No New Tale To Tell

Well, here we are a full one week out since I began treatment. Here are my impressions of the first week:

Monday August 9th was my first day of infusion. Other than the Benadryl making me sleepy and the fact that I was there for six and a half hours, I felt no ill effects on day one. Day two I also felt fine (and truth be told started to get a little cocky).

I woke up on Wednesday still feeling good so I thought that I would go on a training walk for the Spirit of Columbus Half-Marathon. I had set out to do eight miles. Everything started out great and the first mile was a breeze. Unfortunately I had neglected to check the weather forecast before I left the house. Really dark clouds rolled in and before I knew it I was walking in a torrential downpour, complete with heavy lightning and thunder. The rain had completely soaked me to the bone within a minuted. Being the dumb-ass that I am, I ignored these as signs that I might want to turn around and go home, so I forged ahead. I walked West on Bethel Rd from Godown Rd to Riverside Dr and back. On the way back, by the time I got to Bethel and Dierker, I felt pretty bad. My feet hurt and my body was starting to get really sore. I finally got home a little over a 1/2 hour later and took a long hot shower. It felt fantastic and I didn't want to get out. I finally did get out and was a complete wreck. I chalked it up to not having trained as much as I should have and that it was just a shock to the system. That turned out not to be the case. For the next two days I had body aches all over like a really bad case of the flu and I was really tired. Lots of Advil and naps.

By Friday morning I was mostly recovered and rode my motorcycle to Dayton to hang out with my good friend Dan and his family. The ride there was fantastic. Rather than taking Interstate 70 West, I took US-42 South to US-35 West. It was a lot more scenic. Lots of long straightaways and fresh pavement. I managed a new speed record for myself too...he he he. I got to Dayton and had no trouble finding Dan's house. We hung out, went out to dinner and then went and saw a Dayton Dragons game at 5/3rd Field. It was a good game but the Dragons ended up falling to the Lugnuts.

Saturday morning we got up and went to have breakfast at a local eatery and then I made my way home. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was Matsuricon 2010 at the Doubletree Hotel in Worthington. I had promised Miranda that I would take her. So I got home, showered quickly and took Miranda to the con. Miranda had worked for days on her cosplay costume, She had worked on it so hard. I was really proud of her. We got to the convention and went in. She had met a friend from the library there so I was instantly the third wheel. I hung out for about an hour and went home. Saturday evening we went to Val and Kevin's for a party. It was nice seeing a bunch of our good friends again in a relaxed atmosphere. Thanks to Tim for pulling DD duty again.

Sunday we dropped Miranda off at Matsuricon again and Kevin came over to help us transport our new lawnmower home. I also parted with a couple of old friends on Sunday. My 1983 Yamaha Virago 500 and my 1981 CB750k both got new homes on Sunday. They went to Kevin. He's the only one I trusted to make good things happen with both of them and I'm happy that they have a new home where they'll be loved. That Yamaha and I made a lot of good memories together and Kevin was around for most of them so I know she'll get the respect she deserves.

Which brings us to Monday August 16th, my second infusion. It was a much shorter duration this time because I only received one of the three cancer killing drugs. So I was in at 9:00 and out before noon. It was not the six and a half hour ordeal that the 9th was. Today is Tuesday the 17th and again I'm feeling no ill effects yet but I'm not feeling nearly as cocky as I was last week. I'll just wait to see what transpires and I'll let you know next week.

Hump day and beyond

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. My treatment decided that it would punch me in the face Wednesday afternoon. I had been feeling good in the morning (and truth be told starting to get a little cocky about the treatment not affecting me) and decided to take a training walk for the Spirit of Columbus half-marathon. I had planned on walking eight miles. Well, I only got through seven and a half miles and I really started to feel like ass. I got home and I was wiped out. I had figured that since I hadn't been training as much as I should that it was just my body's reaction to a long walk. Last year while training for the Columbus Marathon when I would come home from a long run (16 miles or more) I'd be a wreck and couldn't do anything for the rest of the day. That's how I felt on Wednesday, but the ache was different.

