Making a difference

There is a wonderful news segment that NBC nightly news with Brian Williams has been airing for the past week or so. The basic gist of the segments are what amazingly generous deeds many individuals and businesses are doing during these tough times. It is incredibly moving and inspiring.

If my blog, in any way, inspires or encourages anyone to trust and listen to their bodies and get the medical help they need then I am truly happy. If my trials, travails and tribulations inspire any of you to do whatever good you can do in this short life time, then again, I and the beneficiaries are eternally grateful.

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give".
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965).

Carpe Diem.

What's up

Well so far I'm feeling ok. Not great! Mostly tired though. I went in to the infusion center today to get my first of two Neupogen shots for the white blood count elevation. Even though my count was good yesterday they want to keep it high. I will find out if I can weasel out of the second shot. What a wussy!

I will try and keep up with the blog and post a few recent pictures over the next few days. My weight is somewhat stable but I am noticing the hair getting a little greyer. The least of my worries.

Carpe Diem.

Chemo 4 (Round 4)

Hey it's chemo day. Whoop De Doo. You know, I make all these strange comments and complaints about chemo day but the reality is I can only hope what I am enduring will pay off.

We will be getting our treatment records from Sinai Hospital today as we are planning to go for another consult with a different group of doctors and a different hospital. I will explain more at a later date about what lead up to all of this. Suffice to say, that when Dr. Erlich establishes his practice he will be my Primary Oncologist. Lets hope it's soon.

Well we got everything accomplished. I got the full poisoning so it took about 5 to 6 hours. We elected to include the Oxiliplatin ( the sensitive to cold chemo). I thought that on the off chance it may help then why not. This was the last chemo in this series and now I will get PET/CT scan on April 1st. Tomorrow and Wednesday I will be getting my Neupogen shots. My pre chemo blood work looked fine but they need to keep the white blood counts elevated with these shots. In the meantime, Diana wandered around the hospital getting all my records and then took them over to our consult Doctors office. We keep our copy for our records and it made for some interesting reading! For the most part it was nothing we did not already know. It was just weird to read some really technical operative stuff.

I was a little tired in the evening but generally felt ok. Passed the time watching House and 24 on TV.

Carpe Diem.

Weekend update

Rob is home for her spring break. Friday afternoon I picked her and a couple of her school friends up and brought them home. The friends live quite close to us so it was good to be able to car pool.

Saturday morning we watched Man U play Liverpool and all I can say is...............ssssshhhhhiiiiittttt!!! We lost 4-1. I had to take one of my chemo anti-nausea pills to get by. How utterly embarrassing. Did I mention that I hate Liverpool. We drowned all this sorrow out with a nice family dinner at Tonino's (Italian).

Sunday was catch up on a few chores day. Rob's passport renewal pictures. A visit to the AT&T store to check out new wireless service for the Suskin Family. We are with Sprint now and need to make a change.

I have been feeling ok today and this weekend. Better than a while ago. Just as soon as this happens then I have tomorrow to look forward to. Chemo day!!!

Carpe Diem.

Trying to help

For the past couple of days I have been talking to one of my good flying friends that I have know for almost 24 years. Sadly, his wife (who I also know) was just diagnosed with colon cancer. It was so difficult to hear the fear and confusion in his voice as they were trying to come to grips with all of this. I know full well about these feelings. It's really, really tough in the beginning. I am trying to do whatever I can to help. Hopefully all will work out well.

Carpe Diem.

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.