June 24 update

June 24, 2007 update

Been a tough couple of weeks.

First, my digestive system essentially shut down and I quit eating. Ending up in the hospital Memorial Day but I recovered some then went down again.

Who knows what exactly is happening. Part of the adventure. We thought it was a tumor pressing in on my small intestine and constricting it. However, my latest PET-CT scan didn’t show a tumor. I went on a liquid (read Ensure shake) diet for a few days and went back to eating real food today (Sunday).

As my calorie intake has been limited (some days to nothing) it is hard to rebound but each day I am eating more and getting stronger. My oldest son, Brad, now in Monterey, Calif. in language school in Russian, is visiting and before he leaves July 1 I want to get well enough to go eat sushi with him and Dylan (an enjoyable event several months ago). Who knows if I will do it.

Saturday a bunch of friends came by and that was really nice. Tonight I got out to visit with some other friends (some were the same). Work has been put on a side burner as I have been some days only able to stay awake maybe 2 hours or so.

Hard to read and write because of lack of energy and staying awake, although today has been much better with only an afternoon nap of an hour or two.

Started a new therapy last week called Erbitux. It is not a normal chemotherapy but a “targeted therapy.” Here’s what the ImClone website says:

How Does ERBITUX Work?

Cells receive signals from other parts of the body that cause them to grow and divide. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is involved in these processes; it is a particular type of protein that sticks out from the surface of cells and captures and transmits growth signals to the inside of the cell.1,2

By binding to the EGFR on the surface of both normal and tumor cells, ERBITUX® can block the receptor from receiving these signals that would otherwise cause the cell to grow and divide. When this happens to cancer cells, these cells may stop growing and dividing.

By the way, this was the drug that when FDA asked more questions, Martha Stewart dumped stock and went to prison…

Thanks for all the good wishes and messages (mikedunne@aol.com)

Update, high and lows....

June 3, 2007

Well, what a whacky two weeks – some nice highs but mostly lows.

The abdominal muscle problem I have struggled with didn’t take long to return and this time put me in the hospital for four days over Memorial Day weekend (when all my normal docs were off).

This also happened to be one year after confirming, via biopsy, that my cancer had indeed returned. So, lots of emotional whip-sawing.

One of the things about last Memorial Day, I was feeling sorry for myself after the confirmation of the biopsy. Then someone sent me an email to web link about The Vietnam Wall Memorial (here’s one: http://www.virtualwall.org/, though this is not the one I saw because I could and did leave me a message).

Last year and this year, it got me to thinking of Vernon Rainey, my bunk mate in basic training. We later did a lot of other training together in getting ready to go to Viet Nam, where he actually went. I had a car wreck and got diverted to Germany. Such is the luck of the Irish, so to speak, of life.

Vernon and I actually lived only a few miles apart, but went to different high schools in Jefferson Parish (me East Jeff, him Rummel). We knew lots of folks in common, but had never met. We became fast friends, as often happen in situations like military service.

Vernon lasted only a few months in Viet Nam before he was killed. I actually came home on leave from Germany to see a girlfriend (a whole ‘nother story I won’t get into) on the day he was being buried. I could not bring myself to see his folks and say, “Hey, Vernon went to Nam and I got crocked and in an accident and ended up in Germany.” Wish today I had.

Anyway, I visited Vernon’s site on The Wall in DC (I got a rubbing in my first visit in 1993 and checked in again, so to speak in 1997). It reminded me of what I got that Vernon didn’t get – a chance to grow up, have a career, have kids, get married, -- certainly 35 more years than Vernon and a bunch of other guys we trained with got. The old saying "the good die young" really applies to Vernon.

So, I need to accentuate the positive and do whatever it is we’re supposed to do (from the song lyric that won’t come to mind) with the negative.

I got to go through all that emotion while weak as a kitten in the hospital. I had a great chat about that with one of my nurses, who was working only one day while I was there (I was on the oncology ward, so they are used to patients like me).

So, rather than get into all that negative about having the intestinal “shut down,” which is probably more than people want to know, I will leave the hospital visit at that.

My oncologist and I decided to take a few weeks off from treatment to recover, check and see if the gastro guy has a solution. But most likely we will switch to a new chemical (or poison as I like to think of it). I told him I don’t want any more experiences like this one or the first chemo I did in early 2005, which whipped me badly.

