Scan Results on Par for 2010

Lung: Stable appearing 7-mm nodule in the left upper lobe as noted above. No new nodules are identified.

Left Lower Leg: Interval decrease in size of lower leg sarcoma with interval decrease in central enhancement representing central necrosis and response to therapy.

Spine: Diffuse metastatic disease involving the clivus, cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spines, as well as the sacrum and iliac wings. Slight interval increase in size and enhancement of several lesions involving the thoracic and lumbar vertebral bodies when compared to 11/11/10, which might indicate progression of disease rather than treatment effect

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So what do you say?!? I felt the less than ideal news was pretty much on par for a crappy year. We are upset that there isn't more drastic decrease in tumor size like we saw in the previous set of scans and we are obviously upset about the reading on the spine. I've spent the day talking to oncologists and various experts and they seem optimistic about the results quoting "objective stability." But it doesn't take a doctors to tell you things look bad.

I'm looking forward to a better year next year, wishing daily for a cure of this disease and a break from chemotherapy so that doctors can intervene and fix everything the cancer has broken.

"Breathe in Hope, Breathe out Love."

Ode' to Texas

Oh Texas you will be missed again but not for too long as there will be many more trips in the future.

I wanted to thank everyone who made this visit to Texas so special for Autumn and I. Thanks for all the house calls, lunches and dinners, brownies and peanut brittle and just the good times catching up. And to those of you that I missed during my visit to Dallas, which I realize is more and more people every time I check my email, I hope that we can get together soon and catch up! Please keep emailing, calling, and of course, reading my blog!

P.S. We were darn lucky to have arrived back to Boston! Our flight was one of the first flights back into Logan Airport after the "Blizzard of 2010!"

Tour de Texas (Part 2 - Houston)

Friday night we arrived in Houston just in time to attend our cousin Rabbi David's Friday Night Shabbat Ceremony at Beth Yeshurin. Our entire Houston family was there including my Great Aunt & Uncle, all their children and grandchildren and my mom's two sisters with all their families too. My parents along with my younger sister, two nieces & Benson also made the drive down to Houston for the event.

The ceremony was really beautiful and very touching to have everyone in the same place, worshiping and praying for the same cause: my recovery. Those that know me well know that I'm not a very religious man but I do think that we're all connected in some way and every bit of prayer helps.

After dinner we had a huge Shabbat dinner hosted at David's house. It was so nice spending time with the entire family. The last time we had all been together was at my wedding before this whole ordeal.

The next day we literally sat around my Aunt's house waiting to eat three more meals before we could return home :). Needless-to-say I have had no problem maintaining my weight throughout this most recent course of chemotherapy. Before we left we celebrated everyone's winter birthday and then hit the road. I got to ride in the back of Kim's swagger waggon, reclined and watching movies on the drop down flat screen on the way back to Dallas. Awesome!

Tour de Texas (Part 1 - Austin)

Thursday / Friday Kim, Dan, Autumn and I took a road trip to Austin. On the drive to Austin we made the obligatory stops at both the Czeck Stop for kolaches and Robertson's for some beef jerky... yummy! We arrived to Austin just in time to enjoy lunch out on Lake Austin and then checked into our hipster hotel along South Congress called Hotel San Jose. I highly recommend the venue if anyone gets a chance to visit Austin.

We cruised around Austin briefly showing Autumn the city's highlights: We walked through University of Texas campus; We drove around the state capital building; We browsed the shops along South Congress; We ate even more Mexican food :)

The evening started out with drinking "Michelata's" at our hotel's lounge. It's basically a bloody mary beer replacing delicious bloody mary mix with Soy sauce, Worcester sauce and Tabasco. They served the mix in a glass with ice and gave you the beer separately, giving you the opportunity to ruin your own beer. Out of all of us, only Autumn liked the cocktail... yuck!

Some local friends joined us for dinner at a great pizza place we walked to from our hotel and the night ended with cracking a bottle of champagne, sitting in our own little hotel patio area, listening to tunes and enjoying the cool weather.

In the morning we of course ate a Mexican breakfast and traveled to Mount Bonnell for a little morning hike before we hit the road to Houston. It was really beautiful at the top of Mount Bonnell with the city's skyline in the distance on one side and overlooking the huge mansions along Lake Austin on the other side.

Eating our way through Dallas!

I've been in Texas now for a little over two weeks and probably eaten over 12 enchiladas, 4 pounds of red meat, two entire fried chickens and enough tortillas / beans / rice to completely cover my body, possibly 2 times over. The image above is from a dinner at Smoke in Oak Cliff and yes that's a single rib! I've been having a blast catching up with old friends, family-friends and colleagues. I've been eating very well, strictly from a delicious standpoint instead of nutritional point of view, and since Autumn's arrival I have held up my deal in not allowing her to go to Costco and instead showing her around town.

We saw a lame light show in Frisco, took a tour of my old stomping grounds near Victory Park downtown, walked around uptown / West Village area, saw the christman decorations in Highland Park, tasted all the cupcake shops Dallas has to offer and got to spend some good time with friends and family. I feel much better with Autumn's impression of the Big D.


Benson has also been having a great time. Him and Max haven't stopped playing since we arrived in Dallas and he has become quite comfortable with the rules as a dog in my parent's house: using the doggie door to go outside to play, scattering his toys all over the place and pissing / shitting in the house. I'm not sure he'll ever want to leave.

