Mike Judge vs Ewing's Sarcoma

This week I returned to school! Here's how this week went... On Sunday I was so excited to go back to school. Not like a college kid's first day of college excited, but like a five year old on Christmas eve excited. Yeah... I was extremely excited, and how could you blame me? My number one goal after my health related goals from the cancer treatment was to return to school. Returning to school is the ultimate indicator to myself that my life is moving forward from the destruction that this past year caused. School brings a little bit more "normalcy" to my life. I made sure I had all of my school supplies and books etc. I double and triple checked it. I checked my registration status and my class schedule online a dozen times; Half of the time in disbelief that I'm actually going back to school, and the other half making sure that everything is ready and I didn't screw up the registration after the confusing leave of absence process. I was obsessed with mak...

Yesterday I had a follow-up appointment for my surgery. I don't have to wear the sling anymore which is great! That thing was getting really annoying, and now I could start using my right arm again. Right now it's really stiff and painful, and I lost a lot of flexibility. She suggested that I just start out slow, and work my way up but don't progress to anything crazy like swimming or shooting hoops for at least six weeks from now. I can drive now, but I have to be really careful because I can't react quickly with my arm at this point. I didn't have an x-ray yesterday because it's way too early to tell if the bone graft is taking. I will go back for my next appointment at the end of November. Then I will have an x-ray, and hopefully it will show that it's finally taking, and I could move onto strength rehab(cross fingers). In summary when the end of November comes around, my arm won't feel any better than it did before my second surgery, but if the bone ...

On Tuesday I had surgery on my arm and hip. The procedure went well and I have no signs of nerve damage. I can move my fingers, and wrist freely. This time I was given a patch before my surgery to help with the nausea and it worked! I was a little bit allergic to the patch(my chest and arms got hot and red. It looked like I was sunburnt), but the pros far outweighed the cons. I only threw-up twice which is a lot less than last time. The surgery went as planned except for the surgery's duration. I was told it would take 1-2 hours, but it ended up taking almost 4 hours! When I woke up from the surgery and noticed that my surgery took a lot longer than expected I was really afraid to hear bad news(remember the mri on my arm didn't prove there was no cancer in my arm; it was clear with the little visibility of the scan, but it didn't show the whole picture). That was the type of news I was fearing, and was largely the reason why I threw-up in the hospital. Then they explained t...

I'm in Philadelphia right now sitting poolside at a hotel. Just a few hours ago I had an x-ray on my arm. The radiologist thought there was a little bit of growth, but my doctor doesn't believe there was any at all. There was a chance that I wouldn't have surgery, but at the last appointment I was told that it would take a miracle for this procedure to not be necessary. Whether there was any growth or not, I need to have this surgery because the longer that this isn't fused the more of a risk I will run for the hardware failing. With school coming up soon, this is the best thing for me to do. The surgery is going to happen tomorrow. The procedure is pretty much a toned down surgery from December. I will have my left hip opened up in which they will scrape my hip for bone cells, open up my arm, and put those bone scrapings in the gaps between the cadaver and my humerus bone fragments. The procedure can take anywhere from a little over an hour to over two hours dependin...

Exactly one year ago my journey began. In early June I had an appointment with my local orthopedic surgeon to get my shoulder/arm checked out. The x-ray that day showed nothing so he scheduled an MRI and a follow up appointment for July 22nd, 2013. I walked into my appointment hoping that I didn't tear my shoulder.... the worst case scenario, or so I thought. That day there was no closure on what was wrong with my arm. There was a mass found in my arm, but he didn't know what it was. He said it was probably a hematoma, but could be a torn tricep, or....cancer. I was absolutely shocked. How could I have cancer? Young, healthy people don't get cancer! I walked out of the appointment hoping for the torn shoulder or hematoma...my old worst case scenario. The world I had known was flipped upside down in a matter of minutes. For the next grueling five weeks I had numerous tests to figure out what was going on in there. Week after week passed, and never would I return home with ...

On Friday I had my three-month post treatment scans. And they were.....clean! The final report isn't available yet, but my oncologist was pretty convinced that they were clean from his examination during the appointment. (I had my chest cat scan a few hours before the appointment so that's why they weren't looked at by the radiologist at that point). My oncologist said that he would call if anything was caught on the scan. It's monday so I think I'm safe now which is why I waited to post anything on my blog until now. This was my first follow up appointment to check for signs of recurrence. It was also my first time at Radnor since my final day of treatment. The last time I was in that building I was exhausted and sick. On Friday I was a completely different person than I was on March 21st. It was great to see my nurses. They were so glad to see me so healthy. It was the healthiest they have ever seen me.  The appointment went well. He answered my questions...

So yesterday I had my appointment with my surgeon to discuss the progress of my arm. I had an MRI, and X-Ray at 8 a.m followed by an appointment  with my surgeon at 10:30. I was a little late to the 10:30 appointment because the MRI took so long though. I don't know why but the test took around 90 minutes. Before my MRI's would take 45-60 minutes. I also had to wait a while for the machine to be open which contributed to being late. By the time I was finished with the MRI, and X-ray it was 11:00. The length of the scan probably had something to do with the different MRI machine I had to use this time. I had to use a special machine because of all of the metal in my arm. The only difference I could tell with the machine was that it felt really hot in the scanner. I was sweating like a fiend in there; I thought I was going to pass out. Here are the results from the tests. The good news is there is no recurrence of the cancer. The bad news is that my humerus isn't fusing wit...