November 2011
1 post
Update - 11.20.11 CT Scan
All -
It’s been a while since I sent out a mass update. I suspect - and hope - that most of you have assumed that no news is good news. I have been relatively healthy, and very busy, in the best way. I have been working hard to keep up with my first semester of PhD work here at the University of Illinois, and trying not to mess up my lovely and assiduous fiancee’s efforts to plan our...
October 2010
1 post
Update - 10.20.10 PET Scan
This is going to be a relatively short update, but it contains mostly good news. First, the big one: I had a PET scan earlier this week, and there was no visible disease on it. That’s a Complete Remission. Now I’ll probably get treated for another 4-6 weeks to consolidate this progress. I will definitely get two more chemotherapy/monoclonal antibody treatments. My doctor may also add a course of...
April 2010
4 posts
Post-Transplant PET Scan
I am about 80 days post-bone marrow transplant. 100 days post-transplant is sort of a landmark - acute Graft vs. Host Disease occurs during the first 1-100 days. By Day 100, patients making good progress have their immunosuppressive drugs tapered off, and can return to normal activities like watching movies in theaters, taking public or shared transportation, eating in restaurants, raw foods and...
February 2010
1 post
Post-Hospital Update
I’ve been out of the hospital for about 10 days now, and I sense it’s time for an update, as a bunch of people I’ve spoken to in the last couple of days were behind the curve. In the biomedical sense, I am doing very well. I left the hospital the day after I got my brother’s stem cells. He actually had more trouble with the transplant than I did - he got jabbed in a vein...
January 2010
1 post
Update from MGH-Boston
I have had to accept that I simply get too much e-mail to keep up with most of the time, and that mass e-mails and blog posts have to suffice - some of you have sent me really great stuff by e-mail or phone, or sent simple requests that could be easily addressed. My energy level isn’t what it used to be, and I just can’t handle big spurts of correspondence. I promise periodic efforts...
November 2009
1 post
Ross K. Smith Coach of the Year Award Presentation...
This year I was allowed to present the first Ross Kennedy Smith Coach of the Year Award to my college debate coach, Dave Arnett of UC Berkeley. I’ve been asked to post the speech, so here - to the best of my ability to remember and communicate - is what I said.
I have a pre-written speech, which I promise to read. But on my way here, in the plane, at the hospital, a thought kept running...
October 2009
1 post
Update - Biopsy Results
All - [Also posted on my blog: breathingroom.tumblr.com] Apologies for the brief note, and the fact that it has taken so long to get back in touch. Many of you heard from me or from friends about my bad biopsy results, others may have guessed from my silence that I received bad news. The biopsy surgery removed the entire middle lobe of my right lung and a portion of the upper lobe, which...
September 2009
1 post
Biopsy Today
All -
I apologize for the long gap in updates, and for failing to answer a number of voicemails, e-mails and other electronic communications. A lot has been going on, and my schedule seems likely to get worse before it gets better. I have literally flown from one end of the country to the other four times in the last three weeks, and I am going to be taking a 20-hour train ride on Friday, so you...
July 2009
2 posts
I Miss Ross
The last time I saw Ross in person, I was at the 2007-2008 National Debate Tournament. I was in the middle of chemotherapy. I was bald and green-colored. bumped into him by accident in a hallway outside a room where Wake was debating. We were both waiting on the decision. Ross was outside the door looking in, but when he saw me, he shouted, and came loping down the hallway to hug. When the...
Stem Cell Transplant Update
This is a copy of an update e-mail I sent out. It presumes that you know my cancer recurred and I’ve been in Boston getting treated at Mass General Hospital. I have almost finished a lengthy summary of everything that’s happened since I last posted here, and will put it up shortly.
All - Please forgive the mass e-mail. I’ve been meaning both to send out a mass update and get in...
September 2008
1 post
An update... Crisis... Resolution
All -
Because I am on some very serious painkillers, it is difficult for me to write. I have pasted an update that my mother e-mailed around to her friends. Soon I will take it down and replace it with a first-person version, but a lot of people have been asking for updates, so here is a third-person version.
“Dear Friends, There’s a good reason for the saying “it’s not...
July 2008
15 posts
Medical Update: 3rd Official Opinion,...
I am writing from Penn Station in sunny Baltimore, MD. There is a big art festival here today, and the town is clearly bracing for a massive flood of humanity, but it’s early enough that no one has showed up yet (not even the exhibitors). So here I sit, enjoying the calm before the storm.
Before I go investigate a car shaped like an old-fashioned telephone, I figured I would post a medical...
But even after the pathologists have differentiated a Hodgkin’s mass from other kinds of lymphoma, there are several sub-types of Hodgkin’s Disease. Curiously, there was a time when the sub-types were viewed as different diseases and treated as such. Currently the thinking is that there are 5 distinct sub-types, three of which are quite rare, and all of which can be treated basically the same way....
Medical Update - 3rd (but unofficial) opinion
I recently sent my medical records on to a third hospital for a tie-breaking opinion. I’ll get examined by this doctor soon, so you’ll all hear about that in a few days. But I wanted to post the INFORMAL PRELIMINARY opinion e-mailed to me. Since it’s speculative and unofficial, I have excluded the doctor’s name and identifying information.
I’ve reviewed the medical...
Cat? Or vengeful Russian woman? You decide.
I keep telling people that my cat is smarter and meaner than me. People who haven’t lived with her don’t believe me. So I took some pictures to prove my point.
This illustrates just one Anastasia Cycle: cuddling —> anger at unscheduled end of cuddling —-> retaliation —-> gloating.
Shameless Plug for My Favorite Book #5 -...
