I Have A Victory And Thy Name Is "Ground Meat"!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

After another week of lifting weights and oceans of pain and curls, I think I can finally claim a small victory in the never-ending drama that seems to be my body.  I have some good news to report on the "Is it my right hand?  Or is it ground meat of some kind? Because I can't tell..." front.

After seeing yet, another physician this week and getting the non-fixable answer, "I don't know, let's run some tests" the bicep was even more painful.  So I did the only thing I knew how.  I worked it, relentlessly.  Over and over until the muscles would work no more, then I'd work them anyway!

And guess what?  The pain is still there but it's lessening.  The numbness is receding.  The "room-temp-ground-turkey" (Cause Turkey is healthier!) sensation in my right arm is no longer advancing, in fact, I think it's shrinking!

And, as you can see, I can still type.

Dare I say it?  We have a small win here!   Oh, what the heck, I'll  say it!  "We have a small, but important victory!"

It's a little victory in the grander scheme, but an important one to me.

With enough hard work and a positive mental outlook, anything is possible.  I'll keep searching for an answer to  the "hamburger hand" question, but the short answer is, it's going away.

The bigger question is still the only one I care about, say it with me, "Is it cancer?  No?  Then who cares?"

Brain Trauma and Disaster Readiness

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I often comment on the brain cancer survivor's need to always be ready for whatever life throws at you next, because you just never know and this is a perfect example of one of these instances!  I noticed last week that my right arm is weakening.  Being a "southpaw" that ordinarily wouldn't matter, but since 2011 my right hand/arm has done everything for both hands.  So, to lose the ability to use devices of any kind is unacceptable and I'll have to get it checked out.

My overused right arm feels suspiciously like room temperature ground meat to my left hand.  Has this ever happened to you?  If it sounds familiar at all let me know!  That's ground meat, any kind, through the plastic!  Yucky!  The arm looks fine.  Just like the other one.  New muscles and definition.  But except for a sickening, bone-deep pain in my bicep, I can't feel anything!

And, before anyone asks my one question, the only one that matters, I'll answer it.  No, it's not cancer, but I still care!

See what I mean though?  One must be vigilant, because you never know what sci-fi disaster is headed your way!

I mean what's next?  Flying spiders from outer space? Giant?  Because everything in outer space is?  Giant "Space Spiders"?   Eeeewwww!

It could happen!

So, what's a little zombie arm? In the words of Hank Hill, " I'll tell you what!"  My right hand performs all the fine motor skills that were performed by the right and left hands including typing!  Without my right arm, I'm virtually incommunicado!  So a "dead" right arm would be very bad, indeed.   I made an appointment to see yet another neurologist who will probably poke my arm and hopefully not say, "I dunno." Or, "beats me"  Or even worse, "You mind if I ask someone?"

I'll say one thing about this journey, it's not dull!

What do Madonna and Brain Cancer Have In Common?

Hello Fellow Travelers!

A few months back I compared my post-tumorous self to an aging chicken or possibly a stringy-Madonna minus the desperation, I snarked.  I was referring to my post-surgery, vertigo self.  The self that never gives up or gets discouraged.   Who am I trying to kid?  I'm all kinds of desperate!  I've got hot and cold running desperation up in here!  The Grim Reaper stops by for cappucino every week,  of course I'm a little desperate!  Who wouldn't be?  Well, I exaggerate (a little) but he does look through the windows and I wave him on.


This is my life I am fighting for.  I don't give a tinker's damn how this struggle appears to anyone!  Desperation should be my middle name!  I bend pain and hunger to my will (or just ignore those feelings entirely) to stave off Death!  It's really pretty basic!

I don't mean to snark at anyone's motives for physical training, just that my own motives are so basic:  I'm just trying to stay alive.  I'm not trying to impress anyone, I just don't want to die!  It's all about keeping the bar low...Really low.

So, as I change, I'm becoming more "poultry like", so what?  (Bawwk!)  It's not the 'Big C', so who cares?  I'm alive

All the work I've done, the countless miles I've pedaled to noplace, the endless benchpressing; I do to promote neuroplasticity,, so hopefully I'll stand around again!  I won't "be relevant" then either but it's not cancer so who cares?

