The Cycle Press Video is Finally Here!

After MONTHS of carefully culling through all of our footage from the 2009 Cycle for Survival Event, I am thrilled to share this press video with everyone. I am so proud of it!  Please pass along to anyone and eveveryone you know.  And PLEASE put 1/31/10 on your calendar!  

I am headed to my 10th year business school reunion in Boston this weekend where there will be a formal case discussion around the future of Cycle for Survival. Such an honor! I am very excited to hear what people think.

Living with Uncertainty - The New Normal

I had a long day at the doctor's on Friday and I will start with the good news...

Good news is that the surgery was very successful and as of today I am technically "cancer free".  The surgeons believe they were able to remove all of the cancerous cells (that they can see) and they are happy with the progress.

Bad news is that there is no real clear "next step" (we have been in this position 3 times before so it is nothing new, just not easy to hear).  We spent hours discussing the pros and cons of more chemo. Basically, more chemo will prolong the cancer from returning but it won't prevent if from coming back if there are any cancerous cells in my body that they can't see.  Given that I have been through so much chemo (and my body has really been beaten down by it over the past 2 years) we have decided to stop treatment (for the time being if not hopefully forever) and just monitor me very closely.  I will get CT scans every 2-3 months and we will hope that this time is different than the last 3 times and the cancer won't return.  

It is very hard for me to hear the docs say "it couldn't have gone better" and "we're not sure what's right to do next" in the same sentence.  So, I am choosing to live my life as if the cancer is gone for good. I am calling this time around "The Final 4" and assuming it won't come back.  The docs won't let me exercise for 6-8 weeks (it kills me) but as soon as I can, I am re-committing myself to the gym and to a healthy lifestyle (I am visiting with Doug's nutritionist in a few weeks when I can start eating normally again).

The Docs don’t want me headed back to work until I am completely healed so it will likely be a few more weeks. Every time I have surgery, it gets a bit harder on the system so the recover is longer.  In the meantime, I am setting up appointments to get a complete physical and to meet with a nutritionist to make sure I have a baseline understanding of my health before I am "set free”.

I am healing a bit more each day. Now the big issue is my digestive system.  It has become very heard to eat anything without getting sick.  This is common and has happened in the past but it is not fun!

The BEST Hospital Stay Ever?!?!

Does it sound odd to say that I had a great surgery and hospital stay?  Rarely do you hear the words “great” and “surgery” or “hospital” put together but as I sit at home in the comfort of my bed (bed is comfortable, finding a comfortable position in which to sit is not), I have only good memories of the past week.

The more surgeries and hospital visits you have, the more comfortable you are with the way things work.  When I headed to the hospital last Tuesday, I had no fear because

I had “been there” so many times.  Dave and I went up to the 6^th floor surgical check-in center at MSKCC and Carla was very excited to see me (that’s when youknow you have been there too often!). She gave me a big hug and took me through the “drill” which I could recite to her by now.I rested before surgery with my “Zen” Ipod mix. When it came time for them to take me into the operating room, I actually enjoyed talking with the anesthesiologists and hearing the details of the surgery to come.  I had none of the fears I used to have of “What if I wake up during the surgery?” or “What happens if you don’t give me enough drugs?” because I knew that I would fall asleep and wake up in the recovery room with absolutely no recollection of what had happened over the past x many hours.

And this isexactly what happened.  I woke up about 4 hours later and immediately realized that I did not have the annoying tube that they usually put down your throat to prevent infection during surgery.  It turns out that my surgery was less invasive than planned (a good thing!) so they didn’t need to use the tube.  They rolled me to mybed on the 15^th floor (my 3^rd visit to this floor; I’ve had 6 visits to the 16^th floor) and within hours I felt “fine”.

The five nights in the hospital went by pretty quickly.  I was insistent on asking for certain things that would make my stay more pleasant. For instance:

·      Take my vital signs as infrequently as possible during the night so that I can try to get some rest

·      Give me more painkillers about 10 minutes before you make me sit up and try to walk

·      Remove my catheter after 2 nights and NO EARLIER so that I don’t have to get up during the night when I am in pain

·      Order my foot massages from integrative medicine early in the AM so I am guaranteed a visit

I also was thrilled to have a lot of visitors.  My parents were there...theyare always wonderful in that they come the first few days when I am too "stoned" to do anything but sit in bed and stare at the walls. In addition my sister-inlaw visited from Chicago.  My brother and a variety of close NY friends also stopped by which always makes the time go by more quickly.

Unfortunately I also had 3 good friends in the hospital at the same time.  Although I loved that we could visit each other, it is bittersweet that 3 friends of mine – Candace, Paul and Dani – are all dealing with cancers similar to mine and that we all had to have surgery.  Paul and I had surgery on Tuesday the 28^th, Candace on Wednesday the 29^th and Paul on Thursday the 30^th.  I am thrilled to report that when I left they were all well on the road to recovery.I got to leave after 5 days which was much sooner than we thought would be possible.  Dave took a picture of me waving goodbye with the hopes that I never need to visit again. 

