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Two Months Free from Treatment

There's not much to report on other than my hair coming in really fast now. Everything else is about the same that I have been mentioning. It's really nice to see my hair coming in the way it is now. The hair is really fuzzy on my head which everyone seems to like except me. Over the weekend we had a yard sale. My cousins, and my brother Joey worked a lemonade stand to raise money for sarcoma research. I was so happy that they did this. Thanks again guys! It was also my cousin Samantha's birthday. She's 8 now! Nice Job! It was really nice weather over the weekend. I have to take extra care to cover up the scar on my arm when in the sun to prevent it from burning, and also my head until my hair grows in more. A sunburnt head is not fun, I had that last year when I cut my hair too short. My arm will burn really fast if I don't protect it. The scar is still red right now. Since I have a pool, and plan on swimming a lot this summer, I bought a swim shirt ( ...

1.5 months free from treatment

Since my last post, I have seen some improvements in my health. Here's the rundown in where I am now. -Hair. A few days after my update on April 18, my remaining hair fell out(legs, and eyebrows). My whole body was completely bald at that point. About a week after that I began to notice my head getting fuzzy. Within that week most of my body had at least a little bit of stubble. I actually shaved my face twice in the past few weeks. Pretty awesome since I haven't shaved since September. Right now I look a lot more "normal." I was never really embarrassed in losing my hair, but it's definitely nice to have it back. Give me another month or two, and I bet I'll have a full head of hair. -Neuropathy. I'm not sure, but I think its improving. I mainly notice it in the morning upon waking up. At this point it's not really that bad at all. The ridges on my fingernails are still working their way out. While I'm on the topic of nerve related stuff, my up...

Miles2Give

On Tuesday I was in New York City for the start of the Miles2Give tour. For those of you that don't know what Miles2Give is. It is a run around the United States to raise funds for sarcoma research. The team consists of four runners, and they will run 10,000 miles in the next 8 months for this great cause! They will run counter-clockwise starting in NYC, and end their tour in NYC sometime in December. The goal of Miles2Give this year is to raise $500,000 for sarcoma research for the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. The research grant will go to a very well respected research team there. The team is making lots of discoveries in Sarcoma which is really exciting. This funding will help push that research further, and hopefully lead to better treatment in the future. Check out this video below. Now that you know a little bit about the Miles2Give event. Here was my experience on Tuesday. On Monday my mom, Aunt Diane, and I traveled to NYC since the event started at 7:30 in the...

One Month Free from Treatment

At this point since I have finished treatment, and cancer is potentially behind me. I plan on keeping this blog updated with my recovery from treatment. Mainly of my arm(which does have a long way to go), and the general recovery from chemo. My big goal right now is to be ready to go to school in the fall. The question with my arm is whether the cadaver will fuse. If it doesn't, I will have surgery; which will need to be moved up to avoid missing a few weeks of school. I just hope my next tests show a lot of improvement. My last day of treatment was March 21st. Now that I'm about one month free from chemo; here are my thoughts: It's going to take a while to heal. During the last three cycles I often imagined what recovery would be like. At first I thought it would be a lot like it was when I had my break before surgery. In that one month break I recovered pretty well, and felt really well by the end of it. I mean,  I felt so good that I was jogging on the treadmil...

Scans are Clear!

I had a lot of good news today. At my oncology appointment I heard the news I have been waiting for, for so long... my scans are clear , meaning there is no evidence of the cancer in my body right now. My bone scan, and CT scan results were very boring which is good. The reason why I needed more images of my hip on the bone scan was because of my bone graft. It was creating a false red-flag, and so was my arm. Other than those two areas, there was nothing exciting about the bone scan test. The CT scan only showed the same nodule from before. It didn't change in size which means that it doesn't have anything to do with my cancer, and is nothing to worry about. My blood-work was pretty good, but I'm still anemic which explains why I'm still tired. I'm not going to take my daily supplement pills this week(Magnesium, and Potassium), and if my blood results are fine checking for those two supplements I will be done with those pills. That'll be really great because ...

Anxious

I forgot to add this in my last post, but I get my scan results on Thursday April 10th. I also have an appointment with my surgeon that day. In my last post I explained that I'm not going to read my results when they become available online. They just became available this morning. I'm standing by what I said, and I will not check them. This last week has been really stressful for me, but I've gotten through it. During the day I try to keep as busy as possible. I do anything to keep my mind off of things like play video games, watch TV, computer work etc. Adding on my previous post. What makes post treatment such a scary thing for me is the lack of control that I feel. When I was receiving treatment I monitored side effects, and managed them accordingly. I handled the treatment well, and only got off schedule at the end. Having a lot of delays can impact the effectiveness of the chemo. When it comes down to it, the only control I really had with beating this cancer was j...

Scans

These past several months have been very stressful for me. It has been a roller coaster ride as far as stress goes. My peak stress would be when I was being diagnosed. Uncertainty is something I really don't like. None of us do. And back then there was so much of it. I was thrown into a world where I knew very little. I had never even heard of a sarcoma before, and in just a few weeks from my first appointment I would find out that my "arm strain" was really an aggressive bone cancer. Believe it or not, my stress dropped a lot when I found out the diagnosis. I finally knew what was wrong with me, and I was ready to do whatever possible to be cured. I was more stressed during the first three cycles, and surgery than these past three cycles. I would be constantly feeling my arm to verify that the tumor was shrinking. My fear of the treatment not working was obsessive. After surgery I hit a low in stress over the past year. The cancer was out, scans were clear, surgery went ...