Thanks to health problems, I have not done too much in the last two weeks since I updated.

One nice piece of news: I managed to have wife Freda drive me to New Orleans on Thursday morning (May 31) to get an award from America’s Wetland Foundation. I was named the group's first "conservationist of the year" for my decades about writing about wetland loss and the book Bevil Knapp and I did. The statue of an eagle is a beautiful (and 20 pounds or so). For those who know me, well you know they could not have picked a better critter.

I plan to get back to work some this week (Monday, June 4). Life goes on.

Thanks to everyone who sent me congrats, well wishes and get-wells. Your support continues to buoy my spirits.

Mike

Saying goodbye to an old friend and hi to some others

May 16, 2007

Well it has been a while since I updated. I had a week off from chemo on May 7 week but that didn’t stop me from having another abdominal pain attack. I was just beginning to feel my strength come back when, Viola! Thursday night, it started. It was not as bad as previous attacks, but basically kept me awake all night. And, it was not fun.

Friday I worked about three or four hours from home to finish a weekend story – so I was not completely debilitated, but spent most of the day in the bed.

Friday night it eased – but I had to cancel attending the awards banquet for my book (mentioned earlier) and for a weekend retreat at beautiful St. Joseph’s Abbey north of Covington and my plans to visit dear old mom at my sister’s in Abita Springs Sunday.

By Saturday morning, it had slowed to an occasional pang, but I was worn out.

I am hoping after consultation with my doc Monday (14^th), we have the right combination of medications and “eating instructions” for this to be my last “event.” I also picked up a tip or two from the man sitting next to me in the chemo room, who had similar problems last year with the same drug but got them straightened out. He’s been through more treatment than I have, bless him.

Actually, there is a funny dynamic in the chemotherapy room. Patients sit in recliners, get hooked up (I have a mediport in my left shoulder that always requires some medication to get to working right) and we are hooked up to bags of chemicals (most of them very clear) and IV pumps and the fun begins. After a while, you see the same folks some weeks (some on three-week schedules, some on one-week schedules like I am now) and sometimes we chat and share “war stories.” Freda is always there, bless her (the chairs are often filled with patients – she ate lunch on the floor Monday -- and Dylan often comes by on his lunch hour to eat with us.)

As a matter of fact, Freda and I set a new record getting into the doc’s office, through the chemo room and on the road on Monday. It was nice. I spent the rest of the day working quietly from home (good for reading as no one bothers me).

Tuesday night (5-14), I attended the memorial service for my friend, work colleague and fellow cancer patient Laurie Anderson (who wrote a column for The Advocate although near the end fellow reporter and long-time friend Bob Anderson, her husband, wrote a bunch). Those columns were often hard for me to read because it was difficult to read about her problems and I was often worried I might be reading my future. She was 53 and asked ladies to wear colorful clothes so the service is a celebration of her life. I like it. You can read her columns at:
(See http://www.2theadvocate.com/columnists/patientperson)

Laurie’s memorial last night was nice, and unfortunately, an opportunity to see a lot of old friends and coworkers – folks she and I worked with over the past 25 years. Many bemoaned that it is sad we end up renewing friendships when we come together to celebrate the loss of a friend. Several fellow reporters/editors came from out of town like Randy McClain from Nashville (Tenneseean) and Keith Lawrence from Durham (Duke University).

One of the speakers was Danny Heitman, who made everyone laugh about Laurie’s love of the semicolon and editors who tried to curb that enthusiasm. (I was one while on the city desk for the old State-Times.) Finally, she confronted me and asked me why I was changing the semicolons to periods – basically making her sentences into two sentences.

Eventually, I remembered I didn’t like editors messing with my copy and backed off. She rarely wrote a sentence was too long to be fairly clear. Eventually, I went back to writing as I wasn’t really a good editor and didn’t at that time have the demeanor to edit. We sat in the same little group of six (called a “pod” back then when Morning Advocate reporters and afternoon State-times reporters shared a computer (dumb terminals were a really new thing.) We even had share phones. Last night, five of the six of us from the old back corner pod were there when I moved in in 1981 -- Randy, Ed Pratt, Barbara Kleinpeter and myself. Laurie was there, too, in spirit.