When we were leaving, I made Dave take a picture of my FAVORITE scene outside of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center -- the employees smoking outside the hospital building!  Ridiculous.

It is now my 3^rd day at home and it is so nice to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower (or shower at all for that matter as I am not a fan of hospital showers).  I have had lots of fun visitors and I have been watching a lot of good TV.  I am now hooked on the HBO Series, In Treatment. Really good! 

The weather is supposed to be very ugly for the next week which is good because I won’t be tempted to do too much too soon.  Lots of doctor’s appointments next week to figure out if we are done for now or if there are more treatments in my future.  Please email or visit!  I will likely be home for another 3-4 weeks healing.

The Final Four

As Dave shared in his blog entry right after my surgery, I have been looking for a “name” that properly summarizes my 4^th relapse.  It came to me as I was leaving for the hospital at 5:30AM on the Tuesday of my surgery…THE FINAL FOUR!

• My 2^nd relapse was called – Second Time Around (implying that I am more mature and can handle it better than I did the first time J)
  
• My 3^rd relapse was called “3 Times the Charm” or “3 Strikes Your Out” depending on whether you look at the glass as half-full or half-empty

I have been working hard this time around at really saying “good bye” to my cancer and willing it away for good.  Although I don’t subscribe to this way of thinking, some people believe that a person brings on their own condition.  In other words, certain actions that one has taken in life might have brought on a physical condition such as cancer. 

This seems somewhat self-destructive to me. I like to say that I am not responsible for having cancer but I am absolutely responsible for how I deal with the cancer.  

However, if you do subscribe to the “I bring on my own condition” theory, you also believe that you can’t truly be “done” with something unless you are completely ready to let go of it.  This is something I do understand.

It is often very hard for people to understand this but sometimes it is hard to say goodbye to cancer.  I myself find that after 4+ years battling the disease, I have become very comfortable with “the fight”.  When you spend so much time focused on something, it is often hard to just let go and move on.

That’s way there is a certain amount of fear that comes with having my 4^th surgery. Let’s hope it is successful but after that, then what happens?  Am I ready to say goodbye?

As I was getting ready for surgery I kept on thinking of a scene from my favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption.   If you remember, Morgan Freeman’s 

character (Red) is in jail for a life sentence, however, every 10 years he appears before the parole board and is given a potential chance to get out of jail early.  When the time comes, he repeats the same drill.

Red religiously vows his rehabilitation has been accomplished - and swears - "that's the God's honest truth":

Reviewer: You feel you've been rehabilitated?

Red: Oh, yes sir. Absolutely, sir. Yeah, I've learned my lesson. I can honestly say that I'm a changed man. I'm no longer a danger to society. That's the God's honest truth. 

The Result: A mechanical stamp marks "REJECTED" in red ink on his parole records.

The same situation continues every 10 years until Red attends another parole hearing after serving forty years of his life sentence. Times have changed now that it is 1967 - there are four men and one woman on the board. Wiser and more open about his rehabilitation he answers them straightforwardly with regret for a crime he committed in a past era. He admits and accepts his atoning guilt, confesses his own unworthiness - and is ultimately saved from Shawshank:

Red: “Rehabilitated? Well now, let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means...I know what you think it means. To me, it's just a made-up word; a politician's word so that young fellas like you can wear a suit and a tie and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did. There’s not a day goes by I don't feel regret. And not because I'm in here or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then. A young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone. This old man is all that's left. I gotta live with that. 'Rehabilitated?' That's just a bulls--t word. So you go on and stamp your forms, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a s--t.

The Result: Red is approved for parole when an automatic stamp marks his papers APPROVED in red ink.

What made Red ultimately get out of jail?  Was he more mature and more honest in his response?  Had he worked through all of his issues so that now he was ready for a 2^nd chance? Or had he given up all hope, which made him, for the first time, fearless from rejection?

I thought about this a lot as I headed to my 4^th surgery (roughly equivalent to the 40 year mark in Red’s life sentence).  What do I need to do to get “approved” this time…to move on and never look back?  

I vowed as Dave and I headed to the hospital on Tuesday AM that I would live my life as if I were no longer in jail.  And this surgery was the first step towards my ultimate redemption.

Home from the Hospital

Hi. Quick update -- I brought Jen home from the hospital today! She is doing very well, although it will likely take her about a month to recover physically and mentally from the surgery. She is upbeat and also very sore and uncomfortable (hooray for pain killers!) She is likely up for visitors over the coming weeks so feel free to email or call her.  She promises to write as soon as we can find a comfortable way for her to sit up and type on the computer.

- DL