August 23rd and we all celebrate this international holiday

I never ever pay attention to horoscopes, but my cousin Martin cut a horoscope out of the paper today, and I felt compelled to reproduce it here.

"Your values, both emotional and material, will undergo a profound change over the next 12 months. A new way of looking at life will capture your imagination and alter the way you think and act in subtle, yet far-reaching ways. Looks like you've found The Key."

Very weird.

The rest of the day was fantastic. Lots of phone calls with very weirdly-singing people and lots of really nice emails. Still no presents!!! No cool train sets or scale electric cars. Not even a cool BMX bike. What the hell is going on? But, Bobba got me a $2 scratch card, and I won $50! She also got a lottery ticket, and I'll let everyone know later if I am the grand prize winner.

We all sat out at the pool and swam. The water was a very senior 82F. No beach swim today, but maybe tomorrow. Afterwards, we went upstairs to the apartment and, lo and behold, there was a birthday party for me: cake with candles that almost set fire to the apartment, a bit of champagne, and decorations. What more do you need? Presents.

In the evening we went to Abie & Louie's, A really nice steakhouse here in Boca. The Suskin gang, Our Mom, Phil and Hannah, Ilan and Robin, and Martin and his daughters (Arielle and Yael) all attended. Great company, but others were missed (Russ). Food just kept coming - onion soup, lobster, filet mignon, chicken, salmon, mashed potatoes, onion rings, asparagus - it was a never-ending feast! The final touch was a fantastic creme brulee which came topped with fruit and berries. All I can say is that Mike sampled most of everything on the table, including half of Hannah's apple pie. A couple of good words were said by Ilan and me, and then, Ilan and Robin presented me with a bracelet with chamsahs ("evil eyes" in Hebrew). There is an amazing story behind this bracelet. Their brother-in-law wore it and, as a cancer survivor, wanted to pass it on to someone else suffering this terrible disease. That person was me. I can't wait to pass this on once I am officially a cancer survivor, and I hope that this bracelet will help someone else once again.

After dinner, we went to Deerfield Beach and sat outside on the benches looking out to the ocean like old people; a shoutout to Bobba, Russ, and Phil for hosting the birthday dinner.

Oh, by the way...........my Mom got me a scratch off lottery ticket for my birthday and I won $50. Awesome.

I can't wait to go into the ocean tomorrow, and I'll keep you posted...

Friday in Boca (must be something medical)!

The trip down from Baltimore yesterday was fine. Ilan was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and was rewarded with a bowl of "ox tail" when we arrived at my Mom's place. It was good to see him. It was fantastic to see my Mom again. It's was also so nice for her to see the kids and Diana as well, and for all of us to be spoiled rotten with food and meals (snacks). I really need this.



Friday, feeling I was in south Florida, I felt the need to spend the day seeing doctors and having tests. I am of course, saying this "tongue in cheek" with all the due respect to the south Floridians. But the truth of the matter was I did in fact spend most of the morning and lunch seeing a doctor and having chest xrays. Let me explain. I have had this cough now for quite a few days (no it's not cancer)!!! In Baltimore I was put on an anti-biotic and an inhaler. When we arrived here in Boca there did not seem to be any improvement, this after 4 days. So Diana called Dr. Erlich in Baltimore and he wanted us to get a chest xray. We went to my mom's Internist where after lots of paper work and questions they listened to my lungs and determined everything seemed ok. Especially after I coughed. I guess that's the whole idea of coughing. We then went to the nearby hospital for the xrays as they could give us the report right away to fax to Dr. Erlich in Baltimore. Once again, after much paper work and questions, we hurried up and waited for the xrays to be taken. After all this was completed we were in touch with Dr. Erlich and he looked at the report and seemed to think a lot of this still has and had to do with the post radiation effects. He put me on Prednisone which is a steroid. The down side is my Olympic prospects were shot down but at least I may put on weight with this regimen.

Off to Boca

Out of the way "Fay"! We are heading down to Boca for a couple of days. Looking forward to seeing my mom and also looking forward to a change of scenery.

I'm still not feeling great from Monday's chemo and Tuesday's Neulasta shot. The Neulasta shot elevates my white blood count to help ward off infections. But the shot makes me tired and achy. Combine that all with my cough which does not seem to be going away as quick as I thought. Hopefully relaxing in Boca will help all of this.

Chemo 2 (Round 3)

Today was my second last chemo treatment. You have no idea how thrilled I am that this stage of the treatment is almost over. It went well today and my blood work was fine. They have given me an anti-biotic and an inhaler for my cough so helpfully that will take care of things.

We leave for Boca on Thursday to visit my mom and celebrate my 52nd birthday. Jeez, that seems old! Phil will be coming in with Hannah (my niece) and we will all have a great dinner together on Saturday night. Hopefully, all will be OK with my mom and her apartment with regards hurricane Fay. Bloody nuisance.

Weekend Update

It's been a bit of a slow weekend. I have not been feeling that great the past few days. I seem to be coughing a bit more than usual. It seems to get worse if I talk too much or try and take deep breathes. Yea, I know. Me talk too much? We will discuss this tomorrow, at my chemo treatment, with the doctors.