Rather than just the muscles that I used being sore, my whole body was sore. It was like I'd contracted a really bad flu and just had a really dull ache that took everything over. I just didn't want to do anything the rest of the day. I ended up napping for a few hours, got up and just lazed around the house for the rest of the day and finally went to bed at 11:00. On Thursday when I woke up I still felt pretty bad. My appetite was still good and I hadn't had any nausea to deal with as of yet, so that's a plus. Laela and I went out and did a little bit of shopping and then came home. We rode our bicycles to lunch with my mother-in-law at Hunan Lion. That whopping three miles worth of bike ride would end up being all of the exercise I would have on Thursday.

Here it is Friday and I'm feeling much better. I certainly wouldn't say that I'm 100% but I definitely feel good enough to go out grab the day by the horns. I'll be riding my motorcycle to Dayton a little later today and am going to take in a Dayton Dragons game with my friend Dan this evening.

Lucky

I'm still working on my weekend recap. There's just too much to talk about quickly and in a short space, but I wanted to quickly talk about this. For those of you who were at the benefit show on Friday, you may have seen me get up and sing a song with ALL. I wanted to take a second and let everyone know how near and dear the song Lucky is to Laela and me.

The song Lucky was released 1997 on the "I'm the One" single and also included on the soundtrack to the motion picture Godmoney. When we picked up the single we both immediately fell in love with it and over the years it has become "our song." Each of us use it for the ringtone for the other on our mobile phones and I just can't help but think about Laela every time I hear it. The lyrics also seem oddly appropriate given the current circumstances. As always, thanks for reading. The blog is kind of cathartic for me.

Lucky Lyrics
Band:Descendents

Walking home on St. Patty's Day
I found a lucky penny along the way
Put it in my pocket
The one with the hole in it
These days things don't seem to go my day

I know it's tough sometimes to be with me
When I'm predicting rain most every day
Lately I've been right, almost every time
These days things don't seem to go my way

What would I do, if I hadn't already got lucky once with you
If I hadn't already got lucky once with you

So I keep telling myself something's going to change
Maybe I'll get lucky then I can smile again
Cause that's what I want to do
I want a smile for you
I'm waiting for some things to go my way

What would I do, If I hadn't already got lucky once with you
If I hadn't already got lucky once with you
Fuck St. Patty's Day
I'm throwing my pennies away
But I'm holding on to a single lucky charm
That's what I want to do
I want a smile for you
I'm waiting for some things to go my way

What would I do, If I hadn't already got lucky once with you
If I hadn't found you what would I do?
If I hadn't already got lucky once with you
If I handn't-a wouldn't-a couldn't-a, what would I do
If I hadn't already got lucky once with you

If you've got a Facebook account, you can watch me butcher it by clicking on this link. Rob perfoming Lucky with ALL PS: thanks to Stephen for bailing me out by getting me started on the second verse. That's two that I owe you.

"You've just taken your first step into a larger world." - Ben Kenobi

August 9, 2010 - Today was the day that I started the treatment for my condition. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous about what was going to happen when I got there and completely expected the worst. I've done some research on the medicines that I'd be given and heard some first hand accounts of the side effects so I was fully prepared for a sh!t storm.

We arrived a little before 9:00am and were ushered back into the infusion room. There were about twenty La-Z-Boy Healthcare Edition recliners. They made a giant letter U around the outside walls of the room. Each chair had a tray for books/magazines/laptops. There was also a night stand for lack of a better term and a chair for a visitor. My nurse Rose came over and introduced herself. She is a sweet older lady that made me feel right at ease. I immediately felt a repoir with her and we started joking around. The infusion room is a pretty somber place and I caught a few people cracking smiles while we were having our exchanges. I was clearly the youngest patient in there today by several decades so it made me feel good to be able to make a few people smile. Rose explained the eight different drugs that would be administered to me. The first was benadryl to combat allergic reactions to the first cancer killer, four anti-nausea medications, then the two cancer killing agents, and finally the blood vessel inhibitor. Since I'm not a physician, this is obviously a simplified description of the individual drugs' purposes, but it will suffice for this writing's purpose.

