Well… I’ve made it a year since I was diagnosed. And a long year it’s been. I lost a couple organs… learned much more about the health care system then I ever planned to… repeatedly had toxic poisons injected into my body… and recently ran my first Hood To Coast relay!!

Yes… as a celebration of finishing my 12 rounds of chemotherapy… my wife and I decided we wanted to kick off this next year of cancer survival with a bang. We were invited to join a Hood To Coast relay team for 2019 (google it if you don’t know about this race… it’s a crazy event that’s pretty amazing. 199 mile relay race from Mt. Hood to the Oregon coast) and at first I definitely scowled at idea of running three 5-6 mile legs in 36 hours just a few weeks after finishing my 12th round of chemotherapy. But when I found out it benefits the Providence Cancer Center… I couldn’t turn down the opportunity. So… I’ve been training as hard as I was able to over the last couple months… and as difficult as it was… it was an absolutely amazing experience. My hands and feet are still terribly numb from the chemo… so it felt like I was running with gobs of cotton pressed in my shoes… but I did it. And I’m super glad I did. The race ended on August 24th (exactly one year to the day after my diagnosis) and the team that we were on allowed me to run the final leg of the race which meant I got to cross the finish line. I honestly can’t tell you how great it felt to end this year on that high note. (Well… high note mentally… physically it was a very low note… like so low that I’m not sure there is a bass guitar that can play a note that low… lol). So today… my body feels like it got run over by a truck… but mentally I feel like I could conquer anything.

As far as an update to my journey… I did get my first follow up CT scan and blood tests.

Side note- my insurance company took forever to approve the chest portion of my CT scan… only approving the abdominal and pelvic portions. They claimed because I only had appendix cancer it wasn’t necessary to get chest CT’s… which is humorous because many people with my type of cancer end up with metastatic disease in their lungs and chest. But who am I to question the insurance company… lol… in the long run though… at the persistence of my oncologist, they listened to reason and approved the whole body scans.

My tumor markers were normal in my blood tests… so that’s good news. The CT scans however still showed a soft tissue growth at the site of my colon surgery. If you all have read the long update from early this year… This is the growth that was assumed to be a cancer recurrence until they stuck a giant needle in my side and biopsied a few slices of it. Finding out that it was just scar tissue from the surgery… We think. (Nobody can tell us exactly what caused it… or why it’s lingering.) So in the end, my oncologist would like to CT me again in three months to keep an eye on this growth… and for now… I get to keep my port in. (As I mentioned in a previous post… having my port makes me feel like Neo from The Matrix… so I’m not opposed to keeping it for now.)

This wasn’t all bad news… but it wasn’t the “All Clear!!” I was hoping for. But I’ll take it. Nothing sticking out that’s obviously a cancer recurrence for now. It’s just important to remember that with my type of cancer a recurrence is likely… it’s just where and when it will rear it’s ugly head. Obviously we hope for clean scans… and as I also mentioned in a previous post… Hope is the one thing I’ve got that I control!! So I’ve loaded up on it… I’ve filled all my buckets with it… I’ve stuck it in every pocket of my cargo shorts… and filled every spare cup holder my car… (leaving one available for coffee of course).

And also as I mentioned earlier… the residual side effects from my last round of chemo are still lingering. My fingertips, palms and both my feet are still considerably numb. It’s not painful… just weird. I’m continuing with acupuncture and my integrative doctor has me on some supplements we hope will help to repair the nerve damage. But that’s really it for now. Even my b’acne is clearing up pretty well.

So… in closing out the year… I still have cancer (well… they still consider me as “having cancer”… but my ‘hope train’ has me headed to the ‘cancer free’ station… lol)… but I’m in a much better place mentally and physically than I was a year ago…(other than the whole feeling like a truck ran over me… which should subside in a few days.) As always… please feel free to reach out with any questions… and I’ll post again (somewhat regularly… lol) when I’ve got more news or more to complain about. Thanks everyone for reading… hope you all have an amazing day!!