August Update

When I last posted, it was late April, and I had just finished with my chemotherapy regimen. Since then, I haven’t thought much about blogging, because there hasn’t been much to blog about. And that’s a good thing.

I feel great. In fact, I would say I feel totally normal at this point, like I never had anything wrong with me. There are a couple of small exceptions to that which I will describe later, but for the most part I’m back to normal and have been for a while now.

It did take some time after I finished chemo, not only to get the effects of the chemo out of my body, but also for my body to get rid of the pulmonary emboli (blood clots in my lungs) which I described in my previous post. I was taking blood thinners until recently, but now I’m done with that as well.

Thankfully, all the nasty side effects related to eating and digestion are gone. I was wondering if I would retain any food aversions; you know how much of that is mental, and one bad experience can make you averse to a food for years. But that hasn’t happened with me. It took some time, but I’m totally back to my old self in terms of eating.

The only lasting effects, and I want to stress that these affects are minor and are not having any significant impact on my life right now, are 1) numbness in my feet and 2) pulmonary infarction. The numbness in my feet is likely a result of some mild neuropathy, the nerve damage that is frequently associated with certain chemo drugs, including the platinum-based one that I took. But it’s not bad, just a tingling sensation on the bottom of my feet that is more or less constant. I first noticed it probably 6 weeks ago, and it hasn’t gotten any worse or better since then. I don’t know whether it will go away or not, but as long as it doesn’t get worse, it’s fine. It doesn’t bother me at all. I walked 9 miles on Wednesday at Disneyland so my feet are working just fine.

The pulmonary infarction (isn’t that a funny word?) sounds worse than it is. Infarction is the medical term for tissue death resulting from obstruction of blood flow. The best known type of infarction is a myocardial infarction, better known as a heart attack. When you have a heart attack, heart tissue dies as a result of a blood clot that prevents blood from getting to your heart.

Well, when you have a pulmonary embolism, something similar happens in your lungs. Lung tissue dies as a result of the obstruction of blood supply to that tissue. It’s like having a heart attack in your lungs. The difference is that your lungs have far more reserve than your heart. You can afford to lose a considerable amount of lung tissue without any noticeable effect on your pulmonary function. And that seems to be the case with me. My oncologist says the infarctions (there are multiple) are evident on the CT scan, but I can’t tell any difference in my pulmonary function. He says it’s nothing to worry about. So I’m not going to. In fact, today I went for a short run with Keeley, and apart from the fact that I’m dreadfully out of shape, which is a different problem, I felt fine. I’m thinking of running a 10K this fall.

At this point, I am in monitoring mode in terms of my cancer. I had a CT scan in May that indicated that my lymph nodes were back down to a normal size, which is the best indication that the cancer is gone. Going forward, I’ll have chest X-rays at 2 month intervals and CT scans at 4-month intervals. The chest x-ray was done in June and was clear. The next milestone will be a CT scan in late September. They try to space the CT scans out as much as practicable because they subject your body to high doses of radiation.

So to summarize, my cancer is gone at least for now, and I feel great physically. As you may remember, the type of cancer I have (testicular seminoma) has a 95+% cure rate, so my prognosis is good. Of course, 95% is not 100%; even Stephen Curry misses a free throw once in a while. So I appreciate your continued prayers and good wishes.

I mentioned that we were at Disneyland on Wednesday. We were very blessed to take a Southern California vacation over the past 2 weeks, returning on Thursday. We went to San Diego and LA and managed to fit in the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, kayaking and snorkeling in La Jolla, Sea World, Legoland, a Padres game and an Angels game, Santa Monica pier and beach, and both Disney parks. Between COVID and my cancer treatment, it had been a long time since we had taken a big family vacation, so we decided to go for it while we had the time and the means and the health to do it. And I’m so glad we did. It was great fun although of course we were all ready to kill each other at times. You know how that goes. All part of the family vacation experience. If anyone is planning a trip to any of those places, contact me and I’ll be happy to share what I learned.

Unfortunately the vacation was not such a good thing for my garden. Those beautiful window boxes are beautiful no more. August is a tough season for the garden anyway. The spring garden is pristine and tidy; the early summer garden is prolific and wild; the August garden is hot, tired, and spent. Especially when it doesn’t get watered for 2 weeks.

And that’s about all I have to report. In the best case, there will be nothing else to report about my cancer except for clear scans, and in time it will fade in our memories. So this may be my last blog post. Or maybe I will go back to occasionally blogging about sports. Or maybe I will blog about other topics. Or maybe I won’t. I enjoy writing, but it takes time. And it helps if you have experiences (like a health crisis) to write about. I’m not sure I’m the right person for an opinion-based blog.

Anyhow, I’m grateful for all of you who have followed me through this journey. The journey isn’t over, but I have good reason to be optimistic about a safe passage the rest of the way. If you’d like to unsubscribe, you’re welcome to do so. If you choose to remain subscribed, I can’t promise when or if I’ll post again, or what it might be about; only that if I do, I’ll try to make it worth reading.