In a Funny Place
October 24, 2009 08:24 AM
It is strange.
A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with an advanced stage of melanoma and my life went topsy turvy. Upon hearing the news for the first time, I felt a strong compulsion to share everything about what I was about to go through. I did that. I blogged here about all of the major factors of my treatment.
I will never be able to express how vitally important everyone's feedback here has been to me. I remember laying in bed last December with severe shakes from interferon and scrolling through all of the comments of love and support. It helped me pull through when I had no one else to rely on.
That has been the power of this blog for me, because it got me in touch with so many remarkable people from all over the country. These people checked in regularly and became family to me.
That support continued through my spring surgery and drug treatments.
But then, last July, things got difficult.
In a matter of weeks, the cancer had spread to both of my lungs, my kidneys and my liver. Sensing that my life was about to be over, I felt compelled to make a few video entries here. I wanted to share my favorite stories before I left you all. I wanted to share something of my spirit here, so that maybe someday my children might find it here.
In July, my doctors were very concerned. There were not a lot of standard treatments that could reverse the spread of melanoma. They offered one alternative. There was a new drug being studied at the research hospital. If I wanted, I could participate in it. There was no guarantee it would help and there was also the real possibility that I would get a placebo. Knowing my odds with standard treatment were very poor, I chose to participate in the study.
Within days of taking the medication, my symptoms became less aparent. The problems I had with massive fluid build up around my lungs just simply stopped. I was encouraged.
Two weeks ago I had my first CT scan since I started the medication. The results were startling. The cancer on my kidneys had disappeared. The cancer on my liver was now almost undetectable. The masses on my lungs shrank by about 50%.
One scan image raised the possibility of a blood clot in one of my lungs. This required another CT scan the following week. That scan showed that a blood clot was unlikely, but a surprising bonus was to see that the cancer had continued to shrink even in just seven days. Amazing.
This has been nothing less than a miracle for me. I have no doubt in my mind that if I had not started those drugs just three months ago, I would no longer be here. This has been the most humbling realization of my life.
But since then, a curious thing has happened to me. In a few short weeks my thinking has already changed from "living in the next ten minutes" to "living now mindful of a possible future." And this is a very strange change of thinking I can assure you.
It has also left me with an overwhelming sense of privacy. I can feel myself turning inward, just as I had turned outward at the beging of my diagnosis.
This second chance at life is a huge gift, and one I do not take lightly. Sure I am hardly out of the woods yet, but for the first time in a year, things look hopeful, and that is a feeling I have not had in a long time. And if I am able to keep this beast at bay for a few more years, or even many years, there is one thing that I feel strongly in my heart.
I believe it is the duty of everyone who survives cancer to do something for everyone who didn't survive it. And by that I mean to put some energy into finding a cure for this damn disease. I don't know what form that will take yet, whether it is walkathons, volunteering time and assistance or what. But it will be a part of my life from now on.
In the mean time, I ask my wonderful and supportive readers to let me go into my insular space. I want to start this second chance at life in quiet reflection of what I might do next and what a man might accomplish.
As of today, though I will keep it live for some time, the DepotDad blog is now officially closed.
With warmest affection to everyone who stopped by,
Jim
A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with an advanced stage of melanoma and my life went topsy turvy. Upon hearing the news for the first time, I felt a strong compulsion to share everything about what I was about to go through. I did that. I blogged here about all of the major factors of my treatment.
I will never be able to express how vitally important everyone's feedback here has been to me. I remember laying in bed last December with severe shakes from interferon and scrolling through all of the comments of love and support. It helped me pull through when I had no one else to rely on.
That has been the power of this blog for me, because it got me in touch with so many remarkable people from all over the country. These people checked in regularly and became family to me.
That support continued through my spring surgery and drug treatments.
But then, last July, things got difficult.
In a matter of weeks, the cancer had spread to both of my lungs, my kidneys and my liver. Sensing that my life was about to be over, I felt compelled to make a few video entries here. I wanted to share my favorite stories before I left you all. I wanted to share something of my spirit here, so that maybe someday my children might find it here.
In July, my doctors were very concerned. There were not a lot of standard treatments that could reverse the spread of melanoma. They offered one alternative. There was a new drug being studied at the research hospital. If I wanted, I could participate in it. There was no guarantee it would help and there was also the real possibility that I would get a placebo. Knowing my odds with standard treatment were very poor, I chose to participate in the study.
Within days of taking the medication, my symptoms became less aparent. The problems I had with massive fluid build up around my lungs just simply stopped. I was encouraged.
Two weeks ago I had my first CT scan since I started the medication. The results were startling. The cancer on my kidneys had disappeared. The cancer on my liver was now almost undetectable. The masses on my lungs shrank by about 50%.
One scan image raised the possibility of a blood clot in one of my lungs. This required another CT scan the following week. That scan showed that a blood clot was unlikely, but a surprising bonus was to see that the cancer had continued to shrink even in just seven days. Amazing.
This has been nothing less than a miracle for me. I have no doubt in my mind that if I had not started those drugs just three months ago, I would no longer be here. This has been the most humbling realization of my life.
