Mike Judge vs Ewing's Sarcoma

On Monday I had an x-ray and an appointment with my surgeon to check on my arm. Let me first discuss the bad, and then I'll move onto good news. A large focus of the appointment was regarding the pain I've been having in my arm. I was told that this is not normal, and she's now confident that this is attributed to the hardware rubbing in there. She's thinking that I'm going to need injections, but I should wait until I'm doing rehab to get them. This is because I can only receive so many of these injections, and my pain is going to be a lot worse when I'm actually using my arm to its fullest in rehabbing it. I shouldn't waste them now. Taking Advil 1-2 times a day is definitely not where I want to be, and I'm getting to that point now where I don't think the Advil is helping all that much. In the morning it's a constant dull ache. By the afternoon the achiness goes away, but it's still sore when I do even basic things like open a door, dr...

On Thursday I was in Philly for my six month follow-up appointment with my oncologist. I had blood-work, a CT scan of my chest, and then saw my oncologist a few hours afterwards. Good news! I'm still cancer free, and my blood levels are improving. It was a good appointment. I had my questions answered, and now I feel a little bit better about how I'm recovering so far. Let me explain. The first question I had was about the whole sterility thing. (I discussed this in my last blog post if you want to read more about that.) My oncologist at first kind of freaked out because he couldn't remember if I stored or not. I have to say that this issue was not really pushed on to me by Penn before starting chemo. If it wasn't for my mom I may have never stored a sample, and I would be in a very bad spot right now. But as far as my last analysis he told me that this does happen, and it could improve, but like everything else it's going to take time if it ever does come back. H...

It's been three weeks since my last update. Here's how everything has been going since then... First I'll start out with the bad. My second week of school I had my first test. I prepared for it really well. I understood how to do every problem from the homework, and I was ready to receive a really good grade on my first test since returning to school. I received my Physics test, and we were given 45 minutes to take it. I began to read the first problem, and couldn't concentrate at all. About fifteen minutes passed and nothing was on the paper, but my name. At this point I began to panic making it even more difficult to concentrate, and also I began to feel very tired. I honestly felt like laying my head down for a little bit, but I already lost a lot of time. For the last 20 minutes I finally got a little bit of focus, but the damage was already done. I rushed to get whatever I could on the test, but my thoughts were filled with so much negativity that I couldn't ...

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...