I'm really glad that they had a wireless network that I could connect to because it allowed me to be online for most of the six hours that I was there. I had a few jovial conversations with friends and was able to catch up on some things that I missed over the weekend. I also was able to start working a little more diligently on the blog postings for this past weekend's festivities. Lunch time came and went and we hadn't eaten anything. Finally around 1400 hours Laela went and bought us a couple of bags of peanut M&M's. It was nice. While we were on the Great Bukkit Tour 2010, every time that we stopped at a gas station she and I each shared a bag of peanut M&M's. It was nice to have a little reminder of what a good time we head while we were on holiday.

While I'm only three hours out from the administration of the meds, it'd be a little bit premature to declare "Mission Accomplished"; however, I don't feel bad. Not even a little. The worst part for me was the Benadryl because I hate the drowsy feeling that I get from it. Hell, when we left the doctors office we headed to Taco Bell and I had a chili cheese burrito and two taco supremes all with fire sauce. I'm also planning to try to take a short walk this evening if I'm still feeling up to it.

Rumor has it that the meds will take a couple of days to start kicking my ass so I'll be keeping a close eye on it and writing about my experiences. Thanks for reading.

I'll close with this quote is from the song Brothers and Sisters by John Moreland and the Black Gold Band. It's kind of how I've been feeling since the apprehension about today set in on me last night.

"and if it all goes to hell tomorrow, we'll stand together and raise our hands, and we'll sing"

In the beginning there was bukkit...

First off, let me say that I had an awesome weekend, one of the best of my life. It was so awesome in fact that I can't seem to get all of my thoughts together to gel cohesively so I'm going to need a couple of days before I can compile something worth reading. In the meantime, there seems to be some confusion over the title of the Great Bukkit Tour, so I'd like to lay that to rest.

A little history first....When I took up running, I entered a race in May of 2008. It was the Powell Spring 5k. Miranda and Laela participated as well. On the entry form, there was a place to enter a team name so we wanted to come up with one. At the time Miranda was enamored with the Speed Racer cartoon and wanted to name the team Speed Racer. Laela and I didn't think that accurately reflected the family's less than quick style of ambulation so we asked her to come up with something else. Because of my mustache and the lolrus, Miranda chose the name Speed Walrus. We thought it was hilarious and so it stuck.

The 'Lolrus' is an Internet Meme that started in 2007 with the appearance of the images in the above jpeg. You can read a detailed description of it at the following URL: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/4480801. It is actually a seal not a walrus (but that is beside the point). We had stumbled upon it shortly after I had started cultivating my mustache and found it to be quite humorous. You can see the images here http://icanhascheezburger.com/category/lolrus/. Miranda and I would check it every day to see if there was a new funny walrus picture and somehow, walurs ended up becoming my nickname. So, there became a running joke about me always looking for bucket. The girls went out and bought actual metal pails for trash cans, etc. We had also shared it with our close friends so that everyone in our inner circle was very familiar with the Lolrus. It's not just a running joke within the family but also our close friends.

When we found out about about my condition and decided to take our vacation Laela dubbed it the Great Bukkit Tour of 2010. The idea was that the walrus was looking all over the United States for his bucket. I had no idea that there would be so many people who would be reading about our vacation and just kind of assumed that everyone who would read it knew about the walrus/bucket connections. While yes, a double meaning could be read into the "Bukkit Tour" that it was about kicking the bucket, that was not the intention.

I'm glad that so many people enjoyed reading our travel log. I hope this clears up any misconceptions about the genesis of the Great Bukkit Tour of 2010.