As I mentioned in my prior posting, this was to see if the chemotherapy treatments had damaged the bone marrow badly enough that it needs treating. I called the doctor's office about an hour ago to see if they had the results back. They did. I am hugely relieved to say that his preliminary reading of the results is that everything looks normal. As far as I know this means I don't need additional treatment and I just have to be patient and let my body heal itself. Thanks everyone for all your messages of support and encouragement in the Guest Book and elsewhere once again during this period.

I am grateful to everyone who has been calling me and writing to me to ask about the test results. Sorry it has taken me a few days to update the status here. I had a good friend in town staying with us for the weekend. Yesterday we went to the UT game (against Baylor) in the morning and my kids both had soccer games in the afternoon followed by an end of season pizza party. Just another quiet Saturday. I am trying to get caught up on my web and e-mail backlog today!

So that's the medical update for now. I'll post again after the biopsy. The results will take over a week to come back, so it will be Thanksgiving here in the US before we know the outcome most likely.

Meanwhile, the weather here in Texas has been gorgeous. Cool overnight (40's F) and then warming up to almost 80 during the day with not a cloud in the sky so still wearing shorts in mid-November and yesterday Arsenal beat Manchester United, what more could I ask for?   :-) ]]> Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:31:08 CST http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000099 medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Nov-03-a No, I'm not referring to the US elections tomorrow unfortunately. Instead, for me it's time for the next round of post chemo medical checks. Tomorrow after a scheduled 7am work meeting and a trip to the local school to vote, I have to go to the Oncologist's office for blood tests and then on Wednesday I have a CT scan scheduled. We are due to meet with the doctor to get the results on Friday. So while by tomorrow night one way or another millions of people here in the US will be celebrating, I have to wait a few more days to get the result that I most care about - I know, call me selfish!

Meanwhile I do plan to stay up late tomorrow night and watch the results come in on what may well be an historic day in American history. I will however be glad when the whole election process is over. I am so sick of the endless TV coverage, the annoying commercials that say nothing about what their candidate would do and instead just focus on why the other guy is even worse as well as the phone calls and visits to the front door. I just hope and pray that the balloting process passes without any major mishaps this time around and that by sometime on Wednesday, we have a clear winner.

Living in Texas, my vote, sadly has little meaning (no matter which way I vote this state will stay Republican), but at least I can go to Starbucks after the doctor, tell them I voted, and get a free cup of coffee!!  Hopefully I can also tell them I voted for the guy who won :-)

I am very grateful that due to the skill of the doctors that diagnosed me and performed the surgery on me as well as the oncologist who subsequently blasted my body with chemotherapy that I am still here to type this text today.

I think I'll keep this post brief and reflect on how blessed and how lucky I am to have such great doctors, who are still looking after me, and such  great friends who have helped me keep my spirits up through the last twelve months. Also, if you have been thinking about, but putting off, getting a colonoscopy done - do it now - it could save your life!

Meanwhile a lot of things that I need to blog about have been going on. I'll try and get that done soon. In summary, the kids are doing well at school and enjoying playing soccer. We adopted a dog, a four year old Golden Retriever called Rocket. He's a great dog and it feels really good to have been able to give him a nice home. I have been able to finally make a couple of business trips. I went out to San Jose, CA a few weeks ago to attend the SHARE conference and a couple of weeks ago I flew up to Boston to attend some IBM Academy meetings. That was also the first time I flew on Jet Blue. I really liked them and will definitely use them again. Being able to watch the Ryder Cup golf live while on a plane was very cool. American Airlines, with whom I have in excess of two million miles on my frequent flier account, need to do some serious upgrading if they want to win me back as a customer on domestic routes out of Austin.

Finally, in a couple of weeks I am off to the Colorado Software Summit. I am really excited about that. I love the conference. I think it's the best programming conference around. I missed the conference last year as it was right before I went into the hospital for surgery. I made a more detailed posting about the conference on my work blog a few days ago and Simon Phipps just did a nice writeup on his blog as did Dave Landers on his blog. Please let me know if you are reading this and planning to be at the conference.

So that's the update for today. As always a big THANK YOU to everyone that has supported me and my family through this whole ordeal and for all of your messages in the Guest Book. I feel very blessed to still be here one year on.

The good news is that the lab work continues to show no signs of cancer. My haemoglobin levels are also back to normal so the fatigue/anemia is gone and my energy levels are definitely up!

The bad news is that my white cell count and my platelet count remain abnormally low. The oncologist says he is puzzled by this and he has me in his "requires more investigation" pile. His best theory is that the chemo damaged the bone marrow so badly that my body is just taking longer than average to recover from it. The recent CT scan shows that my spleen is enlarged. Again this could be because it is trying to help offset the weakness of the bone marrow. Lorna asked him if this could be evidence of Leukemia. He said he does not think so as the blood work does not show that. However, if my white count has not recovered enough in four weeks from now he wants to do a bone marrow biopsy on me (I hear they are painful so hope I can avoid that). I have another CT scan planned for the first week of November. If my spleen gets too far out of whack they are also saying that removing it is an option - oh joy!

On top of this my neuropathy (numbness/pain in hands and feet) has become (at least by my measurements) severe. I'm periodically in a lot of pain and cannot feel anything under my feet and my fingers hurt when I type.

So while I am happy that the tests seem to indicate we are heading in the right direction I remain nervous about the overall state of affairs. I guess that is why they make the little blue pills! I am trying very hard to just get on with my life and forget about all of this between doctors visits but I have to admit it is hard.

Meanwhile, this weekend Hurricane Ike is coming to visit so that should certainly keep me preoccupied!!

Both kids have soccer games this weekend but Ike may have a say in that. The UT Football game we were hoping to go to has already been cancelled.

That's it for now. I'll post again soon with an Ike update and other news, including my first bad experience with the Mac Book Pro - my battery died after less than eight months of use! That's it for now, I'm off to bed...

