Let me re-introduce myself, since it’s been 8 months since my last confession. What a twat waffle I’ve been, keeping everyone in the dark since September. I’m sooooo sorry. I could have sworn I had done an update in the early spring, but I don’t see one. Sorry guys. Where to start?

I guess first and foremost, I hope everyone is staying safe during this pandemic or the emerging from said pandemic. I realize it’s been tough. A lot of people have been forced into a world like those of us that are “sick” and have to be very careful of who and what we touch everyday. Wearing a mask is the new black. I always felt stupid wearing a mask in public. It always seemed to draw so much attention. Now, if you’re not wearing a mask, you ain’t cool… or you’re not being considerate of the rest of the world anyway. Welcome to my life… but seriously, I hope everyone is doing okay. It’s impossible not to be effected by all of this, health wise, home wise or job wise. Thank you to everyone that has had to work through this and to those who have had to stay home. Neither situation is optimal.

So, in February (2020) I found out my scans were good. They looked good in the fall (2019) also; my 16 months of chemo had paid off and potentially cleared things up. I was NED (no evidence of disease) finally. NED is a colorectal cancer patients dream. In five years I have achieved this only twice, unfortunately both periods were pretty short lived. In 2017 for about 3 months and this time for maybe 5 months. Either way, I have not had any chemo since the first week of November 2019. Having a break is amazing, this stuff can be very hard on your body and the cumulative effects are likely “not good”. Ha.

Well party people, it’s time. I’m coming out of retirement. Just like there’s no crying in baseball, there is no remission in Stage 4 colon cancer; at least not for me. I had some blood work done this month and things are a changing. My liquid biopsy (Guardant360-blood biopsy test I have every few months to monitor my disease) showed my old disease rearing it’s shitty head again. It appears to be the same mutations that came up July 2018, when I resumed treatment at that time. The good news, my cancer has not changed or mutated in 5 years, but it’s a persistent little beeotch. Tag team, back again… With the old mutation being picked up in my liquid biopsy this basically indicates possible reoccurrence of disease and circulating cancer cells. This indication prompted my scans, scheduled for the end of May, to be bumped up a couple of weeks. Sure as shit… there was a new, little 9mm spot on my liver.

Long story short, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been in contact with the A-team. They and their van have determined the best course of action is SBRT RADIATION, yum yum (Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy). In my case, this is a radiation that can basically be done very accurately. Using MRI guided technique to do mad damage to my lesion, but not to the rest of my amazing body. I went in yesterday for a consult and planning appointment. It was delightful. I met with Dr. Henke in the radiation dept and a few cats from her team. She’s awesome. She seems very confident and wizardly smart. We’ll just blast this little spot and then possibly resume some “light” chemo afterward to cleanup anything else that might be tooling around. I’m scheduled to start next Friday (June 5th), with 3-5 treatments (we’ll see what they decide). I think treatments can be anywhere from 1-1.5 hours. I was given three little dot tattoos (like Phoebe’s) for markings of where exactly to line up for each treatment. Pretty interesting stuff. Because they can be pretty accurate with this radiation treatment side effects should be minimal, hopefully. These could include some fatigue and nausea. I’ve been prepared with information and medication for all that… so I should be good.

The break I’ve had since November has been amazing. I was able to do some travel in December and January. Kim and I hit the Galapagos Islands in December and then in January we visited beautiful Scandinavia. Both were terrible. JK. Both trips were absolutely amazing. The animals in the Galapagos were incredible and our travels to Norway, etc., were great due to the company we had, the hospitality of the people and just the places in general, so gorgeous. We also fell back in love with Gin and Tonics, as they are quite popular there. They have multiple little spins on those. Delish.

Kim had her knee replaced in March and is doing great. She’s like a new woman. She’s been back at it, cleaning and working in the yard.

I was lucky enough to put on the coveted Covid 19… or close to that. I did a whole 30 diet in February and was finally looking/feeling good… then quarantine hit and BAM!! No more gym, cookies for every meal, and candy galore. It happens.

I mostly spend my days vacuuming wearing old muddy flip flops… as to undo all of my good work… and feel puzzled all the same. Why isn’t the vacuum working? Oh… right… because I’m tracking dry mud everywhere while doing it… sooooo smart. Poor Kim.

We’ve been transforming our back yard to hopefully have a garden at some point. We’ve built new garden boxes and created some flower beds. Kim has been doing a bunch of planting, it looks amazing. There’s been a lot of excitement with random wildlife in the area. My bees are living the life.

Hopefully in time things can get a little more back to normal so we can all start hanging out with family and friends again. Until then, I hope everyone is hanging in there. Thank you, as always, for your thoughts, prayers and kind words. Stay safe folks. Cheers!

ILMoRBL