Phil came in Saturday to spend the day with us. Her visits are always uplifting for me. We did not do much except for me to try and eat and try and converse (and cough). I also had a massage in the morning and Sue (the masseuse) told me my skin was really dry and it did not look like I was drinking enough fluids. She gave me this electrolyte powder to try so I have been making a conscious effort to consume more fluids.

Sunday we watched Man U play to a draw with Newcastle. It is so nice to have our English Premiership Football (soccer) season back on TV. Combine that with good Olympic coverage and what more do you need? Hmmm!

Slow Thursday

Still not feeling great. Lots of fatigue and some mild stomach cramps. I was considering going up to New York on the train to visit Phil and the gang but postponed it for another time.

Took Mike for his pre senior year haircut. He looks pretty darn good. Lots of his Dad's genes! He is set to start his senior high school year in 2 weeks. Rob goes back to college as a sophomore in about 3 weeks.

This afternoon we went downtown to the Baltimore Aquarium to hang out for a while. It's a really nice aquarium. We got to see the dolphin show. They are such incredibly beautiful and smart mammals.

Afterwards we walked across the road and had a really good dinner at PF Chang's. I must have had about 4 cups of hot and sour soup. Mmmmm.

Homeward bound to catch more Olympics on TV.

Our Union Newspaper

This letter from me was published in our union newspaper August 11th.

TRUST YOUR BODY

To my flying family:

On March 5th, 2008 I was unfortunately
diagnosed with lung cancer.
Just hearing the word "cancer" scares
the living hell out of me but hearing it
applying to me was totally overwhelming.
I will not bore you with the
details as I cover most of what's been
going on in my blog. Comments
greatly appreciated (or emails). All
my contact info is at the IPA
crewmember site.

http://asuskin.blogspot.com

What has sustained me through this
war/battle has been my family, friends
and, of course, my flying family, my
UPS management friends
and UPS (you all). The love, concern,
prayers and support has been positively
overwhelming.

The thing that I would ask all of you
is this. Trust your body. If something
(health issue) does not seem right or
persists please get it checked out. We
have tremendously good medical benefits
here at UPS. Use them! There are
way too many of us in this "Type
Alpha" career that think we are immortal.
Never happen to us. Well, I
was one of them and guess what? It
happened.

Warmest regards,
Adrian Suskin,
B757/767 CPT SDF

Interesting news!!!

Wednesday was a somewhat slow day. I had a few things to do in the morning but then the fatigue set in. It was generally not a great day for me but pretty typical after the heavy chemo Monday. So glad this part will be over soon.

Let me give you some aviation information. As an Airline Pilot we generally all have Airline Transport Rating licences. These are issued by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). What validates this licence is our twice yearly physicals done by a FAA certified doctor. Essentially without a valid and current physical your licence is not valid and thus you are medically grounded. That is where I am right now. I am on long term medical leave from UPS.

I spoke yesterday to our union FAA liaison doctor. He is available for us to consult with and represent us when we need to apply for our medical reinstatement. He is an incredibly knowledgeable and wonderfully helpful man. He informed me that generally with chemotherapy the FAA requires you to be off of chemotherapy treatments for 1 year before medical reinstatement. Of course there could be some small variations to this but what that means for me is that I should not expect to be back to work until somewhere around August 2009. I wasn't quite sure how to react to this news but one thing the doctor reminded me of again. I need to get well first and then think of all of this. I know UPS thinks the same way and I certainly do.

Meeting with Dr. Erlich

Today was a bit of a rough day. I had really bad stomach cramps starting early this morning. As the day progressed it improved somewhat. The fatigue was pretty lousy today. Nothing a good rest couldn't take care of.

This afternoon we met with Dr. Erlich. It was a good meeting and he answered a lot of questions we had. So this is where we (oops I) stand as far as my treatments go. I have 2 more weeks of chemotherapy left ending on August 25th. I will then have a week off and then after some blood work, an EKG and a meeting with Dr. Erlich, I will start up on a once-a-day tablet called Sutent. We are not sure of the duration that I will be taking these tablets but I am sure the PET/CAT scans will have something to do with it.

Now off for a Schnitzel and rice dinner and more Olympics.

Chemo 1 (Round 3)

This morning I had my heavy chemo day. Silvie came down with me and stayed for 4 hours. I think it was a little tough for him as he saw the whole chemo treatment. Needles, tubes, drugs and all. For someone to see me all "hooked up" may be a little un-settling. The treatment went fairly quickly. Mary was her usual wonderful self. We did not meet with Dr. Erlich but have an appointment to see him tomorrow. We have lots of questions.

Silvie was/is a "star" and a true friend. We spent some quality time together and he was a great house guest to have around for all of us. He left this afternoon to go back to Zimbabwe. We will all miss having him around but I know I will see him in the not too distant future. Safe travels "boet" (brother in Afrikaans).

Let me also say thank you, once again, to all my flying family who keep up with my travails on my blog. It is amazing for me to see a map of the world on the computer and see where some people have logged in from. Anchorage, Alaska, Almaty, Kazakhstan, Beijing, China. What a thrill. It's hard to explain the camaraderie amongst professional pilots. Suffice to say, they are like family to me. Speaking of family..................I can't say enough about the love and support they give me on an hourly/daily basis. So I won't!!!