Looking back, I am really pleased that with all of the medical things going on we have still managed to do a lot of fun stuff this Summer as a family. It feels a bit strange not to have the kids around today as I work from home in a very quiet house. I do feel more productive though - imagine that !

This is a short work week due to Monday being the Labor Day holiday here in the US. We had a fairly lazy "long weekend" and I spent a lot of time either swimming in the pool or trying to catch up on my reading. It was really nice to not have a full agenda of things to do for a change. On Saturday evening Lorna and I went to the opening game of the University of Texas (UT) football season. The stadium has been enlarged yet again during the off season and now has a capacity of around 100,000. Indeed the official attendance for the game on Saturday was 98,053. I hear they are talking of adding even more seating in the future! This is a stadium that apparently pays for itself and yet hosts an average of just six (yes six) games a year!! As someone who played both Cricket and Soccer at University in England where it was a good day if five people turned up to watch us play it still blows my mind to observe the sheer immensity of collegiate sports, especially football (not to be confused with the kind of football/soccer I play), here in the US. It must be an amazing experience for those lucky enough to compete in such an environment. Apart from perhaps Wembley stadium in London, I cannot think of any other venue in England that compares in sheer size to the UT stadium - and this is (non professional) college sports!! We had a very enjoyable time at the game and we're both looking forward to the next home fixture in a couple of weeks.

Another indication that Summer is actually winding down is that our local baseball team (the Round Rock Express) have now played their last home game for the season. While the major league parent team (the Houston Astros) still has a fair number of games left to play, the triple-A season is now over and the NFL is about to get underway. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic the English Premier League has started (seems like that season gets longer every year) and the cricket season is winding down. We also have the Ryder cup to look forward to of course.

So I guess perhaps, at least in this part of the World, Summer is "officially" over - now if someone could please tell that to the weather......

Back to school day

Meanwhile, today here in Texas is "back to school day". Apart from the agonising sounds coming out of my iOmega external hard drive (I think the fan is going - this will be he third one to die on me in about three years) the house is silent. The kids left early for school today and won't be home until after 3pm so I have a very quiet work environment indeed - I almost miss having them around but don't let them know I said that ok! It probably seems odd to my friends and family over in the UK that school is back so soon but we broke up in May whereas I think you all still break up for the Summer in July. So we've actually had the kids home for about 3 months. It's time for them to go back!   Jack is starting First Grade this year, and hard though it is to believe, this is Robyn's last year before moving up to Middle School as she starts out on Fifth Grade.

A few of you have again written to me saying you have had problems posting to the Guest Book. As far as I know, this only ever happens if you are using Internet Explorer 6. I do have a message on the Guest Book launch page that warns about this know problem. I have confirmed with one of the people that recently had problems that they indeed were using IE6. If you are seeing Guest Book problems with other browsers, please do let me know.

I have to go back again in two weeks to be tested again to see if things are improving. My haemoglobin count is thankfully continuing to improve and is now almost back to the typical range for male of my age.

Tomorrow morning at 9am I am having surgery to remove my chemo port. It will be weird after all of these months not to feel it there. I am also having a follow up colon check which I am nervous about but it's something I'll have to get used to as this will be a regular part of my life over the next few years.

I'll post another update once I am recovered enough from surgery.

Anyway, here's a quick medical update as there is still quite a bit going on. It has now been over three months since I ended chemotherapy. As I have documented here in detail, during chemo I suffered through a whole collection of different side effects at various times. Many of those went away fairly quickly after chemo ended. A few have stuck with me however. By far the worst is the neuropathy (numbness and pain in my hands and feet). Interestingly, the neuropathy only began during the last week or so of chemo but has since then become incrementally worse. It is caused by the Oxaliplatin (one of the three drugs that make up the FOLFOX chemo regimen). I am on medication that is supposed to suppress some of the pain that the neuropathy causes but for the most part I just have to be patient and wait for it to take care of itself. My oncologist has told me that it can take over a year for the effects to fully wear off. For the benefit of the many other folks that have found my web site and have been kind enough to contact me, all of whom are fighting their own battles with colon cancer, and all of whom seem to be having the same basic experience as me, the doctor has tried a couple of drugs to help relieve the neuropathy pain. At first we tried Cymbalta which did help a little but had nasty interactions with other medications I am taking (primarily the Paxil) so I had to stop taking it. I am now trying Lyrica which again seems to help some but seems to itself be causing some nasty side effects that I am not enjoying. The biggest issues to date are weight gain (just what I needed!), trouble concentrating and swelling of my feet, legs and hands (the swelling is also in part, I believe, caused by the Oxaliplatin). So, while I am really excited by my test results from a week ago, I still find myself with a lot of issues to handle on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong however, you won't find me complaining as if the chemo and surgery have done their job I'll live with the rest for as long as it takes to resolve itself.

Talking of tests, just when I thought I was almost done it turns out to not quite be the case. My oncologist's office called last week while I was in San Jose. They want me back for more blood tests this Friday as after further thought they have decided that my white cell count and platelet count really are a bit too low and they want to check me again and if necessary take steps to help those numbers improve.  I'll keep you all posted as to how that goes.

Also, next Monday I have an appointment to see the surgeon who did my colectomy back in October for a check up. I'm not going to go into details but I think you get the picture (or at least I hope he will!). He is also going to take out my chemo port (a fairly minor surgical procedure) at the same time. So I'll be back at the hospital again next week for I think the fifth time in the last 10 months. I'm a little nervous about the checkup as if he finds any polyps we are going to have to take immediate steps to try and prevent them from becoming cancerous. Hopefully everything will be OK.

So that's the medical update, I'll make another posting when there is anything worth sharing.