But since then, a curious thing has happened to me. In a few short weeks my thinking has already changed from "living in the next ten minutes" to "living now mindful of a possible future." And this is a very strange change of thinking I can assure you.
It has also left me with an overwhelming sense of privacy. I can feel myself turning inward, just as I had turned outward at the beging of my diagnosis.
This second chance at life is a huge gift, and one I do not take lightly. Sure I am hardly out of the woods yet, but for the first time in a year, things look hopeful, and that is a feeling I have not had in a long time. And if I am able to keep this beast at bay for a few more years, or even many years, there is one thing that I feel strongly in my heart.
I believe it is the duty of everyone who survives cancer to do something for everyone who didn't survive it. And by that I mean to put some energy into finding a cure for this damn disease. I don't know what form that will take yet, whether it is walkathons, volunteering time and assistance or what. But it will be a part of my life from now on.
In the mean time, I ask my wonderful and supportive readers to let me go into my insular space. I want to start this second chance at life in quiet reflection of what I might do next and what a man might accomplish.
As of today, though I will keep it live for some time, the DepotDad blog is now officially closed.
With warmest affection to everyone who stopped by,
Jim
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Halloween Treat
October 10, 2009 08:20 AM
This is a repost from last Halloween.
As a way of saying thank you to all of my readers and
well wishers, I have set up a page with a little
Halloween project for you and your kids. It is a little
haunted house drawing that can be colored, cut out and
assembled. Click the HALLOWEEN TREAT tab on the main
navigation bar at the top of this page.
Things I've Never Done
October 05, 2009 08:13 AM
Sometimes I think about the things that I haven't done
in life, basic things. Things that it seems should have
happened by now but for some reason hasn't.
1. Hosted a party at my house in Junior high or High School (parents wouldn't allow it)
2. Been a member of a wedding party or been a best man.
3. Bought a house
4. Skydived
5. Fallen in love at first sight (and having it reciprocated)
6. Gone on a crazy cross country hippy road trip with my friends after college (all of my friends went and got jobs, the great bores)
7. Visited anywhere in New England
8. Ridden a horse and had it do what I wanted it to do.
9. Understood America's obsession with professional sports
10. Read a Shakespeare Play
11. Had any kind of retail job. (thank goodness!)
12. Gone skiing
13. Seen Tom Petty in a live concert
On the other hand, there are some other things I have done that never occured to me to do, until the experience was upon me...
1. Gone on a cross country drive with a friend and videotaped the entire round-trip from the dashboard for the sole purpose of watching it play back at a high rate of speed later.
2. Sang Disney's "Be Our Guest" to a packed wedding reception in Japan to hundreds of people who couldn't understand a word I was singing.
3. Directed a 4th grade class in Golden Gate Park in how to build a living model of the solar system when each student was assigned to be a particular moon or planet and told how to move relative to each other.
4. Gone on a tour of several elementary schools in rural Kansas with a small black and white Macintosh, telling anyone who would listen, in 1987, how computers were about to fundamentally change our society.
5. Actually saved a guy with the Heimlich maneuver when he stumbled up to me in an Arby's parking lot.
6. Fathered two amazing children.
7. Shared every aspect of my cancer diagnosis with the world at large, through this blog and Facebook, without holding anything back.
8. Taught myself to swim.
So I guess all I'm saying here is that there are things we expect from life that never arrive, and there are plenty of surprises that we can never anticipate. This is Depot Dad saying here's hoping you notice the surprises the day has in store for you.
1. Hosted a party at my house in Junior high or High School (parents wouldn't allow it)
2. Been a member of a wedding party or been a best man.
3. Bought a house
4. Skydived
5. Fallen in love at first sight (and having it reciprocated)
6. Gone on a crazy cross country hippy road trip with my friends after college (all of my friends went and got jobs, the great bores)
7. Visited anywhere in New England
8. Ridden a horse and had it do what I wanted it to do.
9. Understood America's obsession with professional sports
10. Read a Shakespeare Play
11. Had any kind of retail job. (thank goodness!)
12. Gone skiing
13. Seen Tom Petty in a live concert
On the other hand, there are some other things I have done that never occured to me to do, until the experience was upon me...
1. Gone on a cross country drive with a friend and videotaped the entire round-trip from the dashboard for the sole purpose of watching it play back at a high rate of speed later.
2. Sang Disney's "Be Our Guest" to a packed wedding reception in Japan to hundreds of people who couldn't understand a word I was singing.
3. Directed a 4th grade class in Golden Gate Park in how to build a living model of the solar system when each student was assigned to be a particular moon or planet and told how to move relative to each other.
4. Gone on a tour of several elementary schools in rural Kansas with a small black and white Macintosh, telling anyone who would listen, in 1987, how computers were about to fundamentally change our society.
5. Actually saved a guy with the Heimlich maneuver when he stumbled up to me in an Arby's parking lot.
6. Fathered two amazing children.
7. Shared every aspect of my cancer diagnosis with the world at large, through this blog and Facebook, without holding anything back.
8. Taught myself to swim.
So I guess all I'm saying here is that there are things we expect from life that never arrive, and there are plenty of surprises that we can never anticipate. This is Depot Dad saying here's hoping you notice the surprises the day has in store for you.