tim2s_fight

Well it has been 9 months since my Clean Pet scan and I am still doing good... I don't even know if people check this anymore but I am posting anyways.

Hey everyone, check it out, I am famous...

My father rode in the PMC yesterday (Sunday) and I volunteered  to help out and we made it on the news.

check it out http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/PMC-riders-close-in-on-Wellesley-MA/1217782248.html (1:27 is where i am)

Well it is officially time for me to move on... and move out... I found a place in Tewksbury to move into so I am moving out... I sign all the paper work and crap this week and then I can start moving in.... I will post later when my house warming party is... so you all can buy me stuff...
 Also went for my 3 month checkup where everything is looking good

well it's been a while since my last post so i figured I would provide a quick update. I am doing fine... still looking for an apartment for living in... probably mid may for moving out... I just finished Jury duty on a civil case which the whole jury felt that in this malpractice case the doctor did everything appropriatly and so had to find for the defendant (in about 10 minutes)... well that's it for now.... I have a check up on the 28th.... I will let you know how that goes....

Well it has been another 2 weeks so I figured I would post again. First I have been asked by my uncle to be an usher at his wedding which is cool. So I figured I would tell everyone.

Also I did out the math for my treatment... the cost of my cancer to me was: ~$900 + $150 in gift cards I gave to the nursing staff for being So Awesome
and 220 Hours of personal time (this was how much time I missed from work in 2007 + a little in 2008, it may not be exact)

total amount billed by Lahey for my treatment: $200k
total amount paid by Blue Cross to Lahey (plus my copays): $100k

there are things that arn't accounted for here that I spent money on by didn't really keep track of.... such as drugs @ $10 - 25 a bottle (probably close to $400 off the top of my head)
over the counter drugs: I have no idea
new laptop to entertain myself at chemo treatments (ok it was just an excuse to buy a new laptop): $1600


so there you have it... I figured people might want to see what this cost me / my insurance company

well until next time

Well it has been a couple weeks since my last update so I figure I will post something. I am doing fine nothing really interesting going on so I figured I would link a great video that was sent to me.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

so check that out and maybe I will have something else in another 2 weeks

well it has been a whole year since the day I went to the emergency room and found out i had a large mass in my chest... Man this has been a long trip with it's ups and downs and the meeting of many wonderful people along the way... thanks everyone for your support though this whole thing....

Well I had my port removed yesterday in a quick procedure... so guess what.... I kept it... wanna see:



that is what was inside my chest as "my third nipple" they accessed it though the spot in the middle which is a resealing rubber type thing.

you can see how it was inside with part of one of my X-Rays:



The part with the triangle is the reservoir and the catheter part when up into my jugular vein then snaked down inside directly into my right(?) atrium... so my drugs were delivered quite swiftly to my entire body...

So here we are.... day 1 (or is it 2) of my 28th year (i turned 27 yesterday)... for most people this would be just another day but you gotta remember to +1 your age... but for me, I feel like I am heading into a new life, it's time for me to put my behind in my past and move forward. for this year I have planned to move out of my parent's house (finally) and become my own person.... from there who knows...

Tim

PS. poor patriots..... Poor Super Fail

Well Check it out... I have gone back to being a cueball... this time I am trying it shaved all the way down just to see how it looks... so what do y'all think?

So it is "over" I am officially in remission.... There is going to be tests every 3 months for the next couple years and such but I am clean. well that is my exciting news... 

Well my PET/CT is tomorrow..... that's all for now....

Well here we are... 2008.... I really don't have a New Years resolution this year as my plans are going to involve a lot of changes anyway. I have started to grow back my goatee that i lost to radiation... though it just looks like I missed a spot shaving but in a couple weeks it should be back to looking OK... 2 weeks (+1 day) is my next scan.... a week from that is when I get the results from my doc (scheduling with my doc is why there is a week wait) and a little more than a week after that I turn 27.... so in the next month i got a lot going on... well Happy New Year everyone and here's to everyone's year being a good one.