I'd like to end this posting by sending my very best wishes and prayers out to all of the people who have contacted me during the past several months to thank me for sharing my experiences and for telling me that in doing so I had also helped them as they faced their own struggle with cancer. It is not always easy to share something so personal in such a public fashion but my goal in doing so was in large part to reach out to others in a similar situation to me. I am both happy and more than a little humbled to have heard from so many of you. Good luck all of you, and please keep in touch. I have made many new friends in the last six months which has been one of the good side effects of this experience.

An odd side effect of the medication I am still on is that I don't remember too much of either flight but I took some nice photos of the Grand Canyon and some interesting video of the approach into San Jose so I guess I had a good time !! This was also the first time I have done any public speaking in quite a while. This is something I really enjoy and it was great to be "back in the saddle" as it were. It was also really nice to see so many good friends and colleagues, many of whom I had not seen since before my surgery last October. San Jose as a city has also improved immensely as a place to visit since I first went there in 1987. I decided not to get a rental car and basically just walked everywhere. The conference was at the Convention Center and the hotel is very close to there. Plenty of places to eat are just a short walk away and there is also the must see "Tech Museum". Among the many restaurants is Gordon Biersch, a place I always try to visit at least once when in San Jose. Garlic fries and a glass of locally brewed Heffeweizen out on the back patio - sweet!!!  If you want to get merry in a hurry then drink the Blonde Bock (7% alcohol with an o.g. of 16.5) but just don't do what I did the first time I went there and ask for a Guinness!

The conference hotels (Marriott,Hilton and Fairmont) were all sold out when I made my reservations so I ended up staying, for the first time, at the Sainte Claire hotel. The rooms were clean and felt modern, the WiFi was free and they have a great Italian restaurant (Il Fornaio) on the ground floor. What more could you want?......well a bar or at least somewhere to hang out in the evening would be nice but in general a perfectly OK hotel to stay at.

For those who want to read a little more about SHARE and what we do there, I have posted a few times recently over at my work blog on the topic.The next SHARE conference is actually going to be in my home town of Austin, Texas next March so I won't have far to travel for that event!

On the medical front I am still suffering through some really annoying and painful side effects from the chemotherapy and also the medications I am on that are supposed to help suppress the first set of side effects have their own set of side effects! I'll make another posting soon on the overall medical situation as there is still quite a lot going on.

I cannot begin to express my feelings and emotions right now. No one knows what is in store from one day to the next but tonight at least I am going to go out and do something fun, actually I'm hoping we can go to the movies and see Dark Knight which I still have not seen.

As always thank you everyone so much for your continued support, e-mails, phone calls, visits and messages in the guest book during this ordeal. It means the World to me.

Meanwhile, I want to extend my best wishes and prayers to my good friend Dion down in Sydney, Australia who is in the middle of his own battle with cancer and starting out on chemotherapy tomorrow. I hope he will get the same level of support from his friends and family around the World that I have been lucky enough to receive. If you are so inclined, please include Dion in your thoughts and prayers.

As for my kids, this continues to be a very busy Summer. Robyn has Karate camp this week and both Robyn and Jack spent last week in "British soccer camp". A bunch of great lads from the UK come over every year and run the camp at a nearby park. It's a lot of fun and the kids had a great time. Robyn is also continuing to appear in the local community theatre production  of  "The Witches".

The weather here in Central Texas continues to be very hot. Every day for the past several weeks we have been close to (or above) 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This week I am back at work while Lorna and the kids are having fun at vacation bible school at one of the local churches. I have also been trying to keep up with the Euro 2008 matches and with Wimbledon (both of which are being shown live on TV here). This coming weekend Robyn has a 3 v 3 soccer tournament which should be a lot of fun although it is likely to be very hot during most of the games.

On the medical front, the numbness in my feet and hands continues to be quite painful, in fact, typing has become very uncomfortable for me so I will keep this posting brief. I am visiting the oncologist's office on Wednesday to get my chemo port flushed and I am hoping they can do something more for the numbness. The meds they gave me have so far not improved things at all.

Anyway, that's the news for now, I'll try to post again soon.

Anyway, it was nice for me to get away for a few days, even if it was primarily a week of business meetings for me. I had not been out of the state of Texas since before my surgery last October so a week away was really quite a treat. I did not manage to make it to the them parks with the family but we did get to spend a fun evening together at Disney Quest (a five story building full of all types of video games both old and new and some really cool virtual reality rides). On the night before we started driving home we all had dinner at the Arabian Knights (you eat while watching the horses and actors perform). By all accounts a fun time was had by all and I feel refreshed just from being out of the house for a while.

This week I had a series of business meetings at the office and it was really nice to meet so many colleagues, many of whom I had not seen for many months due to my ongoing medical issues.

Talking of medical issues, it has now been five weeks since chemo ended. Some of the side effects have definitely improved, others however are lingering on. In particular, the numbness in my fingers that had just started by the end of chemo has now also spread to my feet and has generally become quite a but worse. It has reached the point in fact, where driving the car feels strange as I can only barely feel the pedals. I called the doctor and he has put me on some meds that are hopefully going to help with this (yet more pills to remember to take!). Apparently this numbness can take many months to fully go away and is caused by the Oxaliplatin (one of the chemo drugs) which messes quite badly with the nervous system.