Of all the thousands of books I have read, Chuck Amuck is my favorite. It is by Chuck Jones, one of the geniuses behind the Golden Age of Warner Brothers cartoons (that would be Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Elmer Fudd, not Minnie Mickey and a Duck with a speech impediment).
My favorite part of my favorite book is a description of where Wile E. Coyote (one of the author’s creations) came...
Shameless Plug for My Favorite Book #4 - Stupidity...
The man, Ray Katz, in the story is a “business manager” at an animation studio. Having encountered other individuals with similar titles, I am in no way surprised that he is a complete idiot.
“Anyone but Ray Katz would gather then that flipping a sheaf of drawings is the classic test for the animator. Having completed a series of drawings for a given piece of action, before the...
Shameless Plug for My Favorite Book #3 - On...
When (not if) you fail, you are in good company - Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Jack Benny, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester the Cat, Elmer Fudd, and (my favorite) Daffy Duck are loved precisely for the universality of their failures. Failure is the most human and humanizing of experiences. “Father loved his children but hated having a family. He became belatedly aware one dismal rain-struck...
Shameless Plug for My Favorite Book #2 -...
My mother says this to me all the time. It is both absurd, and insightful.
“A dear uncle told me once, when I was deep in despair at some injustice by some bureaucrat, scholastic or familial, “Chuck, they can kill you, but they’re not allowed to eat you.” Exactly why this statement has since stood as the cornerpost of my determination to live my life as a life and not as...
Shameless Plug for My Favorite Book #1 -...
This is a description of the author’s 6th birthday. Since I pulled a nearly identical move at the same kind of party and our birthdays are one day apart, I empathize:
“I was immensely proud – it seems to me that all my life I have taken the most pride in things over which I have little or no control. Even though I had older sisters, it never occurred to me that anyone had ever become...
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a split decision...
At debate tournaments, there are preliminary debates and elimination debates. By long-standing tradition at most tournaments, elimination debates are judged by at least 3 judges. Greater redundancy, in theory, ensures higher-quality decisions in debates that are, in theory, closer and harder-fought than preliminary rounds. Panels of judges always have odd numbers of judges - 3,5,7, even the...
June 2008
9 posts
More Speechifying, Courtesy of Harvard Law School...
My debate alumni e-mail list was recently treated to one of the speeches given at this year’s Harvard Law School graduation. The speaker was my former debate partner, Tejinder Singh. It’s easier to comprehend the content if you have seen a picture of us debating together (and guess which debater is named Tejinder):
Under normal circumstances, I would feel obligated to ask...
Shameless self-promotion: my first cameo (on HBO) →
I am in this movie for a few minutes. I hear it is good, and the subject matter is near and dear to my heart.
Update: Medical News, Pictures, Next Steps
Sorry for taking so long to post another update. As my energy level has been declining, I have undertaken a bunch of new tasks and found new diversions, including a playstation and a trip to California. Simultaneously, I have been assigned to a series of new projects at work, so if I have neglected my correspondence with any of you, I plead distraction and weakness.
First, the medical news. I had...
2008 University of California, Berkeley Debate...
This month I was invited to give the keynote at the first-ever Cal-Berkeley Debate Reunion. This is the speech, with some minor modifications.
I confess that I am both honored and humbled to be here. This room is filled with exceptional and successful individuals of diverse backgrounds, spanning over half a century of joyful disagreement. Over the decades, our beloved activity has dramatically...
May 2008
64 posts
When Thumbs Up Is No Comfort →
My mom forwarded me this article from today’s NY(F)T. This is probably the best short article I’ve read on emotional responses to cancer. Curiously, I can identify with nearly all of the people they interview, even as they disagree with each other. This gives rise to my only complaint about the article: it frames the various responses as if they are mutually exclusive alternative...
Happy Mother's Day
In my cancer-related correspondence, my mother comes up quite often. Usually people convey regards to her; other times they ask me about how she is doing, or how we are getting along. She is often in the background of my updates, because she’s around me all the time and takes care of me when any other person (except probably my father) would let me kvetch myself to death or starve. I don’t talk...
Got an hour-plus? Ready to laugh and (maybe) cry?... →
I’m not one to send around cheesy and/or “inspirational” videos or e-mails… unless I wrote them… Having hedged, I’m posting this because I have been meaning to mention it in one of my cancer e-mails and forgotten about four times. It’s awesome, and combines several of my core extracurricular interests: high-end computer stuff, the joy of learning, public...
Treatment 10 5/3/08
This is my first designed-for-blog post, and will be brief. I was treated on Wednesday and I have been struggling to deal with the nausea and pain. Each treatment is getting more difficult than the one that preceded it. I have two more chemotherapy treatments coming. Considering the possibility of additional treatments – because of a recurrence, or something worse - is terrifying. The thought...
Nightmare
I recently had a nightmare come true. I have discovered that being confronted with the reality of a nightmare: “you have cancer,” for example, is nothing like the nagging anxieties that accompany a long-running terror. I suspect it is one thing to be confronted by an insoluble nightmare: “your beloved dog is dead” and quite another to face a potentially-soluble one: “you need to fight off a...
Passover Update 4/19/08
All – [Advance warning: I wrote this thinking that some images might help convey the experience of living with cancer. If you are easily upset by things like veins and injections, or images of cats and ducks, I suggest you cut and paste this into text or only read the first two paragraphs.] First, the medical situation. In many ways, the news on this front is positive. As you may recall, I...
Allopurinol is a medicine that prevents Tumor Lysis Syndrome. As chemotherapy kills cells (hopefully mostly tumor cells) they “lyse” or collapse/explode. The remnants of lysed cells are toxic, and if enough of them accumulate in the body, it can cause TLS, which is apparently very unpleasant. Allopurinol helps the body excrete lysed-cell toxins. Everything I am taking, including the anti-nausea...
