"Celebrating 2yrs remission!" , "I'm Cured!" .

If only. Lately I've been reading on-line of some great news from fellow survivors and patients. Some have gone into complete remission celebrating five or more years which is just awesome. Then there are others who are celebrating a year of remission.

This is were the thought comes for this current blog post. You see, I have yet to hit a year in remission since 2006 when I was first diagnosed. Twice, I almost made it. went from January to December only to find out I'd relapsed!

Currently I am in Watch and Wait and thus this has been the first time that I have gone more than a year without some sort of treatment, chemotherapy, radiation, bone marrow transplant...etc. Let me tell you, it's a celebration in itself not to have gone straight to treatment upon confirmation of my diagnosis in early 2011. Even though I almost made the decision to go ahead and start treatment right away, I decided to give Watch & Wait a chance. A chance I'm glad I took, because of my side effects and weakness I really don't know how that would have turned out.

So to look back on it all, and to look at those that are celebrating their well deserved remissions and cures, I've decided that I will take a moment to celebrate as well! Even though it's not quite two years of Watch & Wait, I have made it past the one year mark without treatment, and really missed the mark on celebrating that moment back in January.

I celebrate now! I celebrate life and the wonderful accomplishment of going more than one year without any form of treatment.

So to sum things up here, what is a reason to celebrate? Well, you don't really need a reason, all you need is the energy and the spirit to celebrate life. To celebrate your life daily, this is it, there's no going back, there's no re-takes. This is life and this is what you get. So celebrate it on a daily basis and make the most of each day.

Today I celebrate life without treatment, I celebrate life in general, and I celebrate with all those who celebrate with me!

CELEBRATE!

C/T results, check-up, and just too hot!

Had my follow up appointment with my Medical Oncologist yesterday morning (July,6/12) and over all things went well. When she entered the examining room she had my C/T results in hand and went over them with me.

Image only, NOT my scan.

It appears that things have progressed a bit since the last C/T, but over all the nodes are still relatively small. Seems more of them are now showing up in the C/T which is matching up with what my PET scan back in Feb,2010 showed. The four nodes in the abdomen are now visible, the two nodes in the mediastinum area are still the largest of them.

She has noted something "new" that we will be keeping an eye on and that is there a a few "spots" showing up in my lungs that were not there on the last scan. I will be doing a chest x-ray in October before my next visit with her to re-evaluate at that time.

I showed her the two "new" nodes that have come to the surface and are now palpable. One is just below my right earlobe in the temple area, this one is actually quite sore to the touch as well. The other is also on the right side and in the upper right chest area just by the collar bone. This one seems to have just "popped" up in the past week.

Over all she thinks things are "progressing" as the should, and along with the tiredness all the time and weight loss, there is a feeling this may or may not be the beginning of something bigger going on. At this time she doesn't feel that it is, and thus the follow up with chest x-ray to check on the lung "spots" and blood work up, just to make sure nothing "more" is going on.

I told her I had mixed feelings about what was going to be discussed at this visit and even mentioned that if it were time to start discussions about treatment, I would put it off for a couple months as I did not feel I wanted to make those decisions at this time of year and would like to enjoy the rest of the summer before doing so. Well, I now know these decisions are not needing to be made at this time, which was a relief.

So, time to get back to summer and hope it cools off soon so we can get out more to some of the local events. There are a lot of events around the anniversary of the War of 1812 all over the area, and Brenda being a member of the Provincial Marines and their 1812 re-enactment group, she too would like to take part in more events. The temps being in the high 90's and into the 100's some days, it's just too hot.

I also have some other issues going on right now with the employer / union situation and will be focused on that for now. So will update as things move along and keep you all abreast of things medically and otherwise, take care and enjoy life!

A Heartfelt Thank You.

We would like to take this time to thank those who so generously donated to the Fundraiser on Give Forward that my friend Kimberly organized for us, and has now ended. Without you and your generosity we would be facing a bleak future over the next few months. This will help us get by for those few months, while we can only hope that some progress is made with regard to my benefits being restored and Brenda finding gainful employment in a city with the highest unemployment rate in all of Canada.

So we would like to thank the following contributors;

Kimberly Eirdosh Caamano
Daryl & Alice Compton
The Anderluh Family
Rogerman
The Morris Family
Diane Rosenburg
Vic & Sandra

Anonymous
Mia Biltstien
Maria B. Baptista
Susie Long
Dora Waddy
Sharon Edwards
Nancy Best
Maria Zippilli
Patti Spino
Glenda Landskroner-Black
Sue & Larry
Martine Niddam
Steven Shatzkin
Diane, Tom & Shelby
Don & Irene Houser
Cindy Carney
Marie Ross

Thanks also goes out to all of you that took the time to share this fundraiser on your personal and group Facebook pages as well.

To a dear and selfless friend who I only know through Facebook and have never met in person, who took the time to think about the situation than Brenda and I are dealing with and set up this fundraiser.

Kimberly Eirdosh Caamano, YOU ROCK! Words can even begin to describe how we fell about what you have done for us. You don't know us from Adam and yet you took the time to put this together to help us out. It is my hope someday, somewhere or somehow we may meet up and I can thank you in person!

As far as I'm concerned you've earned plenty of feathers toward your angel wings with this selfless act of kindness.

                                                              Medical Fundaising Made Simple

Kim, we thank you, and all the rest of you as well. In the end you raised 31% of  your goal for an on-line total of $3,093.00, there was also the mail in donations we received as well totalling $230.00 for an overall grand total of $3,323.00!! and you never know more could come and I will correct the grand total accordingly!

Tim & Brenda Mayer.