LIVING WITH MCL

You're diagnosed with a terminal illness, and given 3 to 6 months to live.  How do you respond? I'd like to think I've responded in a positive manner, and I've tried to inspire others into realizing exactly what they have, and how to get the most out of life, but I'm really not much of a writer, and I'm not even sure how good a job I've done achieving that goal. Fortunately there are those who seem to have been born with the ability to motivate and inspire. Randy Pausch , who died of pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008, was such an individual, and before he died, he delivered this inspirational Last Lecture , " Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams ", which to date has been seen by over 6 million people around the world. It's a little long (1 hour 16 minutes), but in my opinion well worth watching. ...we don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well

Well I just received a more enlightened (at least a more understandable) explanation of Polychromasia. Simply put, it is an indication of the bone marrow trying to increase the amount of red blood cells (RBC’s) to correct anemia. And in case you didn't know, I am anemic. So when a patient is being treated for anemia, if there is no polychromasia then that means, either the wrong treatment was used, or the bone marrow isn’t functioning. In my case, it may actually be a good thing, with all the increased exercise I've been doing lately forcing my bone marrow to work harder.  On the other hand though, it could be an indication the spleen is not functioning properly, which is a bad thing, since we all know my spleen in enlarged as well. Oh well, remember, it’s always something. I'll just have to wait for next months results, to see if there is any change.

I received the results of my latest blood work today, and what seemingly has become a trend lately, something never seen before has shown up. This time it's Polychromasia , and the indication was I have a 'few'. Now if you read the explanation of Polychromasia , I hope you're not as confused as I am, especially about the following statements. A slight degree of polychromasia is normal. So is a slight degree the same as 'few'? Increases in polychromasia suggest an increased bone marrow response. [and] No polychromasia correlates with non-responsive, anemic patients......... I don't know, but both those statements sound like polychromasia is a good thing. I'm just not so sure that is an accurate interpretation. Hopefully my expert source in this area will respond to my concerns shortly, with a more enlightened explanation. Anywaze, other than that, with the exception of a 20% jump in my lymphocyte count, and the fact I got dropped from the group this morni

Whenever anyone prefaces a statement with those two words, I always wonder about the validity of what is to follow. But today as I was watching Le Tour de France ,  a statement made during a Take Back the Tour commercial really struck home. ... the mind is stronger than the body, and that's a danger, because sometimes you can push your body too far. I had never really thought along those terms before, but as I think about the past week , and the last 6 years, 3 months and 28 days, there's no doubt in my mind, there is a lot of truth to that statement. When I was first diagnosed, I set a goal to ride more miles, and at a higher intensity than I had ever done before. I was going to push my body to the extreme, with the ultimate goal being to exercise my MCL into remission. While I obviously haven't achieved my ultimate goal, I believe the increased training has helped to keep my MCL from progressing at a faster pace, and it has enabled me to reach a level of fitness I had no

It all started last Tuesday night, racing at Eldorado Park.  It was fast, and while I stayed in till the finish, there were a number of times I almost quit. Then on Wednesday, I went for my usual morning ride to the coffee shop. That's not normally a very fast or hard ride, although it can be at times, so I wasn't feeling too bad, but I really think it was the ride to Glendora Mountain Road on Friday , that has totally wiped me out. So wiped out, that on the Saturday ride (aka the Hammer Zone), I got dropped almost before we started. I was totally demoralized, and ended up going home to mope and do nothing the rest of the day, and deciding not to ride Sunday and Monday to try and recoup my energy. I'm sure everyone will agree that was a good decision (you have to listen to your body, everyone always tells me), but unless I have something else to do, if I don't ride, I feel like I've missed out on something, and things just seem to go down hill from there. Then of co

Well almost anywaze. Just thought I would give everyone an update on the limited success I've had in solving the problem with the latest version of WordPress . Miraculously I've fixed the problem with the permalink structure, so now everyone using the various search engines will be able to benefit from my vast wealth of knowledge on lymphoma [and many other things], without encountering a '404 error' messages when linking to my site. The only problem is, the Category and Explore functions on my site no longer work. Fortunately the archive section still works, and you can search the website, so until the WordPress gurus come out with v2.6.1, addressing the problem, I'll just have to deal with that. I'm done fretting over the whole matter. IMPORTANT UPDATE 5:21 PM PDST - All is well, the problem seems to be fixed.  Just eliminating one permalink structure attribute seemingly has fixed the problem.  All links appear to work for now. WHEW!!! I feel a lot better no