The kids are already well into the various camps and other activities that we planned for them this Summer and seem to be having a lot of fun. The weather has been extremely hot here in Texas. We have already had multiple 100 degree days in the Austin area. Heaven only knows what August will be like at this rate. Thankfully we have so far escaped most of the severe storms that have all passed to our North. Anyway, that's all the updates for today. I'm taking next week off so I can spend some quality time with the family and forget about work for a few days. After that I hope to get back into a routine of more regular updates here as the Summer progresses.
]]> Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:47:06 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000080 Miscellaneous http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-May-29-a I haven't posted for a few days in part because there has not been a lot of news to share on the medical front (which is fine by me). It has now been 22 days since my last chemo session ended (on May 7th). The "fog" seems to have left me now finally for which I am very grateful. It has been replaced however by a feeling of total exhaustion - I think I have finally let myself relax a bit and it's past time to catch up on a lot of missed sleep. Most of the other chemo side effects are still with me which is no great surprise as my doctor told me to expect it to take between four to six weeks for them to subside. The thing that is bugging me the most right now is a constant feeling of numbness in all of my fingers and toes - it actually makes typing and even walking bit uncomfortable. This is a known side effect of the Oxaliplatin medication, so I hope it goes away soon. I visited the Oncologist's office yesterday to get my chemo port flushed. I have decided not to have it removed until August so that I can have all of my interim blood tests done via the port (rather than having to endure a lot of needles being stuck into my arm). The port has to be flushed every four weeks to prevent any risk of blood clots. The next major medical milestones are scheduled for August when I'll need another CT scan, a lot of other tests and an exam by my surgeon. When all of that is done I'll need minor surgery to remove the port.

So let's see, what else is going on? Well, we had a very nice and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. The weather was (and continues to be) very hot and we spent a lot of time out by the pool. The kids had lots of friends over and had fun in the water. I spent a lot of time in "slug mode" sitting by the pool and reading.

Today is Robyn's actual birthday (although we held her party several days ago). I cannot believe that she is ten years old already - how time flies. She doesn't know it yet but we're planning a surprise dinner with one of her best friends at her favourite restaurant tonight. School ends on Friday so this will be the last week I have a quiet work from home environment! Thankfully the kids have a lot of Summer camps and other activities planned already to help keep them busy during the long SUmmer break. I'm a little concerned about just how hot this Summer will be as temperatures in Central Texas have already been in the high nineties Fahrenheit for the last couple of weeks. Well above average for the time of year. We've also seen some nasty storms come through already. Our roof (which was replaced in 2005 after a hail storm) has again been badly damaged by hail and Lorna's car also needs work done on it to get the hail dents removed. In the USA in general this looks like being one of the worst years in a long time (maybe ever) for damage, and sadly deaths, caused by Tornadoes. I don't know if this is due to climate change or not but suffice to say the weather here this year has been pretty unusual in many ways.

That's about all the news for now. I'll try and post again in a few days time.

Luckily, we managed to host my son's soccer team pool party during the afternoon and early evening yesterday before the storms arrived. There is no way we could have hosted it today. When we awoke the pool was full to overflowing (the emergency drain seems to have become blocked by all the tree debris). The pool was also full, and I do mean full, of leaves and twigs. We have been cleaning it out off and on all day and we are still not done.  Later today I need to figure out what is blocking the drain and fix it and do more raking up of all the leaves and twigs that are spread all over the front and back yards. It really is quite a mess. I wish I had more energy but at least this will keep my mind of my other worries for a while!

The past week or so we have had several big storms (although this was by far the worst) and it seems we have had a lot more tornadic activity (even this far South of "Tornado Alley") than usual.  When I moved to Central Texas, while the realtors were busy telling me how great a place it was to live in I think they somehow forgot to mention how much "fun" Spring can be!

After this week we go into a monitoring mode at approximately three monthly intervals where I will be tested for any signs of the cancer coming back, both by my oncologist and my surgeon who will be monitoring things too. So those visits will be nervous times for me I am sure but I am not going to worry about them right now as this is a major milestone and I plan to celebrate a little once we get through this week.

In about two weeks I'll need to schedule surgery to have the chemo infusion port removed from my chest , yet more hours of blood tests and filling out CYA forms at the hospital, for what is hopefully a 20 minute procedure. At the same time as the port is removed, while I am sedated the surgeon plans to do an initial internal exam to see if there are any signs of the polyps that can turn cancerous coming back. If there are that will have to be dealt with as my genetics are such that the average time it takes for a polyp to go cancerous is one year or maybe less. I believe the average for a person that does not have my genetic makeup, is 10 years (quite a difference).

When I started writing about each of the chemo visits, I made the analogy to a 12-round boxing match. I wondered at the start if my opponent (the chemo meds) would be too much for me. For sure he landed a few good blows but my blood levels and other numbers continue to improve and we have not had to delay any of the rounds so I think when all is said and done I am hoping for a "points decision" in my favour !!

I'll post again soon but for now I need to sign off as I just got a shot of Ativan (Lorazepam) and I am getting drousy!

As I mentioned yesterday my focus for the evening now is fighting off the fatigue long enough to enjoy the Rush concert that starts at 7:30pm at the Frank Erwin Center here in Austin. I'll try and write up a bit of a post conference report tomorrow. I am interested to see how much they have changed the set list since we saw them last year (apparently there are going to be some changes).

Rush come back to Austin for the first time in 14 years

Hopefully I will be in pretty good shape still on Wednesday evening as Canadian rock legends Rush are performing in Austin for the first time in years. In fact I was not even living here (and I have been here since December 1995) the last time they were here. One of the local papers did an interview with lead singer Geddy Lee about coming back to Austin, you can read it here. Last year they came to San Antonio and I took my nine year old daughter Robyn. It was her first concert and I was not sure how much she would enjoy Rush but she loved everything about the show and has since learned the words to most of the songs on the tour album (Snakes and Arrows). I have been a Rush fan since my university days when my good friend Mike introduced me to them. Since then I have seen them in concert multiple times both in the USA and the UK and I honestly think they are playing better now than they ever have - and they were always good. The Austin date was added as part of some extended venues that were not part of the original tour. I am hoping that they jiggle the set list a bit but even if they don't I am really looking forward to the Show. In San Antonio they played for about three hours with a short 15 minute break in the middle. Certainly great value for money.

Express baseball

The professional baseball season is now well under way here in the US. We renewed our season tickets this year to the Round Rock Express (the AAA affiliate of the Major League Houston Astros). Their stadium is less than 10 minutes by car from our house and it's a great night out for the whole family. We went to the game last night as I am keen to do as many things as I can before the fatigue hits for this round. Last night the Budweiser Clydesdale horse team were their outside the stadium and we all enjoyed meeting the horses and their trainers. They told use they are on the road touring 300 days every year! The game itself was also very exciting last night, aided by the fact that the home team came out on top. So we had a fun night of baseball and ball park food plus a visit to the in-stadium kids play area.

