Still here but leaving today

Wow, what a great nights sleep. Drugs and ear plugs. After a really lazy morning and late breakfast, Phil and How went to work. Judy and Emmy went to visit their mom in hospital. Joan is recovering from back surgery. We wish her well.

I finally left for Phil's office to help consume the pizza and salad lunch she had ordered for her staff. I was only too happy to help with this formidable task. What is really nice about my brief New York visits is that I am quite happy to just hang out at the apartment. I just don't feel like I have to do touristy stuff or eat out in one of the gazillion restaurants in Manhattan. But the office visits are always fun. I feel like Steve Carell.

The bus trip back to Baltimore was really easy. We were even 15 minutes early!

Carpe Diem.

Off to New York

Yup, That's right. I'm actually in New York. I decided, that after much pleading from Phil, I would return the favor and visit them. It's always a great break for me and a nice change of scenery. The bus trip up here is really easy. Three and a half hours in a double decker bus with internet. What else do you need?


I got up here just in time for lunch with Phil, Dena (David's daughter), David (Phil's boss) and me. It was a really nice lunch and great company. I visited the office briefly after lunch and then retired to the apartment to watch Man U beat Inter Milan and advance to the Round of 8 in the Champions League.


In the evening How and Phil put together a home cooked meal and we were joined by How's sisters Judy and Emily. Yes the very same Emily who makes all those wonderful comments on my blog. The first thing I said to her was "Man U beat Inter Milan and advanced to the Round of 8 in the Champions League". For all anyone knew, I may as well have said the same thing in Hindi. The look I got was of total confusion but at least I was able to explain, face to face, just what the hell I meant . By the time we had finished eating, talking and playing on the computers it was after 10pm. Being so driven by time, I immediately went off to bed. Phew. Almost had a late night!

Carpe Diem.

Note to Prime Minister Tsvangirai

I sent the following note to Prime Minister Tsvangirai through Facebook:

Honorable Prime Minister Tsvangirai,
Please accept my heartfelt condolences on the untimely and tragic passing of your beloved wife Susan. I wish you all the strength in the world during this sad time. I also wish you much strength in continuing your struggle on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe.
Respectfully,
Adrian Suskin,
ex-Zimbabwean.

Carpe Diem.

Blood work

Let me briefly explain what this blood work stuff means. I usually end up getting my blood drawn almost every week to see how I am coping with the chemo. There is no definitive test that I have done to show if my cancer is stable, progressing or in remission. What the tests show are how all my organs are generally functioning and how my blood counts, specifically, white, red, platelets etc, are performing. So if my white count is low I'm more susceptible to infections and hence the Neupogen shots. Each abnormal bit of blood work may be an indication of something wrong with a specific organ and just aids the doctors in diagnosing different problems. Again, there is nothing specific that would say, oops, kidney cancer.

Oh yea. My blood work today was fine. I had a really nice chat with Mary about how I have been feeling the past few weeks.

Carpe Diem.

Weekend update

Friday late afternoon, Diana, me, Mike and Kevin drove to Rob's college to pick her up and go for dinner in Bethesda. As I mentioned before, we went to P.F. Chang (sorry Pat) to celebrate Mike's birthday. It was a great dinner as we all have our specialty dishes that we love. Ordering was really funny because as we sat down we didn't even give the wait staff a chance to say "hi my name is......". We just say "hi, we are ready to order". It was great to see Rob again but the drive and the traffic were a bit of a pain in the arse! All in all, a really nice evening.

Saturday lunch time we watched Man U beat Fulham 4-0 in the FA cup playoffs. Shit, we are paying well. Sorry to bore you all with this incessant soccer (football) talk. I guess you have to be a fan.

Saturday evening we were supposed to go for dinner with some of our good Baltimore friends. I had been feeling quite decent for the last couple of days but for some reason I really started to feel like crap Saturday evening. I have no idea what to attribute this to. It's general aches and pains and fatigue. A real malaise.

Sunday I wasn't feeling that much better. So on Monday morning we will be making a few phone calls to our Doctors. We may also be going to see another thoracic surgeon who specializes in lung cancer to get an updated second opinion.

Ordinarily I really dislike TV reality shows. But there is one show I watch every Sunday evening called Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The basic premise of the show is ABC and Sears combined with a whole bunch of really generous companies and people helping those that really need help. Specifically building them new homes. I watch this because when I think my whole world is going down the toilet these stories really lift me and show me that there are many others out there that are also suffering but just in different ways. It also shows me what good there is in this world. What more could you ask for.

Carpe Diem.