And, there is a new resident at the Dunne home -- Hope, a seven-week-old tabby kitten with four white feet. She takes on the role of the late Vincent, who was our cat for more than 10 years until we had to put him to sleep earlier this year after an autoimmune disease. The vet's office called for Freda Tuesday morning. I asked why and they just said they’d call her later – not a you-owe-us-money call. I knew a kitty was on the way – this one rescued from the Perkins Road I-10 off ramp… She is sitting on my chest as I write. We think she will be a people cat.

Well, more later. I hope to be a bit better in updating in the future.

Whew, what a week..

May 2, 2007

Well, what a week or so.

Tuesday night, April 24, I started having what I thought were stomach cramps about 9 p.m. and they lasted all night, and eased after I threw up around 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. I went to doc that afternoon and got fluids and nausea drugs. Back to work on Thursday from home, but slow. Friday I was back in the office.

Saturday night, a replay that lasted until Sunday morning and finally eased about mid-morning when I feel asleep. I didn’t get out of bed until late afternoon. Weak as a kitten.

Went in for another round of chemo on Monday morning the 30^th but my blood counts were down and they wanted to make sure my colon hadn’t perforated (turns out it the problem and cramps were not in my stomach). They sent me next door to Our Lady of the Lake hospital for X-rays and a blood transfusion -- out-patient. The lake was starting a new out-patient admission desk with some new software and my out-patient experience drug on long enough to become an in-patient. (Example, one receptionist asked the other “Does Yes mean Yes or Yes Mean No?” )

I finally finished transfusion at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday. Back to chemo doctor next door Tuesday morning, did the treatment. Freda was a trooper by my side all the way through (except Monday night she went home when it became obvious I was going to be there for the night).

I should be able to avoid cramps again by taking some over-the-counter medications that will keep my colon happy. The cramps apparently were somewhat self-inflicted as I quit taking the medication thinking all was well when it wasn’t.

Well, thanks to some stranger’s blood now flowing through my veins, I am feeling pretty well. Next week is an off-week for chemo and I can use it. I think the treatment is helping and will help extend my time…

Last Friday I was supposed to be on the Jim Engster show (WRKF at 9-10 a.m.89.3 FM) but I was just unable to answer the bell (or the alarm) from my Tuesday escapade. Jim asked me back for this Friday (May 4) at 9:30-10. I owe him one, so I will be there. Several folks were alarmed when I wasn’t on the air. I apologize to Jim. He wants to talk to me about living with cancer and some other things.

I will end next week at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana’s Coastal Stewardship Awards where Bevil Knapp and I will be honored for our book, “America’s Wetland: Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast” published by LSU Press … find it from them, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.com. I am proud of the book and proud of being honored.

http://s50780.sites40.storefront-hosting.com/detail.aspx?ID=148

I won a Coastal Stewardship Award in 2000 for my "Coast in Peril" series that also won one of the nation's top environmental reporting awards, the Scripps-Howard Edward Meeman Award.
(I am one of the few two-time winners -- won with fellow Advocate reporter Bob Anderson in 1986 as well).

Update, how I choose journalsm, stuff like that

April 21,2007

Here’s an update on how I am doing…

Basically, the chemotherapy continues. I am doing weekly treatments on Mondays for three weeks and then a week off. Monday will be No. 2 (assuming my blood work is good enough for another treatment, which I expect it to be). It is not making me nauseous or feel bad (the anti-nausea drugs are impressive and I am getting a booster shot to help my red cells rebound each week and a booster for white cells when I have a treatment break).

I have had some indigestion and occasional light stomach cramps – which I assume may be a result of the chemo but in the big scheme of things, something I can live with pretty easily.

The really big impact is that I tire easily and run out of gas pretty quickly, especially when the heat rises (so as heat and humidity increase, I am sure I will wilt quicker). I am still working, though sometimes I spend a large part of my day working from home.

Not all the news is always bad. I visited with Dr. Virginia Bringaze (an ear, nose and throat doctor who spotted my cancer) She looks down my throat, etc. every few months to make sure I am still cancer-free. The original cancer has not come back, she said. (I would not have been surprised if it had).

I continue to try to do what I would normally do – both professionally and personally.

Friday evening, Freda and I went to the LSU Manship School of Mass Communications Hall of Fame induction at the newly renovated Journalism Building (which I taught in one semester after it reopened). My old college buddy Len Sanderson was inducted and it was fun to see some old friends.