That's my updates for now, I need to get back to working on my e-mail in box and some other work tasks. The oncologist has a better wireless network than I have at the house so it's actually a great place to get work done!

I woke up this morning finally feeling less foggy from the last chemo round. This is the longest amount of time it has taken so far for my fatigue to subside between rounds. Of course round eleven starts on Monday so I had better enjoy it while it lasts. The doctor had warned me that the amount of fatigue tends to be cumulative and that certainly seems to be true in my case. Given I felt a bit more with it, after watching some of the English soccer on TV this morning and doing a bit of housework indoors, I decided it was time to take on the huge mess that used to be my nice tidy garage!  The garage had somehow become our dumping ground for a lot of stuff over the past few months and the mess had really started to bug me (even over the effects of the "chill out" pills they have me on so you know the mess was bad!!).  Thankfully I managed to get it mostly cleaned up but I could not believe how quickly I ran out of steam. I had to take lots of breaks.  Hopefully when chemo finally ends my energy levels will return to something like they were back last Autumn (pre-diagnosis and pre-surgery).  As people who know me will tell you I am not good at sitting still. I need to be busy and it's starting to frustrate me how weak I still am. I guess I have to keep reminding myself I have been through a lot and my body has taken a pounding the last five months or so. I also need to remind myself to just be grateful for what I have as things could easily have been a lot worse than hopefully they are.  On the plus side, the fact that I am getting frustrated is probably a sign that at least in some small way I'm getting more back to my old self!

As an aside, I am typing this entry using the Apple Mac Book Pro laptop which I now use for almost everything I do computer wise. I continue to be really impressed by this machine. I originally bought it as an early Christmas present to myself so that I would have something fun to play with and learn to use during the long hours in the "chemo chair". As you may recall from some of my prior postings, I have never before owned an Apple machine of ay type but this laptop has quickly progressed to being my principal machine. I just love how reliable it is and I really like the "feel" of the machine and it's applications and I am unquestionably more productive on this machine than I am on any of my others.

So anyway, that's my update for today. As I mentioned above, chemo round eleven starts on Monday (just two to go now) so I'll try and post some more updates in the early part of next week. Now I need to go power up the XBOX 360 as Jack wants to see if we can kill a few more aliens before bedtime tonight!! ]]> Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:56:08 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000072 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Apr-11-a Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:13:58 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000071 Miscellaneous http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Apr-07-a I am sitting at the oncologist as I type this, about two hours into round ten. I met with the doctor this morning and we chatted for a bit. He is pleased with my progress to date and we discussed some of the next steps that he has planned for me post chemo. The net is that I'll need to get another cat scan once chemo ends to re-establish a "baseline picture" of how I look and then I'll start seeing him on a frequent but more periodic basis to keep tabs on how I am doing. This is more or less what I expected. He is hopeful the treatment plan will have done the job but I'll still need to be monitored closely for the next five years at a minimum in case (Heaven forbid) of a recurrence. I know I am going to be nervous every time he tests me but he is being very positive so that is as much as I can ask for at this stage.

Reading

Thankfully my eyesight seems to be improving even though I am still in treatment and I am finding it much easier to keep up with my reading than had been the case during the earlier weeks of treatment. I have managed to read several books in the past few weeks. I just finished reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I have not yet seen the film that was recently released but having read the book I definitely want to see it now. The Kite Runner was a refreshing change from my staple diet of action/suspense and science fiction books. I won't spoil the plot here but I will say it gives a great perspective of life in Afghanistan over multiple decades from the time before the Russian invasion all the way to the present day. I found myself really attached to the main characters and I found myself suffering along with them as I read the book. If you have not read this book yet, you might want to add it to your reading queue. In many ways a sad story about people trying to make the best of their situation but also uplifting at other times, definitely well written and well worth reading.

I also recently finished The Broker by John Grisham. This was different from his normal style in that it was more about spies and espionage than it was about court rooms and lawyers. That said, I really enjoyed it, although I have read reviews from Grisham purists who viewed it as one of his worst books. The book is mostly set in Bologna and other parts of Italy and by the time he is done describing the place you are left wanting to hop on the next plane a go visit. So while definitely not a typical Grisham book, I enjoyed it - I guess I am not a purist!

Video Games

I hadn't had much time to play video games lately nor the right state of mind probably given how "foggy" my head has been. That said this weekend between lots of outdoor activities I made time to sit down and finally finish the single player missions of Halo 3 (XBOX 360). This is a thoroughly enjoyable and well engineered game. I am really grateful to my friends who gave it to me as a get well present back in the post surgery days. It has been one of many useful distractions that have helped keep my mind off things. I have now started playing BioShock which was a birthday present from the family back in February. So far this looks like another very interesting and high quality game but more violent than Halo 3 I would suggest based only on about two hours playing time. With Summer weather already here I need to keep my gaming to a minmum and set the right precedent by doing a lot of things out doors and thus, hopefully, encouraging the kids to do the same. That said I do have my PSP sitting here with Metal Gear Solid loaded and ready to go should I need a fix during the five hour long chemo session today!

Summer is almost here

This weekend, the weather was gorgeous, blue skies and temperatures rose to the high 80's Fahrenheit by Sunday afternoon. Both Robyn and Jack had soccer games on Saturday and I played on Sunday. We all are a bit sun burned today. It's supposed to be in the eighties each day of the coming week. The kids decided that the weather was so nice that they were going to jump into the pool which they duly did and I must say despite the water being barely above 70 degrees, they had a great time. So I guess this means the pool is now officially open for business for the 2008 season. I would usually have jumped in there with them, anything above 68 degrees I will swim in happily but the meds I am on right now make me so sensitive to cold I am going to need to run the pool heater for a couple of days before I'll be able to join them in the water.

