Originally was email – Couldausedanotherday

Boring Updates

Hi, everyone:

It seems my updates have become quite boring lately, and I hope they continue to grow increasingly boring for many years.

I had a little of the tingling across my stomach the other day and it made me realize that it doesn’t happen very often anymore. It feels like when your foot goes to sleep. My Neurologist thinks it’s from the crushed vertebra.

In recent weeks (months?), entire moments have passed without my being conscious of the poking feeling in my back. On the way to church recently, I realized that I had not felt or thought anything about my back all morning.

I feel the best I have felt since the surgery and the radiation treatments. I have even expelled a few unrestricted sneezes without pain! I stop short of saying I feel good, but I feel pretty good, and that’s not bad.

I have two tests scheduled in early March. If you remember me in your prayers, I thank you for that and I hope you will continue.

I found a support group for folks with Multiple Myeloma, they meet at the St Vincent’s Hospital. I was talking with an old guy there who discovered he had Multiple Myeloma cancer when his leg broke while he was walking across his living room.

He’s on medication now to make his bones strong. He says its working, but the side effect is forgetfulness. I asked how he knows it isn’t just normal age related forgetfulness. He said he knows that because one day he drove home, parked the car and went into his house. A couple of hours later he realized he forgot to turn the car off.

I do have something to introduce with this update. At my son’s suggestion I have created a web blog. You can go there and read updates, but the advantage over email is that there are pictures, links, videos, and more. If you enter your email address to “Subscribe,” you will get a notification whenever something is added to the site. You can leave comments, which is pretty much the same as replying to the email, except that everyone can see them. Many of you replied to my email updates and I thank you. Here is the address of the blog: https://www.couldausedanotherday.com. I hope you will have a look, enjoy it, bookmark it, join it, and please forward it to anyone who might be interested.

Thank you,

Scott

Hello friends!

*My wife and I at our son’s wedding, September 2011*

By way of annual exam, in 2010 I was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. In 2011 I had successful robotic surgery and was headed down the road to recovery. A few months later I was diagnosed with another, unrelated cancer, Multiple Myeloma.

I started letting some friends know through email what was going on. With each update, the mailing list grew. My son, Robin, suggested I create a blog instead of sending out emails. I’m not confident I know what a blog actually is, but here we go.

Stable is good

*The wind almost blew the Christmas lights off our house, okay not really, I took this picture years ago.*

I’ve had two MRI’s since my last update. The one in September caused some concern. The Neurologists office called me the same day I had the MRI saying the doctor needed to see me as soon as possible.

I told the nice lady that sounded kind of ominous. She replied that she’s “sure its just regular doctor stuff, but could I possibly get in there today?”

When I saw the Neurosurgeon the next day, he came into the exam room and said, “I had to see you with my own eyes!” Did you walk in here unassisted? Do you have pain shooting down your legs? Tingling or numbness? How’s your bladder control?

He explained that the MRI showed a small piece of what was left of my crushed vertebra poking quite sharply into my spine (the T8 vertebra had become a tumor from this cancer, and then it collapsed).

He did some push-pull tests on my legs and said if any of those symptoms develop, or if I lose bladder control, to call him immediately. And then he said, “No, go straight to the emergency room and have them call me.”

I knew there were a lot of people praying for me, so I asked him if my walking without assistance and having none of those symptoms might be considered a miracle. “I won’t say miracle,” he answered,”but you are VERY, VERY lucky.

There was some talk about spinal support (surgery), but the most recent MRI showed no notable change.

The doctor determined that the vertebra had crushed as far as it would go, and since I had no symptoms from the poking bone fragment, he said the potential benefit from surgery would not outweigh the risks involved.

I can feel that poking in my back, but it’s not pain. It’s more like a distraction. It’s almost always there, but entire moments do pass when I’m not aware of it. I got the distinct impression the doctor thought it was something of a medical oddity.

I thank you for praying for me, and I thank God for every walking, pain-free day I get. I’ll thank him for all the other days too, but I’m sure I like these better.

I recently had my 3-month Multiple Myeloma cancer test and I found the test results message from my Oncologist on our answering machine today after work, “Stable, the same as before.” That’s a message I can’t imagine getting tired of hearing.

Good news / Bad news

All:

Since my last update, I have continued to enjoy improvements in how I feel. The daily radiation treatments are easier, the pain is much less, and I rarely sleep at the dinner table anymore. I have reduced my medication enough to enjoy again the independence of driving after 6 weeks of passenger only status.

I’ve been working two hour days at my Public Works job and hope to stretch that out soon to 3 or 4 hours. I have regained some appetite and I believe I have bottomed out on the weight loss at 30 lbs.

I’m not sure where the pounds went, but when I tried on my previously snug fitting suit for Meagan’s wedding, I hooked the belt line button, pulled the zipper up and when I let go, the pants went straight to the floor.

Wednesday we got the results of my bone marrow biopsy. It was a kind of, “Good News / Bad News” report. It has been my misunderstanding that I might have Plasma Cytoma, “OR” Multiple Myeloma. I now understand that both are the same Cancer. Both are points on a spectrum of one Myeloma Cancer.

My Oncologist explained that I currently have “a” Plasma Cytoma, but my bone marrow revealed that I have enough abnormal cells that I will likely develop Multiple Myeloma in the relatively near future. At that time, I will have Chemo therapy and hopefully stop the growth of the cancer.

They don’t do a preemptive strike on the Cancer; you have to wait until it develops. In the meantime, my condition is referred to as Smoldering Myeloma.

A hand full of people took at least one turn driving me the 44 mile round trip to the hospital for my daily treatments. My cousin, Abraham Benitez, faithfully drove me almost half the time. He also phoned almost nightly to check on me, and has continued to do so for months. Thank you, Abraham.

I am constantly amazed and comforted by the kindness of others. I thank God for my wife and for everyone caring for me, driving me, praying with and for me. I hope you will continue to pray now and then for my recovery, for Diane’s strength and stamina, and for both of us to remember that God is in control.

I guess that adds up again to praying for God’s Peace. That’s what I pray for each of you.

Until later, Scott