BYOP (Bring Your Own Pillow)

Good morning everyone!  The hair is really falling out now, I am rocking the "Hulkamania" bandanna at the office this morning due to some pretty fierce bald spots that have appeared.  What is weird is that my arm hair is still holding on for dear life.  The part that I have eagerly been anticipating though is that I haven't had to shave since Friday.  If for some reason my facial hair never comes back after all of this than you wouldn't hear any complaints from me.  Although that would mean I could never again grow a mustache, it would be worth it to never have to shave again.

I check back into the hospital tomorrow morning for round 2 of my chemo treatment, this time at Emory's Midtown campus (was at University Hospital last time).  I will be enjoying the amazing accommodations for 5 days and 4 nights again this time, so I will hopefully be out sometime Monday afternoon.  As I mentioned during the last treatment, I didn't feel any side effects as they were pumping the poison into me, but I wonder if that will continue this time?  I have talked with a number of people who have enjoyed this same cocktail and they have indicated that the treatment begins to take a toll on you the deeper into it you get, so who knows what will happen this weekend. The Dawgs play at 7pm Saturday night, so I am hoping that maybe there is something to the luck of the hospital and we can finally get a conference victory.  Although with the way we are playing I am wondering if I'm not better served to pop an ambien before kickoff and sleep through the disaster that is UGA football.

One of my main goals for this round of treatment is to try and rest a little bit more.  Last time I mentioned how difficult it is to rest despite sitting in an uncomfortable hospital bed for 5 days.  I think the key to this is to do some more reading, and bring a comfortable pillow from home.  I recently finished Lance Armstrong's book and I really enjoyed the read.  I think it is a quick and easy read for anybody regardless of interest in cancer or cycling.  My next literary hurdle is "The Count of Monte Cristo".  I really liked the movie so I thought I'd give Alexander Dumas' book a shot.  Though I shouldn't call this a hurdle, it is more of a mountian; because according to IBooks this is over 1,800 pages long!  I am currently on page 126, so any bets as to what page I am on when I leave on Monday?

Something else to look forward to with this 2nd treatment cycle pending, is that before round 3 we will take an MRI of my tumor to check to see if it has shrunk any.  If the MR shows shrinkage (different than George Costanza's shrinkage mind you) then that means the chemo is working.  It also means that the chemo is killing any cancer cells that are floating around inside my body.  This is the first big mile marker of my treatment so please cross your fingers for some major shrinking!

Thanks again to everyone for the support and prayers.  My next post will be from my beautiful $1,100 a night suite, so I will let you know how the other .001% live (the unlucky .001% that is).  Until then, please let me know if there are any good pranks that I can play on the nursing staff while I'm locked up!

Michael