Football/Soccer

In my prior post I mentioned I was hoping for an Arsenal win against Liverpool in the first leg of their Champions Leage match. Sadly the match ended in a 1-1 draw which gives Liverpool a definite advantage as the teams head into the second leg of the tie. With the away goals rule, Arsenal have to score at least once at Anfield as a 0-0 draw would hand the match to Liverpool. Having also watched the teams tie 1-1 in the league right after the first leg, I am not confident Arsenal can pull this one off but I guess we'll see. For sure they need to rediscover their goal scoring ways from the earlier part of the season. On a related topic, I really enjoyed watching the FA Cup semi-finals from Wembley this past weekend. It's great to see the FA Cup magic is still alive with many of the big clubs having been knocked out by lower division opposition. I look forward to the final, which has the unlikely lineup of Cardiff vs Portsmouth. I'm really happy for my friend Graham who is a huge Pompey fan. I hope he can get a ticket for the big match.

Mac Book Pro - update

It's been about three months or so now since I got my Mac Book Pro laptop. I continue to be really impressed by this machine. The fact that every night I can put it to sleep and in the morning open the lid and have it wake up and start downloading my mail without me having to anything is really great. I have re-booted the machine twice since the start of the year and one of those time was just part of installing a major OS update. This really is a robust platform. By contrast, if I put my Windows XP laptop to sleep (hibernate) more than about 3 times in a row I have to reboot the system to get it working properly again. I'm not a Windows hater it's just that with the Mac I have found a machine where I feel very comfortable, a machine that I trust to work the way I expect it to and most importantly of all, a machine where I am definitely more productive. As I learn more and more of the Mac's features I'll keep on posting updates. I will also note that the one negative thing I have observed lately is that if the processor is working hard, the metal casing gets very hot and if you have it sitting on your legs while wearing shorts it can get pretty uncomfortable - of course this is just what you need on a cold night flight across the Atlantic - so that could be viewed as a plus!

So that's it for this round of miscellaneous updates. I'll try and post again soon as I progress through round 10.
]]> Mon, 7 Apr 2008 12:01:07 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000070 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Apr-02-a wrote about it here . A lot has happened since then but I guess the overall summary is "so far so good".  I have three chemo rounds left to go now which really is not that bad but the side effects, especially the constant sense of fatigue, do seem to have become cumulative. My last chemo treatment is scheduled for the week beginning May 5th so I can at least see the light at the end of that particular tunnel now. Round ten begins next Monday (April 7th) and at that time I have a meeting scheduled with my oncologist where I want to have a "what happens next?" type discussion. As far as I know I go into a sort of frequent checkup maintenance mode at that point (both with him and my surgeon) but I have several questions I want to ask him. I will also need another (minor) surgery at some point to remove the "power port" that is used to infuse the drugs into my system. The one question I really want an answer to is the one question he cannot answer. That of course is "am I cured?". All he is able to give me, and this is not his fault, it's just the nature of the beast, is statistics and a prognosis based on experience in treating similar cases. In spite of this, and I try not to dwell on it, it is frustrating having undergone all that I have in the past six months that there is no definitive test that can tell you how well the combined surgery/chemo treatment plan has worked. As I have joked with him in the past, the bottom line is that if I am still here for my checkups in five years then he has cured me! That said, my spirits are pretty good and I am not wasting too much time worrying about things that I really cannot do much about. Of course the little pink pills help there too! On a positive note, an experience such as this really helps remind you of the things that are truly important in life. I feel that I am closer to my wife and kids than ever before (and we have always been a close family) and I have been reminded how many wonderful friends I have all over the World that have been there for me these past six months. My oncologist commented to me that years from now I will actually look back on this as a positive experience on many levels. I think he is right. Not only have I been reminded of how much my family and friends mean to me I have also bonded with so many brave fellow patients that I meet week in, week out at the oncology clinic. I am humbled by many of the stories I have had told to me by other patients describing what they are going through - it really does stop any small amount of self pity from rising to the surface when you are constantly reminded that things could be a lot worse. It has also been hard lately to see a few people who are probably still in high school being brought in for treatment. Sadly cancer is a very indiscriminate predator.

On a lighter note, Spring is in full bloom here, and although we have had several cloudy and rainy days lately, Summer is clearly just around the corner. Even on the cloudy days our temperatures are getting into the high 70's or low 80's Fahrenheit and the water in the pool out back is now up to 70 degrees and the kids are begging me to turn the heater on so they can start swimming. Last year I started swimming when the water was 68 degrees but one of the side effects of the meds I am on is that I am very sensitive to cold so I suspect they won't have to twist my arm too hard on this one. I could certainly use the exercise!! Talking of the kids, they are already counting down the days left until the end of school (which for us happens at the end of May - much earlier than for my friends and family back in Europe). We have started discussing what we want to do this Summer which has been great fun. We are already planning a few fun things to do with the kids in June once I am done with chemo which really is a pleasant change in dinner time conversation from some of the other daily issues we have been dealing with the past six months.

Oh and completely off topic, hopefully Arsenal will beat Liverpool later today in the Champions League which will definitely raise my spirits! The match is being shown live on TV here so I'll probably record it and watch it after work tonight (apologies to any Liverpool fans I just offended but I have been a mad keen Arsenal supporter since I was about five years old).

So with that, I'll close this somewhat more philosophical than usual posting.

 I'll post again soon, probably after I talk to the oncologist again on Monday if not before.

