Let the countdown begin!

Today I received the first vaccine shot made from my own home-grown tumor. I have to say, there isn't much excitement to report. In fact, the scariest part was when the flight to LA was showing an hour delay, so I had to wrestle with United to get onto an earlier flight. And the most exciting part was when I finished up at 4:30, and the taxi managed to get me to LAX in under 30 minutes, in spite of commuter traffic!

Beyond that, the event was as follows:
1) Go to lunch at Jerry's Deli and be disappointed that, again, no stars are visiting me
2) Head to the appointment and take Benadryl and Tylenol 30 minutes before taking the vaccine
3) Get the vaccine shot and hold your arm up for 15 minutes
4) Try to sleep in an awkward chair until they wake you up to measure blood pressure and temperature
5) Go home

Of course, as we all know, sometimes no news is good news.

Interesting Phase 3 Clinical Trial

Here's a video of an interesting treatment explained pretty well. Not for me right now, but maybe down the line....

2nd verse, same as the first

Last year, on March 6th, I had one of my best days EVER! Well here we are, around the same time, one year later. And I now have evidence to back up the fact that the Huck Cancer tournament is amazing. This year my "bro" headed out from Michigan to join in the fun. Since we each raised over $1,000, and we were on the same team, well...let's just say our taking the championship looked suspiciously like someone fixed the system. In fact, all of the games were pretty close, and he and I were so physically spent by the end, we pretty much hobbled to the party that night and all of the next day (and we'll see about tomorrow too).

Regardless, win or lose, this tournament was incredibly wonderful for me. Once again we had a huge group of amazing volunteers pulling it all together, run primarily by Renata and Coleo, but also with most of the same amazing people as last year. In addition, a lot of my coworkers joined in the fun and helped out tremendously. We also raised over $40,000 for the Livestrong Foundation again. So for all those people who did so much to make this tournament happen (and honestly, I was not a big part of it myself), you deserve tremendous praise and thanks. Therefore, as a representative of the "Cancer Party", I present to you the official statement as follows: Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

Now...time for me to go to bed so my muscles can practice loosening up before I have to walk again.

Ooops

Sorry. I kinda left people hangin'. So here's a quick summary of answers to questions you probably all have, but thankfully my dear friend Poopapuparama voiced:

1) How many treatments so far?
None. I don't start the actual vaccines until March 14th. They will be day trips to LA taking about 3 hours. I start with some Benadryl and Tylenol, and then I get "the shot". Then they watch my reaction for the rest of the time. I get 3 vaccines total, every other Monday, starting the 14th. Along with the vaccines I need to apply Imiquimod to my (soon to be shaven) armpit for 5 days surrounding the vaccine. This is meant to aggravate my immune system to enhance the vaccines.

2) How do you feel from them?
We'll see....

3) Is sis still there?
Nope. Big sis left soon after we got back from LA, and "W" left that Saturday. Last week I spent time recuperating, but this week I'm actually back at work! It's going pretty well, though I haven't yet managed to get Jimmy to sing me that song he wrote....

4) How long do the treatments last each time and for how long will you be doing them?
See #1. But there are only 3 treatments, and then after the treatments I have another post-treatment appointment down in LA to see how they might be working and also to discuss the possibility of starting another chemo. Yeah, sure, I'm looking forward to that....

Other than that I'm doing relatively well. A little better every day, but knocking on wood a lot....