Cycle 5

Hello everyone, I trust all had a great Thanksgiving holiday!  For me it was great to spend some time with family I hadn't seen in a while.

Well I checked in to Emory here on Monday morning, so we are into day 3 of 6.  This cycle got off to a great start in that my bags were hung 5 hours earlier than last cycle, so hopefully I am going to get out of here pretty early on Saturday morning.  Time has moved a bit slower with no football, but I am making up for it by watching a few more movies on my computer.  Health-wise I am doing great and cruising through this cycle, so hopefully that will lead to another smooth recovery week.

Hard to believe that the college football season is over and Christmas is right around the corner.  I started my treatment on the first college football Saturday and now here we are with championship Saturday coming up and I will be finishing treatment 5.  I confirmed my 6th cycle dates will go back to my original Thursday - Tuesday schedule for my last cycle (12/16 - 12/21) so to prevent being in treatment on Christmas.  Then by just after New Year's I will be back to "normal" and totally done with Chemo and its side effects, can't believe it is nearly over!

Next week I have my 2nd Radiology consult, where they will give me my schedule for the 5 weeks of treatment.  Again, Radiation is simply a local treatment where they zap my tumor with rays of some sort, and it should only take about 30 minutes per appointment.  Basically I will just do this on my way to work every day and that will be that.  They say that some people get really tired from Radiation, but also it can depend where the radiation is focused (for example a throat cancer patient might have more symptoms).  In my case I am optimistic that I have no real fatigue seeing as how it is on my leg.  Either way I am going to power through it, because as I have already mentioned, my main goal for the winter is to get in really good shape before my surgery so that my recovery time is less of a strain and I can get back to normal in time for Spring and Summer.

Beyond that, I'm just hanging here at the hospital.  I'm in good spirits because I know I am so close to the end, so hopefully everything goes off without a hitch.  Have a great couple of days!

Michael