]]> Wed, 2 Apr 2008 10:15:38 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000069 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Mar-27-a Yesterday marked the end of my ninth chemotherapy cycle. So that's nine down and three to go. My last one will be the week of May 5th so not so far off now. The side effects (mostly the fatigue and some annoying bouts of nausea) have hit me quicker than usual this time so I'll keep this update brief. Hopefully this means I'll be more with it by the weekend when both of my kids have soccer games that I very much want to be at. I am both excited and anxious to see the chemo treatments getting close to done. On the one hand I will be glad to be rid of the side effects but on the other, seeing my oncologist on a weekly basis and having him re-assure me that things are going well has, to some extent, become my safety blanket and I think it will take some getting used to being off the treatments once we reach that point. Of course, having said that I'll be going in for regular monitoring so I guess I'll get enough interaction to keep my spirits up. I really love the oncology team I am working with they really are a great bunch of people and they are so up beat that it definitely rubs off on me and as far as I can tell the other patients as well.

I'll post more updates soon, once the "chemo fog" clears again.

I continue to be very grateful for all of the e-mails and messages in the guest book and the messages I have been getting on Facebook. You guys out there have done more than you probably realize to help keep my spirits up. As always, a very big Thank You!

On Saturday Robyn took the first part of her Tae Kwon Do black belt test (called a mid-term) and we believe she passed. She will take the final part of her test either in May or August depending on the scheduling. We are very proud of her as this is a non trivial achievement.

This weekend the weather here was wonderful and it looks set to stay that way all through this week. We have clear blue skies and temperatures are forecast to be in the  60's today and up to the eighties by the end of the week. Spring is a wonderful time of year here (except for the days when the super cell storms come through!). We had no soccer matches this week as we were all off for the Easter break but both kids have practices and games this coming week so I am going to be quite busy in the evenings and on Saturday with that.

I had promised to post some of the San Antonio photos here. I haven't yet had the time to work on doing that but here at least is a photo of the Alamo. Please ignore the man pushing a trash can. I took this photo in a hurry while my son was having a melt down and did not have a lot of time to think about perfect composition !!

The Alamo, San Antonio, March 2008.

I am feeling very tired today so I'll keep this post brief and aim to post again soon as the week progresses. I hope everyone has a great week.

On Friday morning we got up and packed, had breakfast and set off for the San Antonio Zoo. However, on arriving at the Zoo we realized this had been a bad idea. All of the parking lots were full and even though the San Antonio Spring Break is the week after ours, we could see that the Zoo was packed full of school parties getting off to an early start on their Spring Break plans. In the end we did not even try to park, we just got back on the freeway and started to head home. Our daughter, Robyn, was not at all pleased by this turn of events as she had really been wanting to see some animals. Clearly we needed a plan B. Luckily my wife knew of a wildlife park near New Braunfels called the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. The park is just  a few miles west of I35 and more importantly right on our way home. We had seen the signs by the side of the road before but never been there so we decided to give it a go. It turned out to be a great idea. The park was not that busy and the main attraction is a "drive in your own car" safari tour. The highlight for all of us was when a group of Zebra came up to the car and stuck their heads in and let us feed them some of the animal food we had been given as we entered the park. Despite the warning signs about not hand feeding the animals both by the roadside and in the guidebook, the animals are clearly used to cars and people and expect to get fed! We saw several animals walk up to a car, wait to get fed and then on realizing the car had no food walk on in disgust to the next car. OK so it wasn't quite the full African experience but it was a lot of fun. That said, we decided not to try hand feeding the osteriches as they all just looked too cranky to take the chance!  While in New Braunfels, we also took the opportunity to enjoy a really nice lunch at the famous New Braunfels Smokehouse - the food is great and if you are ever passing through I recommend it for a lunch or dinner stop. They focus on barbecue but they also serve salads and other lighter fare.

We arrived home around 5pm on Friday afternoon, by which time the crazy Texas Spring weather was up to 97 degrees Fahrenheit!  Weather wise we have been on a real roller coaster ride (as is normal for the time of year) with high temperatures ranging from the mid sixties all the way up to almost 100 degrees. Today as I type this it's in the eighties outside but very cloudy and we are under a severe weather watch with the chance of both hail and tornadoes before the end of Tuesday - such is life in Texas during the Spring time. A few years back we lost our roof to a Spring time hail storm so you learn rapidly down here to take these weather notices seriously.

On Saturday the "chemo fog" finally caught up with me, and today (Monday) I am still struggling to shake it off.  Consequently, I stayed at home to rest on Saturday while Lorna and Robyn got up really early to go to a 3 v 3 soccer tournament. They came home tired and sunburned but as best as I can tell they had a good time despite by all accounts having had to play some very tough teams in the competition. Sunday was another rest day for me although I forced myself to go and play soccer during the afternoon just to get myself out of the house. Suffice to say my reactions were not that sharp and I mostly stood in the goal without too much to do but it was nice to get out for a bit.

Today I was back at the oncologist for my iron shot and other (non chemo) meds but at least I have a few days now before round nine gets underway next week. Sadly two of the meds make you sleepy - just what I needed !!

That's all the news for now. I took a lot of photos during our brief trip to San Antonio. I'll try and post a few over the next few days, but I need to do a little cropping and Photo Shop-ing first! ]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:10:47 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000066 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Mar-10-a

On the topic of DST, for the benefit of my friends and family in the UK, given that your clocks do not go forward until the end of March, I am now one hour closer to your time for a couple of weeks. So, for example, 12pm (midday) here is currently 5pm in the UK where it is normally 6pm for most of the year.

As well as getting the kids up early, I also had to leave the house at the same time as round eight of my chemo treatments starts today - again what a great way to Start Spring break! I am currently sitting in one of the comfy reclining chairs at the oncologist's office as I type this (which is no mean feat I might add given all the meds they pumped into me a few minutes ago that have made me very dopey). They tested my blood an hour ago and I just got the results. Thankfully my platelet count has gone up again and there is no need to adjust my treatment plan at the present time. I am very happy about this. I'm into a routine now and as a creature of habit I am hoping I can stay on my routine until May when my chemo treatments end.

