateful. Well lets get this blog post rolling. This week didn't start off the best for me. On Monday there were scheduling issues at the treatment center which delayed treatment significantly. I arrived for treatment at 9:15, and didn't begin until noon. This meant that I didn't get to leave until 4, and didn't get home until 6:30. It was a very long day. On the bright side, my white blood cell count skyrocketed from my last treatment. Remember last week when I had all of that pain from the neupogen shots? Well it was worth it because they did their job. My WBC was at 20! It was an all time low for me the last time I got treatment two weeks ago at just over 2. And now I'm at an all time high. This improvement in my blood counts is what gave me the opportuni...

Yesterday was a very eventful day for me. I woke up to mild-moderate pain in my lower spine. I was really hoping I wouldn't have this, but usually Wednesday or Thursday is the day I get it if I do. It is a side effect from the neupogen shots that I get. These shots stimulate my bone marrow into producing white blood cells, and I receive one of these shots each day for 7 days following my last day of my B cycle. Luckily this pain wasn't too bad until later in the day so the trip down to Philly wasn't bad. I'll get to what happened later in just a second. I had an x-ray of my arm at 12:45, and my appointment with my surgeon at 1:30. We arrived at the hospital at 11:00 so we were really early. There wasn't much traffic so that was great. We got lunch which wasn't that great. We should have just went to the place we went last time. It had great soup. Then, I had the x-ray of my arm. Next up was the appointment with my surgeon. I got in early at 1:00 which was real...

I haven't really been actively updating this blog lately, and I'm going to be completely honest with the reason why. This fourth cycle just sucked. I spent the whole last post comparing this fourth cycle to my first cycle. After this last week of treatment I now realize that this was the hardest cycle for me. Physically, the side effects did come as a shocker after having a long recovery with surgery. I just got blasted with everything at once. But what made this past week the worst was the mental aspect of it. Nothing is more demoralizing than a week of chemo. I look back on this past week, and I don't know how I got through it. Sitting in a treatment center for hours on end with nothing to do but watch TV, and have countless trips to the bathroom. If you were wondering how many times I actually have to go to the bathroom in a 4 hour chemo session I actually counted one day. 18! And that day I felt like I wasn't making that many trips. At least I have really good k...

Haven't updated this in over a week!  Looking back at my last post I see that I started it, "I'm now  two days out from returning to chemo, and I'm still not sure what to make of this." Well I think I got it figured out now. This fourth cycle reminds me a lot of my first cycle of chemo. Here are the similarities. 1. My first cycle began right when it was kind of rough being home alone in the beginning, but I eventually adjusted. The past month and a half has been great with my brothers home from school a lot due to all of the holidays. But that changed this week, and I had to make that same adjustment again. I just try to keep my mind as occupied as possible. When I don't my mind can  travel  to places that only will hurt me. So keeping busy is key. The first  half  of treatment I mainly played  video games, listened to music, used my tablet, youtube, blogging etc. Two new things that'll keep me occupied over the next few months will be my arm reh...

Happy New Year Everyone! I'm now two days out from returning to chemo, and I'm still not sure what to make of this. Before Monday, the last time I had chemo was November 15th. My break was pretty much two parts. I really enjoyed the first half of my break. Before surgery I felt my best in months. Part 2 of my break wasn't as enjoyable, but I definitely made the most of it. The time really flew by. Lots of holidays, and lots of fun. These past 6 weeks have been the most "normal" time I have had in a while. In this time I began to forget what chemo "really" felt like. I think this is due to all of the other things occupying my mind like my arm rehab, and the busy holiday season. It wasn't until a few days before the 30th that I realized that fun-time was coming to an end. I started to become anxious over how I would do with the treatment. I wondered if my body would just get "shocked" with all of the chemo that I haven't received in a ...

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...