OK, that bar is getting even lower...

Ebola? I'm Lucky to have had Something as Minor as an Astrocytoma!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I was truly inspired this week by the New York Times story on Dr. Ian Crozier.  Dr. Crozier bravely treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone where he contracted the deadly virus.  After coming back to the US, he was treated and eventually released and declared "Ebola Free".  When one of his previously blue eyes changed to green, opthamologists decided to take a closer look.  The virus had permeated his eyeball and was hanging out (or "lurking") in his eye.  You want to know how they discovered it?  Ask me!  Ask me!

Ooh! I thought you'd never ask!  They re-discovered the virus by sticking a big needle into his eyeball! Eeuuww!  Yowsa!  And sure enough, there it was!  (The left eye changing color would be all the heads up I would need!)  The Ebola virus, was "lurking" in his eye!

Dr. Crozier  is much braver than I.  He's braver than most people I can think of.  To willingly expose your hale and hearty self to deadly diseases because you "want to help" is selfless beyond measure!  So for this guy, who only wanted to help people, to get reinfected on his eyeball, seems grossly unjust, to say the least.  Dr. Crozier took his healing to the war.  Not the other way around. He got on a plane, and traveled to one of the most dangerous places in the world!  To help people!   At great bodily risk to himself.  Then he had to concern himself with a virus so toxic it can grow in eye tissue!

Oh come on!  Talk about "No good deed going unpunished",  the man just wanted to save some lives, and he's not even asking to get paid!  So how is he rewarded?  He becomes reexposed, recleared, then reinfected and finally released.  And he had to relearn  how to do basic movements, like walking,  like I do.  You know how difficult it is to relearn to tie your shoes?  Let alone walk?  Really  difficult!

This is where I can relate.  When you can't walk or speak things like eye color and material possessions don't mean very much.  If one or both of my eyes changed color, I would find it vaguely interesting as in "Gee, look at that, imagine!", and then I'd move on.  Dr. Crozier's eye changed color but he was too busy relearning to walk to pay much attention.

On his eyeball!  That's so "Alien"!

Like I've said before, I'll take inspiration anywhere I can find it!  Sierra Leone, kitten videos, whatever, I'm not choosy!

Giants' Baseball and Brain Cancer Really DO Go Together!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Last week I saw a feed of Giants' fan, Bryan Stow, throwing out the first pitch at a minor league game in San Jose.  Bryan was the previously healthy guy who was brain damaged in an altercation in LA with two Dodger fans.  He was injured about the same time I was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011.

While Mr. Stow's injuries are vastly different than my own, his long (seemingly, never-ending) journey from severe brain injury to throwing out that opening pitch looked all-too familiar!

Mr. Stow is still profoundly impacted.  But he has come remarkably far in a relatively short (4 yrs.) amount of time.  I find that very inspirational!  And I'll take inspiration wherever I can find it!

Despite our entirely different circumstances Bryan and I share a few similarities:  he was blindsided with a severe brain trauma.  Bryan underwent years of strenuous physical rehabilitation,  He has a strong family with him.  And baseball!  We both are Giants' fans!  Like me,  Bryan will never be the same.

It's what we decide to do after the trauma that defines us!  Whether we write, or build empires or throw out first pitches.  Living can be hard work!  Harder, even!  But well worth it!  I have a huge mountain to climb and maybe I'm at base camp.  Maybe.  I'm probably only up to some Himalayan village..  I have a long way to go but go I shall!

Bryan Stow is remarkably inspiring to me because he's overcame what others said couldn't be overcome. He's deaf to all naysayers.  I can relate,  I never hear those voices either.  I only hear voices that urge me to move forward, that demand more, to keep pushing all the limits!  I dismiss anything else as "noise".  I'm only interested in one outcome, one result.  I don't care how much work is required, I'm all in.

So I have yet another reason to love SF - not that I needed one!