I'm looking forward to Wednesday when this round ends. I am taking the rest of the week off so that I can spend some quality play time with the family.

I'll post again soon as I get through this round. Only four more to go after this one!!!
]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:55:37 CDT http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000065 Miscellaneous http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Mar-07-a

I have been trying to keep up with my reading as it really does help me relax and thankfully my eyesight seems to have improved a bit in the last couple of weeks from where the FOLFOX cocktail had taken it to during the first several weeks of chemo. This week I finished another of the Harry Turtledove books in the Colonization series. I enjoyed it so much that I immediately started reading the next one which is in fact the last in this set of three (although it's really book seven in a series of eight related books). I am grateful to my friend Roger who introduced me to this author and I have really enjoyed every book in the series. The books are science fiction in nature but take place in an alternate view of history where an alien race invades the earth right in the middle of the Second World War and the various human nations have to put their differences aside to confront the high tech invaders. If that concept for a story line appeals and you have not read any of the Harry Turtledove books then I highly recommend these.

Some of you may have noticed that the Guest Book has changed. My web hosting company recently upgraded their server software and replaced the guest book tool with a different one. I have had a few people tell me that they have had trouble posting to the new guest book but as far as I know it is working  correctly. I am a bit nervous however, as since I switched over no one (except my wife and I who were testing it) has posted. If you feel the urge I would appreciate a few of you posting to let me know it is actually working correctly. All of the old messages are still available in an archive that I have created and provided a link to on the main Guest Book page.

While speaking about hearing from people, I would like to mention that I have been contacted by several people who found my web site while doing web searches for information on colon cancer treatment. I am both humbled and pleased that these people have contacted me and also hopefully found some of the information I have been posting useful. As I have mentioned before here, one of my goals when I decided to be very open about my diagnosis and ongoing treatment was to provide some relevant information and perhaps also a little hope and encouragement to others that find themselves in a similar place to me. I am glad that people have found this site and I am grateful that it has proven useful for them to be able to compare notes with me. To all of you who have contacted me, we're in this together, try to stay positive, the treatment for colon cancer these days has come a long way even in the last ten years or so. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you. Keep up the fight!

On the sports watching front this has been a mixed week for the teams I follow. I was really happy to see Arsenal beat AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday but I am not quite so happy with the way the England cricket team is performing in New Zealand this week. Still you can't have everything as they say.

For my Mac owning friends who ping me regularly to ask about the (still fairly new for me) Mac Book Pro - it's official - I'm in love. This week I did not even open up my Windows laptop once. I was able to do all of the things required by my job as well as a bunch of personal projects during the evenings solely on the Mac. I have only found one program so far (Quicken) for which the Mac native version will not work for me. This is because for reasons I do not understand, the makers of Quicken decided that the file formats used by the Windows version of Quicken and the Mac version would not be 100% compatible. As I like to share my files between my machines (for backup purposes as well as pure convenience) I decided to try installing the VMware Fusion product this week that lets me run Windows applications on the Mac. So far, after two days of using it, I have to say that this seems like the perfect solution. I do 90% of the things I need to do using native Mac applications and  then run Quicken using Fusion when I need to. As one of my good friends commented after I had been saying how much I was enjoying using the Mac - "I told you so". For the technically minded, I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 in the VM and so far it seems to work just fine. So now I have the best of both Worlds as far as I am concerned with Mac applications and Windows ones running side by side on the same desktop without me ever needing to re-boot the Mac to switch to Windows or go to another machine to run the Windows applications that I need to run. I guess you can sign me up for the Mac fan club at this point. I really do like this machine a lot.

So anyway, that's about it for now. I'm looking forward to another busy weekend with lots of time hopefully being spent outdoors. Chemo round eight starts on Monday but at least next week is Spring Break as I mentioned and I have a few days off with the family to look forward to at the end of the week.
]]> Fri, 7 Mar 2008 22:03:55 CST http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000064 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Feb-27-a

Several of you have written to me asking how I am liking my Mac Book Pro now that I have had it for a couple of months or so. In short I love it. It is by far the most reliable computer that I have ever owned. I still use my trusty IBM Thinkpad during the work day to get some work specific things done but even most of those I could do on the Mac now that I have the appropriate software installed. In the evenings when I tend to try and find time to work on more personal things like surf the web, my non work e-mail  or working on the web page I have been using the Mac almost exclusively for those tasks. I just installed the Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5.2) upgrade and it seems to be working well. I particularly like the new Time Machine enhancements.

As a side note, my web hosting company just upgraded all of their server side software. As far as I can tell the migration has gone without a hitch but please do let me know if you see any unexpected behaviour from the web site over the next few weeks.

That's about it for right now then. More updates to follow soon and as always thanks for the continued messages of support. Although as far as I can tell things are going pretty well this remains a very nervous time for me and all of the e-mails, calls and messages in the Guest Book really do help me a lot keep my spirits up. ]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:47:09 CST http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html/000063 Medical http://www.kelvinlawrence.net/main.html#2008-Feb-25-a

Today for the first time since we started working with the oncologist my blood test results are heading in the wrong direction. This is another side effect of the FOLFOX cocktail that they have me on.. My bone marrow is not keeping up with production needs and consequently my platelet count is significantly down. My haemoglobin level is slightly down. While these side effects are often to be expected and are a common occurrence with chemotherapy patients, it is still a bit depressing to have any kind of setback. If my platelet levels get much lower they may have to suspend treatments until they rise again. Among other things, platelets help the blood congeal (clot) and stop bleeding from occurring. If my count drops much lower I will be told to suspend all of my physical activities that involve any chance of me getting cut - this would mean no more soccer for a while and would be really depressing. I have really started to look forward to my weekly Sunday soccer match now that I am back into the routine and that my body seems to have enough stamina to get through a game OK. I played again yesterday in fact and felt more alert than I had the week before - which is good given I am the goalie!

In other news ......the Girl Sc