Hi Merek, I just wanted to add my best wishes to this thread.

It is great to see someone with such a positive attitude, and who is willing to share with the 2+2 community. I enjoy reading about your treatment and learning the in's and out's of this disease - it gives me a positive example that medical treatment today is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was even a few years ago.

Stay strong and I believe you will have a positive outcome.

What Quorthon said.

I've always liked your contributions to this forum, Merek, but I come to your thread only occasionally. Maybe it's partly because in a short period of time, by some freakish coincidence of fate, almost half my closest friends(the best half, really) came down with cancer in a two-year period and that was so painful for me that I'm still kind of traumatized by it. At one point, all of that group had it at once and not one had a positive prognosis. I don't want to overstate my pain compared to theirs, but I got kind of hypersensitized to cancer and the prospect of bad outcomes, and it has made me feel strange about cancer and mortality. I mean it all came too fast. Nothing compared to what a victim of a terrible condition might feel, of course. Maybe this is my roundabout way of saying don't take my frequent absence from this thread (and I'm hardly an inactive contributor to threads here) as ignoring or devaluating anything you're talking about or experiencing. I think I'm just still digesting, even years later, the problem of ordinary people you talk to every day potentially dropping like flies all around you. It's not the way mortality is supposed to work at all, and seems like one hell of a gyp. Hard to adapt to. My heart is with you, but I can only take so much of this kind of thread at a time. I do admire your courage in making it, and am especially intrigued by the particularity of your treatment. It grounds it somewhat. Again, I don't want to make this about me, but I appreciate the grounding of fears in the specifics of the facts you are providing. Myself, I've felt tossed at sea about what was going on.

FWIW, all six of my friends who had cancer in that short period survived. I had thought the world was coming to an end. But I was so happily very far wrong.

Merek - Enjoyed your post as always and am continually glad you are doing as well as can be expected. I and I am sure many other are watching and reading and may not always pop in a response but we care and are following and really hoping for the best. I have a hard time posting things at times when I just do not have much to add and that is why in this thread I may not pop in as much.

You are a brave man and I am so impressed that you are so willing to share this stuff and include us in your journey. My hat is off to you and my very best wishes are always with you.

Now, back to kicking this Cancers ass!!

Thanks Blarg and Fish. Don't worry too much about commenting unless something interests you or is worth commenting on. If thread dies out later that is fine.

Cancer is like this bogeyman in our society and yes it can be terrible, but it is just a category of endless illnesses where some forms of cancers are much less risky than than the flu. Maybe not mine but whatever.

This thread will live and die on its' quality...good thing the competition is not too high.


Upcoming topics to look forward to

• Trying to get a Medical Pot permit in Canada
• The difference between a loose stool and diarrhea
• How to bleed a kidney patient
• Can you convince the doctor to do the extra scan/test?
• If you can't spell "bloat" do you have "Chemo Brain"
• Trying to play internet poker while on super-steriods that make you hyper

IMHO, it would NOT be fine if this thread dies out.

This, imo.

What a difference between Canada and America. In America they often insist on all kinds of tests, many of which might be almost certainly unnecessary and incredibly costly (whether you can afford it or not). Meanwhile, your insurance is often lousy enough that you can't get it paid for even if you really do need it.

FYP

Yes, please don't let this thread die out. I'm just a lurker here but check this thread in particular a couple times a week because I find it increadibly interesting. Keep up the great spirit and the awesome TR's!

Merek, I think bruises are pretty. I never remember where mine came from/how I got them though.

I'm glad you're doing [so] well.

I don't have anything useful to add, just didn't want to read the whole thread and not comment. I wish you the best, you seem like a cool cat.

Your Semii-Useless Sci Fact

Most people don't even know what Cancer is....

It is not a disease, it is a process. And that process is shared by 200+ diseases like "cancer of the breast or lung". Most of these cancers have little in common except the process.

THE Cancer PROCESS - Cancer is when a bunch of NORMAL cellls start to "grow in disorderlly and uncontrolable way and invade neighboring areas" and guess what ??? THis is not the health issue. The problems start mostly when they spread to distant areas or "Metastasizing". It is actually not common to have the primary cancer cause serious illness or death.

Now wasn't that a useful fact?

Cancer is not a terribly useful label. It is like using "infection" to say you have a cold and "infection" to say your brother has the Ebola virius. They are both infectons but your outlook is a bit different.