If anyone out there has tried to comment on my blog lately, you might have discovered you can't. It seems that in the process of upgrading to the latest version of WordPress (v2.6), my custom permalink structure no longer works, and you have received a '404 error'. Well, I have managed to fix that problem, so you can comment now should you desire, but until WordPress can fix the bug, many of the links I have embedded in my posts won't work. I could go back and correct all the links in the 381 posts I've written in the past 3 years, but I'm not sure that would be worth it. And not only that, I just realized people searching for information on lymphoma etc. on Google, Yahoo, or whatever won't get the benefit of my wealth of knowledge, until those search engines can update the links, if they ever will. Oh well, that's what I get for trying to be fancy. Next time I'll keep it simple [stupid], and I won't upgrade until I'm sure all the bugs hav

Well, at least not for a long while. I typically pass on offers to ride Glendora Mountain Road (GMR) on my bike. I decline, because I know what a tough ride it is, but mostly I hate driving the 45 minutes minimum to get to the start.  Plus it's either too hot or too cold, and if you know me, that's usually enough of a reason. But for some reason, today I agreed to do GMR with an old bike riding buddy, who also is a lymphoma survivor. Even under those circumstances I normally have declined, but since it's been over 4 years since my last trek up the mountain to Mt Baldy, I decided this would be a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Well if nothing else, today certainly reminded me why I've avoided this ride for the past 4 years. It's a tough ride, made even tougher by the fact it was particularly warm today, 80°F at 9:45 AM when we hit the turn around point at Mt Baldy Village.  (It was 88°F when we got back to the car 2 hours later.) Plus there was an

Just like the Visa commercial depicted below, the seemingly efficiently flowing checkout line, Edie and I were standing in at our local Costco today, came to an abrupt stop, when the couple in front of us, decided they would pay cash for a $900 Visio LCD TV. Now while these people did not appear to be criminals or otherwise trying to evade paying taxes, non the less, when someone pays cash for a TV worth $900, it sure raises suspicion with me. It obviously raised suspicion with the Costco personnel as well, since the cashier had to call for a supervisor to approve the transaction.  Not only that, but the cashier inspected each bill to ensure it wasn't counterfeit, after which both individuals (the cashier and supervisor), counted the payment at least 3 times, to be certain of its accuracy. Then the cashier had to close his register, while the supervisor collected the cash to transfer off the floor, before reopening the register, to check out customers in what now had become a prett

I knew I should have stayed home today. Of course that wouldn't have made any difference, but at least I wouldn't have to make the drive home dwelling on this problem at work, and how to resolve it. And to think I almost had the problem solved, until I realized I forgot how to properly calculate reduction of area . Plus I already reheat treated the parts once, which is what I think caused the problem in the first place, so that option is out. And to top it all off, Becky decided to sleep in this morning! Oh well, now I've really got my work cut out for me deciding what to do. Maybe I'll just retire.

Although several people had commented to me over the past weekend about the humidity, it never dawned on me until this morning, why I had been feeling so sluggish lately. But when I checked the weather forecast this morning, I realized my suspicions may just be correct. [At least I hope that's the reason!] The humidity this morning was 87%. Yesterday it was 90%. No wonder, I have been so uncomfortable, despite relatively moderate temperatures. It's the damn humidity!! Now I know many of you must endure far worse conditions, and my condolences go out to you, but after 26 years in southern California, I'm just not used to that anymore. Remember, LA is a desert. The worst part is, today I'm marshaling at the Long Beach Men's City Championship . Fortunately it's only supposed to get to the mid 70's, and the humidity is supposed to drop to about 50%, but even that may be too high, out in the middle of a golf course. Hopefully I can find a good shady spot with a n

Getting through everyday seems to be a bigger and bigger challenge.  Even getting out to ride my bike is getting more difficult. Today I really didn't feel much like riding [of course that's nothing new], but I went out anyway, and pushed myself to the edge, something for which I am paying for right now. Mostly I do it because I believe if I don't, things will rapidly start to go down hill for me. The problem is I just don't know how much longer I can continue putting on a happy face, and pretending to fight the valiant fight. But it's not just about the bike, it's the myriad of thoughts that go through my mind everyday, as I ponder what's next in store for me. How much longer can I continue to put off treatment? How big does my spleen have to get before it presents a problem? Are my counts too high, or too low? Is that an enlarged lymph node in my neck, or is it just my imagination? Am I tired all the time, because I ride my bike too much [and too hard], be