Phil's visit

Picture is from August 2008 Today is somewhat of a mixed emotion day. Allow me to explain. It's Russ's birthday today (yippee) and it's also the 1 year anniversary of me being diagnosed with lung cancer (oh shit!). So where are we after one pretty long tough year. Well, still here for one thing. I wish I could say that all is great but I know that we still have a good fight on our hands.

Gerry, Carolina, Ilan & Russ - London March 5th, 2009.

Now onto Phil's visit. As Always, the visits are way too brief but they are really uplifting for me. We talk about all sorts of things and plan all sorts of things. Of course, we always have to get approval from our older sibling for some of the nuttier things we plan. Suffice to say, a lot involves travel. I was actually able to treat Phil to lunch today which is a feat in itself. She always finds some way to justify paying for our lunches or meals but today I won. All $20 worth of it. It was the company that was worth a million.

Carpe Diem

Meeting with Dr. Kumar

Picture is from January 2009.

Today we met with Dr. Kumar. She is the oncologist who has taken over for Dr. Erlich in the interim. I say in the interim because as soon as Dr. Erlich has established himself in another practice we will more than likely be moving there. The meeting went fine. We asked all our questions and confirmed the treatment plan for the near future. My next chemo treatment will be Monday March 16th. Hopefully, if I am doing and feeling well, I will get all three drugs again. So far this week I have been feeling ok. Better than before! My next scan will be at the beginning of April.

Now onto the really important event of the day. Dr. Chef Mike's birthday. Yes, our little snot goblin turned 18 today. We went out for a quick bite to eat tonight but the real dinner celebration will be this coming Friday evening. Diana, me, Mike and Kevin (Mike's best friend) will pick up Rob from school and go to P.F. Changs in Bethesda. Yummee.

Oh yea. Man U beat Newcastle 2-1 today. Still 7 points clear in the table. We are number 1.

Carpe Diem.

Rest in Peace Bella

This morning we found out that our good friend Spike's (Mervyn Spiro) mom had passed away. She wasn't far off being 100 years old but sadly the last few years of her life were racked with immense pain and suffering. Her mind and sense of humor stayed with her all most to the very end. I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with her a few months ago in Toronto and while her eye site and hearing were a bit compromised her ability to still be kidded by us and throw it right back was amazing. She will be sadly missed. Her hardships aside, we should all be so lucky to live such a wonderful, long and full life. This longevity fact being especially poignant to me personally. My heart goes out to you and your family Spike. Rest in peace Bella.

Carpe Diem.

Chemo 3 (Round 4)

Chemo day today and a bit of a reprieve. My vitals were all fine, my weight is down a couple of pounds and my blood work looked good. But all that taken into account (including the rough past week) they decided to change this weeks cocktail. I only got the Alimta. No Avastin or Oxiliplatin. So hopefully this will be a relatively good 2 weeks. Time will tell! Even though the blood work was good I will still get my Neupogen shots but this time with a small twist. They will be administered at home by Dr. Mike. Yes, the very same person as Chef Mike. He's the only one willing to do it!!!

Carpe Diem.

Weekend update

It's been a tough few days. I'm not sure I signed up for this.

As Diana mentioned in the previous post, I had my blood work done on Monday and everything looked ok on the report back. The only thing that was suggested to me was to try a supplement called Coenzyme Q 10 (CoQ-10). It's supposed to help with the fatigue. I have been taking it for a couple of days and am not sure I have noticed any improvement in the fatigue. Maybe I'm too tired to notice!

On Friday morning I had a chest xray done to make sure there wasn't a pneumonia developing or there was not more fluid buildup in the pleura even after the talc procedure. Our surgeon, Dr. Skaryak, saw the xray and report and said that what she saw was the post op results of the talc procedure. All else looked as normal as it could look! Yea, I know. It doesn't make me feel a whole lot better.

Saturday morning Al Goldstein (aka Goldfish or Fish) came to visit. We picked him up at the airport and he will stay the night and leave tomorrow. It's been really nice catching up with him about all the goings on at work (UPS). For those that do not know, Al and I are both senior Captains flying for UPS. He is on the MD11 and I am on the B757/767. Albeit not right now for me!!! I've also know Al since I was about 8 years old. He is the only one of my good close friends that knows me both professionally and socially.

Saturday evening Diana, Al, Mike and I went for a really nice dinner at Akbar Palace. Then back to the house for more catching up.

Sunday morning I made Al and myself omelettes and then off to the airport to drop him off. It was a really rejuvenating visit for me. The rest of the morning was spent watching Man U beat Tottenham in the Carling cup final. Yehaa!

"And now for something completely different". This afternoon I was in touch with Dr. Erlich. We had a wonderful conversation and I am sure I do not have to explain to you all how much of a mental and physical lift this was for me. I will elaborate more soon.

Tomorrow is chemo 3!!!

Carpe Diem.