Updates from beyond the grave (kind of)

Greetings subscribers/people I forcibly email, 

I have updates. 

Apparently when you blind carbon copy a bunch of people you can't just reply all and keep the thread going so I have attached the prior update below for your edification and perusal. But here's the latest: 

I write to you on this eventide just hours prior to having the middle line of my right lung removed.

I have leveraged technology to schedule-send this email while I'm otherwise incapacitated and on the operating table. Hopefully not dead, but most certainly intubated and unconscious on a stainless steel mesa, most probably lingering in an anesthesia induced blackness before I bounce back to the reality of a PACU. So that's pretty cool. 

When we last left off I was sipping wine on a high speed train to London in late August 2024.

When I got back from that trip I promptly started chemo; a cocktail of drugs administered via a central line that goes straight to my heart, which is pretty cool.  

This era's flavor was:

cetauximab, oxaliplatin, capcitabine. 

The cetauximab is actually an immunotherapy, and apparently the professionals say that immunotherapies aren't chemotherapies. All tastes the same to me though. 

Cetauximab is notorious for creating a rash on the skin. Allegedly the worse the rash the better it works....so by that standard I should have been completely cured and reverse aged to like 18 because the rash was terrible. 

However...it didn't stop me from doing things. 

September I spent watching Aggie football in College Station and then in the latter 3 weeks of the month I went on an epic 3 week road trip to Canada by way of the nationally historic Yellowstone Lodge. Saw a mountain lion, grizzly bears, snow, bison, moose, etc. 10/10

In Early October I flew up to Rapid City South Dakota for a week of drone work looking at the Black Hills of SD and Wyoming. 

Late October I saw Dashboard Confessional (which is a band, for all the olds) in Houston and then flew to Maine to spend spooky season in the cabin. 

I got back in Early November just in time to head to San Diego for a work trip which was great. Weather was fantastic, people had a nice time. 

Late November dad and I went to South Padre to see a rocket launch, I went to Ren faire (don't recommend), family came to visit for thanksgiving and we got a Christmas tree, 

And in early December I decided I would start tearing apart the kitchen for a "light" remodel. 

(Side note...bought the little stuffed pumpkin in London and it's become a weird travel buddy) 

Somewhere around November or December between all of these activities and chemo every two weeks, I had another CT scan (or maybe it was a PET scan with the radioactive sugar, they all blur together) 

Prior to the chemo the last imaging showed some suspicious spots in the abdomen and on the liver in addition to some new lung nodules 

The results from this scan in Decemberish showed no suspicious activity in the abdomen.  No unusual activity in the liver, but the lung nodules got a little larger and a little more numerous.  Overall decent news...except for the lung thing. 

So I had a conversation with the doctor. Her plan was chemo for life. Which is a pretty standard route ...and is exactly how it sounds. 

I told her I wanted to be aggressive about the treatment, chemo for life is lame and old and generally ineffective at treating the lungs

I asked about other options for treating the lungs and she said she could look in to it. 

She didn't sound super serious about looking into it. Or at least not at the level of expedience that I wanted so I went home and scheduled an appointment with the downtown Houston Medical center for a surgery consult. 

It was the same hospital system I use in the Woodlands but just the main medical campus. So my existing Drs office !caught wind of that and all of a sudden my case was reviewed by the medical board, I had an appointment with the chief of thoracic surgery, and things got rolling. 

Since the lung metastisis were growing we also changed the chemo combination which I was more than glad to do because the rash was brutal by this point. 

In January or so the new recipe was/is ironitican, Fluorouracil, other vitamins and minerals that cancer hates.  It's a pretty strong mix.

(Google: 

FOLFIRI is a chemotherapy regimen used to treat advanced cancer.  It is a combination of three drugs: 

Fluorouracil (5-FU): An antimetabolite that interferes with DNA synthesis. 

Leucovorin (folinic acid): A form of vitamin B9 that helps 5-FU work more effectively. 

Irinotecan (CPT-11): A topoisomerase II inhibitor that damages DNA and prevents cancer cells from dividing. ) 

The first day of the treatment is rough...but overall I've handled all the chemos pretty well. 

Jan/Feb/Mar I worked around the house, made progress on the kitchen, went to the rodeo a few times. I just got back a few days ago from another San Diego work trip that went really well, and now that surgery date has finally come. 

Originally they wanted to do it at the end of March but I didn't want to miss the San Diego trip. 

So initially they're going to place a camera down into my trachea and then seal off the right lung.  Then they're going to go in with a robot, make 5 holes in my chest, remove the middle lobe of right lung.  Then they seal everything up, turn the lung back on and see how everything works. 

You have to have a chest tube so you don't get a pneumothorax and so they can see if the lung is leaking air...that sounds like the worst part.  

But 2 day +/- hospital stay and then I'm back into the wild. 

I did have to do some some preliminary lung volume tests...results came back at 122% capacity. Strong like bull. 

And truly there are absolutely no signs or symptoms. No shortness of breath. No cough. Nothing. 

There's no guarantees on this route but anecdotally I have heard first hand experiences of other patients in similar situations and after surgical removal of the lung mets, all signs of cancer can go down to undetectable levels. 

After this surgery on the right lung i would have another on the left and then, in theory and in a perfect world there is a chance that all the cancer could be gone for a little while. 

That's the hope. But anything that happens along the way is all part of the journey. 

Aside from feeling awful on the first day of chemo, life goes on pretty well. 

That's your update for now.  See you on the other side.