Well I haven't posted in a few weeks so I figured I would put something up before people start thinking I left you guys.... Well there is not much to talk about really... My hair is growing in.... it looks like the hair on my chin is going to come back... so I will have my Goatee again some time in the future (prolly this summer) and it's just been a lot of waiting and getting ready for the Holidays... well Have a happy end of year celebration of choice and if i don't post before then have a happy new year also...

Well I am guessing that a lot of you have been watching the news about the whole CT Scans increase your risk of cancer etc and probably went Tim is going to be getting these CT Scans all the time... well just to put things in a little perspective for you guys... a CT Scan has an effective dosage of ~1 cGy per scan... My radiation treatment that i received as part of my treatment was..... 3600 cGy... so I have been exposed to the equivalent of receiving a CT Scan every day... for the next 10 years... so the CT Scans I will be receiving are a lot more diagnostically significant than the little bit more radiation I will be receiving because of it.

well seeing as there really isn't that much to discuss I will just update you guys that my clean PET/CT scan is going to be on 1/17/08 and I will be seeing my doc on the 23 to have him inform me it's clean... and that's aout it for the moment... also the plan to move out of my parents house is going to be ~april-may... I have no details as to where because I won't know until I talk to places... but the plan is to stay within the area if i can...

Edit: OK I went from indifferent to pensive does that work?

So I went and saw all my doctors yesterday... luckily the numbers are dropping as I go... I dropped my pulmonary doctor yesterday as he scans and tests all came back clean.... I have a fully functional set of lungs... so she put me on the "well there is not going to be a follow-up with me unless there is something found during a scan"... then in the afternoon I saw my radiation oncologist who told me I have a 50/50 chance of the hair below my chin growing back so I may have lost the goatee forever.... it's funny I actually have a perfectly straight line roughly where my mouth is that no hair will grow below at the moment... (actually I just talked to my rad onc on the phone and he said that the hair will most likely grow back)...

Now on to the soup and nuts of yesterday My Oncologists meeting... well he seems confident that i will be clean after this but I will not get proof until January as that is when my Onc is scheduling my scan :-( My Rad Onc also agrees that the 3 month wait is good... as at that point they will have confident scan results where if they do it now, even if the test comes back positive i would have to wait 3 months for a second test to confirm that the first test wasn't a false positive from the radiation or the chemo or other factors... and I would get to sit around with a positive test hanging over my head...

well that's it for now.

Have a happy thanksgiving

Hah Zah I have completed my radiation treatments... so I have completed my treatments for my cancer.... now I just need to get a clean PET scan and all will be good... though I have suffered a casualty... my poor goatee is currently gone.... the beard mostly fell out from the radiation treatment... then I noticed for some reason the moustache was missing hair too.... so today I took my beard trimmer to it and chopped it all off.... now you can see my double chin :-(... soon it will be back though because I and others liked the way it looked on me... well that's it for now...

well I am half way through radiation treatment... the treatment isn't that bad... though I now have the mother of all sore throats.... it feels like someone snuck in during the night and shoved pins into my throat just behind the mouth.... I am on a coupel drugs but nothing seems to want to make it go away.... well I got 2 more weeks of it getting worse and then I should get better....

here is me in the machine:


the thing above me is where the radiation comes out.... it then rotates around and zaps me again from underneath...

this is the machine rotated 90 degrees


the silver part is where the radiation comes out... the machine is pretty cool as it can go through 360 dgrees of rotation... the bed (you can see a little of it on the right) goes up and down and can rotate 90 degrees to either side.... and the silver part can rotate 360 degrees to get the alignment right...

well that's it for the moment.... I shall post more later

 

well I got my first treatment of radiation yesterday.... it's not that exciting I walk in and take off my upper clothing. Then I lie down on the table and the techs proceed to push and pull me until my little dots align with the lasers... once that is done I can move until they say ok.... so I just lay there and the buzzer goes buzz and the tech comes in and rotates the machine under me and goes buzz again. After that's all done they drop the table out i get off get dressed and go home... it's actually not that exciting.... well until next time