Friday travel day

In case you missed it, I am now signing each of my posts with "Carpe Diem" (seize the day). Each day is a gift.

Well it's Friday and someone must be traveling. It's not me........... yet. Diana went to Toronto this weekend. She will be home Monday.

I did a bunch of chores during the day and then Mike and I had Shabbat dinner together. No we didn't cook. We ordered in from Chicken Out and combined that with a homemade can of soup and there you have it......dinner.

After dinner I watched a movie on TV (300 - not 300 movies but the movie 300) and Mike had about 8 friends over to hang out and swim. They didn't swim because of the rain so they just played pool, trivial pursuit, card games and ate.

Carpe Diem

The MUGA Scan

I swear I'm not making this name up. Today I have to go for a baseline MUGA scan. It's a nuclear medicine scan of the heart to make sure all is ok, cardiacly, while I'm on Sutent. I also have to have blood work done every two weeks. I will let you know how the MUGA went.

The procedure went fine. It took about an hour. Dr. Erlich should have the baseline report tomorrow. MUltiple Gated Acquisition, or MUGA. That's the definition. Wow! Sounds impressive. Now off to eat.

Carpe Diem.

Sutent start up

Today was the first day on my new oral once-a-day pill called Sutent. Hopefully I will tolerate the side effects. Come to think of it, I feel a little weird. It feels like.............like...........like. Just messing around!!! But honestly, I really hope the side effects are minimal and the good effects are very positive. Time will tell.

I had my 6 month dental hygiene check up this morning. What an amazing cleaning and such a gentle and good looking, attractive hygienist. And then my wife showed up. Wait a minute. The hygienist was my wife. But everything I said was true. No cavities. Must have been the chemo! True to form. I was starving after my cleaning so I ordered an extra large pizza with onion and proceeded to devour it with the assistance of the office staff. Oink, Oink.

Carpe Diem.

Appointment with Dr. Erlich

Let me catch you up with yesterday (Monday). Di and Rob came back from New York after having an incredible Sunday watching Roger Federer, Andy Roddick and Yelena Yankovic all win their respective matches at Arthur Ashe Stadium. What a thrill. They also had fun with Phil and the gang in New York. Thanks Phil for the tickets. In the mean time, Mike and I had a good weekend together (teenagers!!!).



Today I had an appointment with Dr. Erlich, our oncologist. I'm all set to start the (Sutent) pill tomorrow. But before I do, I had to sign a consent form acknowledging possible side effects. Dr. Erlich told me my hair may turn white and my skin may darken. How dark, I inquired? He answered, "the same shade as my countrymen". After reeling me in, he burst out laughing. It would only look like a slight tan. I was had! Nice one. There are other side effects he listed but hopefully I will react well to this one-a-day pill. Without getting too technical, the pill itself is a targeted cancer drug that goes after fast growing cells genetically. I'm not trying to blow any one off (so to speak) but you could probably get better info (if you are interested) by "googling" Sutent.

Oh, Porky The Pig(Skin) has gained a Kilo. Yeehaa.

Carpe Diem.

Weekend Update

Diana and Rob left today for New York. No, Rob is not missing school. She starts on Tuesday. Phil got them US Open tickets and they were thrilled. Both of them are big tennis fans. They will be back Monday.

In the mean time............Mike and I have plans to go for a really cool dinner. We are going to an Afgan restaurant here in Baltimore called Helmand. It's named after a province in Afghanistan and interestingly it is owned by the brother of Hamid Karzai (the president of Afghanistan).

Now here is something really weird. My friends Ilan and Robin are also going for dinner with their Baltimore friends and guess where they are going? Helmand. Of all the bloody restaurants in Baltimore they had to copy us. Wankers. I will, however be dinning with my son. Maybe they will send over a bottle of wine from their table to ours!!! Yea, right.

Yup, true to form. Great dinner, great dad/son bonding and yes, we did see Ilan etc.

Sunday Mike, Kevin (his best friend) and Kevin's dad went for Dim Sum (Chinese brunch) and then downtown Baltimore to the Science Center. We went to see the exhibit called "Body Works". How amazing. I thought I would be uncomfortable viewing preserved bodies without skin. Looking at all the muscles and organs etc. etc. But I wasn't. The only thing that made me uneasy was looking at the lungs. Some healthy and some not so healthy!!! Go figure. I'm not doing this exhibit justice with my description suffice to say you can probably look it up on the internet. All in all, a great afternoon.

After getting home Mike went out and I went to friends in the "hood" for a Labor Day BBQ. Once again, I ate like porky the pig. Boy it's nice to be able to do this again. A few games of Backgammon later I went home to hang out with Max, eat and watch a movie.

Carpe Diem.