Some skin cancers such as "basal" are so unlikely to return/spread after you have then removed that they are not even recorded in official cancer stats (fearmoungers use them as they like the very large numbers)

SO MY POINT.... well..... I guess the "Dex" is making me a bit hyper babblish disjointed and maybe this is not my best attempt at a organized thought. I think I need Adivan to "come down" and sleep tonight.
It is easy to see the appeal of bipolar people trying to ride the manic side. The manic effect of "Dex" is a ride in short doses. Can't imagine tring to manage being bipolar or a similar condition with or without drugs. Anything mental is tougher than physical imo. ........spoken like a true control freak..

Health Update... So prior to Stem Cell Transplant in the summer I will go through 3 or 4 rounds or Valcade/Dex Chemo. Round one is done. Round 2 starts April 26.

Results... Good blood levels better... all low but not so bad that I need blood bits.
Not feeling to ill. Cancer/Plasma cells lower(not a lot but the right direction). Still waiting on radiation of Femur bone Plasmatumor.

Cancer Doc is happy with results so I guess so am I.

Cancer Doc knows best imo!

Yay!

Excellent. Keep it up. Also, keep a diary, or just use the Lounge. I haven't been online much, but I try to check in here and lurk this thread when I get on, and your writing has been entertaining and edifying. It will give you something to look back on, and maybe to help others.

Keep kicking cancer ass.

Round 1 is done already? That's awesome! Glad that you are not feeling too ill. Hang in there, Merek. You're doing great. I think about you every day.

Glad to hear you are feeling OK Merek and that the cancer doc is pleased with your progress. Keep hanging in there.

I'm glad to hear you're doing good. Half of it seems like attitude and u have that part down pat.

Forget that - rock the short sleeves! Embrace the healing process!

So Chemo Round 2 began Tuesday - Same drugs - Feel great actually. All my blood counts are up. Platelets are even in the normal range so brusing and bleeding improved.

Also go another CT scan of hip and back. The report sounds scary but the result is next week I go to Victoria for a zap on the right pelvis area and 70% chance within 2 weeks I will be able to walk without pain. Yeah ha.

This is what the report says, 2 months ago this would have freaked me.Now it is sort of ho hum except the not knowing how much I can do without indangering the vertebre/nerve. ...and noone seems to want to give me a answer to that question.

Scan Report - There are innumerable subcentimeter lytic foci visualized involving the pelvis and sacrum.....a pathologic fracture of the L5 with marrow replacement expanding the right pedicle, transverse process and vertibral body with OBLITERATION of the right L5-S1 neural foramen and mild central canal stenosis. 40% loss of the vertebral body height along the right anterolateral half of the L5 vertebral body.

Translation - Many many craters/holes in bone on plevis and scarum some the tumour growth...L5 Vertebre has a crack and one side is saging 40%, the opening the nerve to the right leg goes though is plugged so everything rubs and there is a narrowing of the central nerve canal. Bungy Jumping anyone?

Is any of that pathology reversible? Either through the body healing in time or through surgery?

When my Mom had back surgery they used cadaver bone in places. Is surgery with something like this an option in the future?

Glad you're feeling OK with the chemo. I know they've improved it a lot in the past few years.

Some of the little stuff will heal itself and over time, if the cancer is controled the bones will rebuild to some degree. Big holes...no.

Stuff like the fracture in vertebae with have to be fixed or ignored. I hope to have Ballon Kyphoplasty on the vertebrae. Here is a cartoon vid of the procedure, which is very cool and mostly non-invasive, but does have some risks, like cementing your spinal coloumn and such.
http://www.imaginis.com/osteoporosis...hoplasty-video

Next to controling the cancer, being active is the best way to keep the bone density up, so this is why the radiation is so important. It kills the tumour and removes the pain which has made me a total lump for 2 months, and a limping lump since radiation one. Hopefully radiation 2 will make me a walking whining non limper, but very active. I still can't do anything too crazy as I have a cracked vertebrae but I can do lots.

Trying to get a answer of what I can or can't do without causing more back issues is the one question no one will address. So I am going to go ride the lawnmover for a hour and see how it goes.

If bones crack I guess I shouldn't have done it? Need to cut some firewood for next year ..Chainsaw?...hum.? They be small trees......

Speaking of riding the lawnmower, I read that those contraptions you stand on that vibrate really fast are very good for helping bone density. The stress they cause bones is a good one because it gets put on them without a lot of leverage and shear, IIRC. I think I've seen them for under $1000 USD before.

Maybe you could look into something like that? Supposedly quite a healthy thing. I think it may even be helpful to get your lymph circulating, but am not sure about that one.