Cushing’s Syndrome

So, we’ve had a cold for a couple of days, and have used the opportunity of being more or less flat on our back to do a little health research (love that WiFi). The pictures above show the evolution of my mug over the past 18 months or so, during 12 of which I’ve [...]

Home

We’re back from Mexico - where we had a really great time. Naturally, I picked this week to have a bout with anemia, which was kind of ideal, in a way. I didn’t feel like doing much, so laying by the pool was actually a pretty good deal. Linda had planned to leave [...]

Time flies

At church this morning, many parishioners and their children took the opportunity to make Advent wreaths during a very nice brunch organized by Trinity’s foodies. As I looked on, it gave me pause to consider how fast time has flown this past year.
The most precise prognosis I’ve received (from UCSF physicians) gives me a 50% [...]

The gimp squad’s big day in SF

So I made my way to UCSF’s Milberry center, where I met physical trainer Heidi Engel, who put me through nearly 90 minutes of exercises meant to help me reconnect my brain to my left side. Heidi sessions usually leave me fairly exhausted: by the time I got home, the combination of workout and chemo [...]

Bushed

No reference to a certain Republican, not much loved hereabouts. I navigated up to UCSF on public transport, underwent chemo infusion, came home, arranged for a new furnace (ours has broken again), hauled out 6 bins of recycling (and brought ‘em back in) did the mail, worked through a long to-do list, cooked dinner and [...]

What a day….

Started with a hard ‘Heidi’ workout, followed by a scramble to be at UCSF Radiology Imaging Center for a 9:00 AM MRI, followed by a MRI review (the news continues to be good on the tumor and Avastin seems to be the reason) with my neuro-oncology team.
Then lunch with Kelly, Karen and Jim, our cousins [...]

Busy week…

So we’re off to UCSF this morning, for rehab workouts, then back up again tomorrow for MRIs and a consult with the neuro-oncological team. There’s a dentist appt. in the middle of that somewhere, plus the usual Get Things Done stuff. Linda’s off to NYC, and there’s a couple of last touches we need on [...]

Optimism Helps Quality, Not Length, of Life for Cancer Patients

So says a study of 1000 head and neck cancer patients, cited on WSJ’s Health Blog. But isn’t quality, not quantity what we want, anyway…?

Steroid countdown

Little nervous this morning as we face our first 5mg steroid day in the continuing ramp-down. Earlier this year, when I tried to ramp the steroids down, we got into trouble around 5 mg - the left side started to shut down as brain edema - an artifact of last December’s radiation therapy - returned [...]

Cancer and chemo

Saturday was a bit rough: it was just one of those random cancer days where I was weaker, wobblier and more out-of-sorts than usual. Many cancer patients have noted this - cancer just throws you curves some days - as have I. Felt better this AM, and was off to church for a very nice [...]

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