At the Hall of Fame presentation, just about each inductee talked about how they got into journalism. It reminded me of how I picked what turned out to be my life’s work.

I was originally a geology-law combined curriculum at LSU (three years of geology and after the first year of law school you’d get a BS degree, two years later a law degree). My dad, an attorney, was convinced I could make big bucks in Louisiana as a petroleum lawyer. Big bucks is what I was interested in. The fact that I had to do math, chemistry, physics and some other things ended that. After I flunked out of school (I had a great time that didn’t include always going to class), I got drafted and spent two years in the Army. I went back to LSU in spring 1972 – and was still listed as a freshman so I really didn’t need to declare a major.

But at the end of the semester, I had to pick a major and I was not sure what I wanted to do. So, I got a catalogue for the coming academic year, bought a quart of beer, and sat at the table in my efficiency apartment. I took a few swigs from the beer, looked up at the ceiling, opened the book, put my finger down.

Electrical engineering. Too much math. Try again.

Boomp. Poultry science. Didn’t want to know nothing about chickens. Try again.

Boomp. Broadcast journalism. Hmm. I used to spin records like a DJ on the stereo equipment we had in our barracks room in Germany. English was my best subject. Looked like a major to me.

It did not take long before the DJ-wanna-be to turn into a journalism junkie. I was hooked. It just seemed natural to me. Another example of the Good Lord taking care of me. I stumbled into the perfect profession for me and I have been fairly successful.

One of my literary heroes died this past week – Kurt Vonnegut Jr. My neighbor gave me “Slaughterhouse Five” to read over the Christmas holiday in 1973. I loved it. The following summer, I devoured every Vonnegut in the Rapides Parish Library (in exotic Alexandria, La.) and then bought what I could not find. Just my usual obsessive nature!

Life goes on with cancer – how much longer no one really knows. Advocate colleague John LaPlante, whom I have known since college, recently drowned on a family “spring break” trip to Galveston (went to his funeral Thursday). So, it shows you never know how long we have.

So, as Vonnegut loved to say: “And so it goes.”

Post No. 3 -- Mentors and a Patient Person

April 7, 2007
I have been doing a weekly chemotherapy for the past three weeks and have next week off. While the therapy is not making me feel bad, it is sapping my energy and slowing me down. Thursday I actually cancelled plans to cover the hurricane conference in New Orleans because I wasn't sure I how far I had to walk and tote a laptop around. My colleague, Amy Wold, was covering it, too, and I was just going to look for a weekend story, so I didn't feel bad about cancelling. (Both my wife and mother were pleased to see me actually exercise some restraint and accept some limitation... it was not easy).

I ended up working on a climate change story that ran today and on the project I have been working on, so I got a lot accomplished.

Recently, I got an email from an old colleague from Alabama, Mike Sherman. Mike was working for the the Huntsville newspaper covering the capitol when I was covering the capitol for the old Alabama Journal (George Wallace was governor and it was really a great experience). Mike later went to work for the Montgomery newspapers and has since moved on. Anyway, he asked me if I had kept up with Clint Claybrook, one of the old hands I always considered to be a mentor. Clint, who covered the capitol with me, taught me a lot about being a reporter, especially an aggressive, investigative sort of guy. He taught me something about pit-bull style we sometimes need. We did some great work in Montgomery and played some fun rounds of golf. Unfortunately, we lost track of one another over time.

That got me to thinking about the other "mentor" that really made a difference in my career: Gibbs Adams of The Advocate. (It was the Morning Advocate then). The Louisiana Press Association Investigative Reporting Award is named for Gibbs. Because of that, it really meant a lot more to me when I won it in the past.

Gibbs' love was not reporting but "newspaperin," as he would have put it in his Bogalusa accent. (Another great pleasure were Monday mornings in the municipal building press room when he would regale Yvonne Foreman Campbell and I with the details of the sermons he heard in church with his family back in Bogalusa and he would always sing us a snatch of songs sung at the service. At his funeral, the minister said "Gibb Adams was a quiet man." We all looked at one another and wondered who the hell he was talking about).

When working on a project with Gibbs, if you took a break for a chili cheese dog in the courthouse cantina, you were lucky and you needed to eat really fast. He had only one speed -- full blast.