Friday and Rob's off to school

In the morning Diana and I drove Rob to school. Boy, what a change from her freshman year. She has 2 roommates (good friends) and a really nice room. They have there own bath/shower/toilet, fridge and sink. How cool is that? She was thrilled and I guess somewhat glad to be back at school with all her friends. We felt really good dropping her off this time after a good lunch together at Noodles and Company.

In the afternoon Lil and I watched Man U loose to Zenit St. Petersburg 2-1. It was for some cup! Who the hell knows. Just great to watch Football again.

In the evening we were invited to some friends of our good friends from Boca, Ilan and Robin. They came into Baltimore for the weekend to visit with Robin's schoolmate. Geez, we just saw these guys at my birthday bash in Boca! It was a really nice dinner with good company. I am starting to eat well now and my appetite is coming back. I'm thrilled. Fat? Not yet.

Carpe Diem.

Homeward bound

It has been pretty hard topping every day with something better. But we seemed to have managed. I feel the trip for me is at it's highlight now so I will be heading back to Baltimore today early afternoon and getting home around 10PM. Oh, by the way, another massage scheduled for this morning before I leave.

It has been an incredibly positive change of scenery for me particularly after 7 weeks of radiation therapy in conjunction with 15 weeks of chemotherapy. And boy, Las Vegas is impressive. It worked out to be some really good R & R for me. I did decide to forgo the facial, manicure and pedicure though. See, I'm still the rugged out doors type with the rugged voice and the lung cancer to prove it. I'm really a mans man!!! Maybe even, dare I say, A Lumberjack!

Thanks M.

On a more domestic level, I need to be back home to help Diana move Robyn back to school on Friday. Our little girl is going back to second year college.

Carpe Diem.

Still here

Got up kind of early West coast time and resumed my metro-sexual lifestyle with a really good breakfast with Phil and Han. Lil was still sawing logs. After breakfast, back for another incredible hot stone massage. That was followed by a brief black jack stint with Martin. Phil won, I broke even.

Then, while the girls went shopping, I went back to the spa for an incredible shave and haircut. If I may say so, I do look quite good. Heads were turning at the pool. Not!!! Another brief stint at the cabana with a huge lunch, followed by a trivia session in the shade with Lil and Han where I taught them US geography. Han got an F, Lil was a B, but then we moved on to medical stuff and Lil excelled. Too damn hot to sit down there for too long, back to the room for a siesta.

In the evening we went to see another Cirque Du Soleil show called "O". Quite similar to "Mystere" in all it's acid tripping weirdness but, none the less, really good. The main difference being "O" was water based. To coin a phrase from a good friend..........These shows were are real "mind F%#k".

After the show we went to a really good Chinese Restaurant in the hotel that overlooked the front lake of the hotel where they had the choreographed to music water fountain displays every fifteen minute. We had a very good view and equally as impressive show.

No gambling tonight. Too tired. Or maybe that's a better strategy! Off to bed.

Carpe Diem.

Where in the world is Carmen "Adrian" Sandiego

In Las Vegas of course! At the Bellagio where I met Phil, Han, Lil and cousin Martin. What a magnificent hotel. Talk about being pampered and spoiled rotten. I have definitely discovered my "metro-sexual" side.

We sat at the cabana and sweat like stuck pigs. Really hot. We ate well and then we all went for the most fantastic massages. A nice shower and then off to see Cirque du Soleil's Mystere. Excellent show. It was like being on an amazing acid trip, with weird costumes, music, and dancing, and a bit of comedy thrown in. And that's not even mentioning the grown man dressed as a baby walking around on the stage in a diaper. Back to the hotel for an amazing dinner: Kobe beef, Dover sole, filet mignon, mushrooms, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomato soup, and so on. I have no idea how I stayed up so late and ate so much. I must have put on half a pound!!! Lil wanted me to stay up and teach me craps, but I couldn't. She did really well losing her money in seven minutes though.

Carpe Diem

More about Chemo 3 (Round 3)

Wow, wow. That was my wife's first post. What an incredible post. Thanks XXX.

My last chemo (optimistically) went just fine except for one minor hitch. The infusion was supposed to take about 2 hours and ended up taking about 4 1/2 hours. My blood work came back just fine except that my potassium was low. I'm not going to explain what that means suffice to say my doctor was not "alarmed". They did however, give me IV potassium which took 2 hours. I'm also on a potassium supplement until my next blood work in mid September.

I will be meeting with Dr. Erlich on September 2nd and after he reviews my blood work and EKG (ECG) he will be starting me on the one a day oral medication called Sutent. Hopefully all will go well.

In the mean time, as Diana so aptly put it, I'm (we are) grateful for every day as a truly wonderful gift.

From now on I will be signing each post with the phrase "Carpe Diem" (seize the day).