October 8, 2013

Hello world.

Well it was a great weekend. Highly enjoyable time of relief, relaxation, and enjoying time with family and friends. Alas, what a difference there is between "preliminary" and "final". Unfortunately, cancer is back - in one of my vertebrae and in two little spots on my pelvis.

Now I know some of you may think highly of me and say that this is just another hurdle to jump, and I commend that optimism. The first step will be to radiate this spot on the vertebrae that's arisen with activity to stop its spread. There are clinical trials of other protocols to try to subdue the progression of disease, which we'll of course consider. The fact of the matter is this: the disease returned while I was undergoing chemotherapy that is known to quell Ewing's Sarcoma, which is awfully bad news. As my doctor put it, we have to be realistic with our goals for me - the disease was very, very advanced when we finally got it diagnosed, we knew high dose chemo could get me into remission but we didn't know for how long (the hope was that it would be in remission for good). That being said, the true goal is to try to give me good time for as long as possible.

I am unsure how much time that leaves me with, and it'd be unfair to ask the doctor to venture a guess so I didn't ask today. I'll have scans again after radiation; they'll be either when I start experiencing pain elsewhere or 4-6 weeks after radiation concludes, whichever comes first. How far the disease has progressed at that point will give us a better indication as to how much time there is to be had. The unfortunate truth is this: a relapse of Ewing's Sarcoma is 100% fatal, and I am now terminal.

This leaves the status of the blog up in the air. Though I do enjoy producing it, I know that there will be a point coming up where there will be no more to report - I'm not sure if this will be before I'm too weak to write or not. I also don't want this to become "The Blog of the Dying Man" because that just stinks and sounds so depressing. As you all have known from my past blog posts, I'm neither depressing nor stinky. Also, above all other things I want to be remembered as a guy who was always happy. Always. Which unbelievably, after all this news today and suffering for the past nearly 20 months, I still am. We'll see how things go, and if I do choose to conclude the blog I'll procure a final post, not just cut it off...so you'll all know.

Am I realistic about my prognosis? Sure am. Have I stopped fighting? Sure haven't. Do I believe in miracles? Sure do. Let's pray for one.

Take care everybody.