30th Birthday Surprise

Despite all efforts to spoil the surprise, Autumn, my mom and the rest of my family and friends pulled off the best surprise party for my 30th birthday! Now, after the fact, it all makes sense: the cryptic conversations, the random emails, the cascading lies and the bizarre activities. I feel so silly for not seeing this coming.

Apparently it began many weeks ago when Autumn began to periodically hack into my email account to extract friend's email addresses, many of these people she had never met before. Then she crossed this list with everyone who had ever sent a letter or card (yes I have kept all of them!). And with this list an evite was sent.

Back at the Guyer ranch in Texas everything was status quo; however, on one specific occasion my mom passed a computer over my lap that alluded to a party being thrown for my birthday. She quickly covered this up saying that it was lie so that she could get out of some other social engagement which I believed (you must understand that my mom lies to her friends all the time and this sounded absolutely normal).

Later on in the week while I was trying to coordinate dinner plans with some friends I received an email that reference something like, "See you Saturday." I disregarded the response and then at the dinner the following day everyone was raving about a fun birthday party in Fort Worth and persuaded me to come.

As Saturday approached, I honestly forgot about all the emails and hints towards a party. I was looking forward to a nice dinner with my family and attending this birthday part in Fort Worth. When Dan (my brother-in-law) told me had had to escape his house and wanted to see "Tron" I obliged, though I thought it was a weird request in the middle of such a beautifully sunny day.

After the movie Dan raced back to my parent's house; I mean literally raced back! I was scared for my life and was just so happy to get out the car that I barely noticed the cars stacked up outside driveway.

And then I walked into the door ... SURPRISE!!!

What a treat! It was really so touching and special to have so many people come out to celebrate. Thank you to everyone who helped organize the event and to all my friends who blatantly lied to my face to make this all happen!

You can access the pictures by clicking the image below.

Surprise 30th Party

MD Anderson Consult

Intially when Autumn and I were planning a trip to Dallas we were wanting to plan around a consultation at MD Anderson.  We figured MD Andersin was geographically far enough from Boston to hopefully have access to different clinical trials than MGH/Dana Farber and we have lots of family in Texas.

After literally months of fighting with the insurance company to get approval and after the persistent letters from my primary care doctor in Boston, we received approval to move forward and I began compiling all my medical records to send to Houston.  Specifically we wanted to consult with Dr. Benjamin, the sarcoma specialist at MD Anderson.

A few days after receiving all my records I got a call from Houston saying, "Dr. Benjamin has personally gone through my records and not only agrees with my diagnosis and treatment thus far but also knows the doctors that are treating me in Boston and Dr. Benjamin thinks I'm in great hands."

I guess that's all I wanted to hear!!  So we're not going to MD Anderson :)

Living Life, Not Planning

One of the major lifestyle adjustments that Autumn and I have made is that we don't make a lot of long term plans anymore. We live our lives one or two weeks in advanced and plan accordingly. There's no certainty in how well I'll feel or when I'll be able to receive treatments so we take each day and each week one at a time.

This new lifestyle made for fun adventures this past summer. Thursday evening would roll around and, if I was feeling okay, we'd search the internet for a fun destination, book a hotel and jump into the car after work on Friday. We attempted to seize every available opportunity and take advantage of the good times.

I had really forgotten about this lifestyle shift until this most recent trip to Dallas. Over the past couple days I've been quasi-planning a trip to Austin and simultaneously talking to my family in Houston to see we could wrap a Houston leg into our road trip. As things started to work out with visiting my Houston relatives I was met with adversity from my Dallas family / siblings: Why are you going to Houston? That wasn't apart of the plan? Why weren't we invited?

And that's the whole point; there never was a plan. We live our lives one week at a time and if we find an opportunity that sounds within reach, we take it! There's no certainty in what tomorrow may bring; we don't wait around for things to happen; carpe diem!

My plan turned out so good that now the entire family is meeting us in Houston for a mini family reunion. Should be fun!

All Sytems Go

Blood work looked great, my treatment is right on schedule and I feel pretty good. Though I missed my nurse mommies in Boston, I've kept busy working from home and preparing for my upcoming flight. I'm looking forward to recovering at the rent's house.

I'm really excited to visit Dallas. There was a time when I thought I would never be able to return, never to revisit my family's house and relive childhood memories tooling around the metroplex. I feel so fortunate and lucky to both have the means and health to travel again.

As everything has gone to plan I will be in Dallas from December 7-27. After the first couple days of recovery (after the 9th) my schedule is completely open and I'd love to see as many people as possible during my visit. As of now my schedule is pretty open so please do contact me and lets set something up!

I'm quite certain that my travel bag is going to be checked. Among my clothes I have roughly 40 individually packed sterile syringes for my blood clotting medicine, 4 nausea prescriptions kepts at room temperature and another two prescriptions in a freezer bag that have to be kept cold!

Dallas Bound

This should be exciting.  Autumn and I have been planning a trip to Dallas from December 17-27.  Additionally, I've been invited to a work meeting in Dallas on December 11th.  Being that my next treatment starts December 6th, I am planning on traveling to Dallas December 7th, still hopped up on steriods, and spend the next couple days recouping at home before my meeting.

As a contingency plan if I cannot start my chemo on December 6th, I will return to Boston December 12th, start December 13th and fly back to Dallas with Autumn on December 17th as originally planned.  Isn't traveling around chemo schedules fun?!?

The plan will be to bring Benson on December 7th and have him spend time with his cousins, nieces and grandparents until December 27th.  And in the event that all goes well, and I can start my chemo on-time, I've already gotten approval to work from Dallas December 12-17.