The real important thing he taught me was that it was possible to be tough but still treat people with respect. Sources, especially public officials, knew Gibbs was doing his job and it was not personal and I really tried to emulate that.

Gibbs died of a heart attack -- having lived longer than any male member of his family. The press room in the municipal building is also named for him and there's a picture of him outside the door.

Anyway, I think I was privileged to replace Gibbs in our newsroom as "the old guy" and pass on what he and Clint taught me to other younger reporters.

Shortly after Gibbs died, I was in working on something, I don't even remember, and I was stuck on where to look next; what to do next. I popped out of my seat and began looking around the newsroom for Gibbs to find out what my next step should be. All of a sudden, I remembered Gibbs was gone. Then I realized I was the "new" Gibbs and had to become a better reporter and digger. Gibbs had had me join Investigative Reporters and Editors and I started going to national conferences that year to learn how to be the new Gibbs.

The next few years saw some of the best reporting I ever did -- just trying to be the sort of reporter that Gibbs had been and learning from colleagues in IRE.

Some of that great reporting was done with Bob Anderson of our staff. Bob created the environment beat at The Advocate. In 1985, the editors put Bob and I and Sonny Albarado together to produce a ad-free tabloid on environmental problems in Louisiana. It was a great project and Bob and I identified a half-dozen projects that we wanted to follow up on.

He and I won the Scripps-Howard Edward Meeman Award for environmental reporting the next year (I later won it in 1999). There were AAAS and other awards that also flowed in. Later, I would take over the beat from Bob.

That all brings me to the final piece of today's blog. Bob and his wife, Laurie Smith Anderson, have been friends with Freda and I for decades. We all used to pile off to Houston once a year for Waterworld/Astroworld and Astros-Pirates ball games. In one case, we watched Mike Dunne, runner up for NL Rookie of the Year, pitch for the Pirates. Another time, we all spent a week at Navarre Beach together with all of our kids (and I remember watching porpoises doing flips and jumps out in the Gulf for about a half hour one day).

About 18 months ago, Laurie was diagnosed with cancer. I remember standing at the end of her hospital bed and pointing to myself and saying, hey, they can cure this stuff. At that point, it looked like I had been cured.

Laurie, who covered health for the newspapers for years, has been writing a column about her experience. Entitled "The Patient Person," it has been running every Friday in our People section. Unfortunately, there have been a few weeks where Laurie could not write the column, so Bob has written a few. In both cases, it has been some of the best writing I have seen from either one. She has been after me to write one, too.

I told Laurie it was hard for me to read. First, it is difficult to see what is happening to an old and cared-about friend. Second, I sometimes think I am seeing my future and it can be scary.

I highly recommend it to you if you have not seen it. Here's the link:

http://www.2theadvocate.com/columnists/patientperson

I like the title -- patient has a double meaning -- a person who is sick and needs medical help and the ability to exercise patience. I have never been good at either one. I have, if nothing else, become a more compliant patient. I am still working on the other definition ... and don't have a lot of hope mastering it in the time I have left (even if I lived to be 80 or more).

As you can tell, I am still not sure where I am going with this. -- Mike

Post No. 2 -- Suprise! and "push forward"

March 29, 2007

Imagine my surprise about 11 p.m. when I checked my office email via the web and found a post with the subject line about my blog and the note from my wife. I was still toying with the idea of what to do with this blog. Freda has done a pretty good job of painting me into corners for more than 26 years, so why should this be any different?

So, I guess the blog is on. Just a quick update (I am still working and need to get back to the job) but I did my second chemotherapy on Monday. I know the word "chemotherapy" just scares lots of people -- and for good reason. My first treatment included a drug that just kicked my butt. I did chemo on Mondays (took all day) and by late afternoon on Tuesday, I was nauseated, chills and fever, shaking, completely zonked. The first time, I could not get chicken noodle soup in my mouth because the spoon shook so badly.

But the chemo I did last summer hardly slowed me down (of course, it hardly slowed down the cancer, too!) I told my docs that I would consider some chemo to extend my time if it was like last summer and not like the first one -- I will choose quality over quantity of time remaining.

Plans call for another treatment on Monday if my white blood cell counts are high enough, then take a week off and let me recuperate. I had plans to be out all this weekend helping as a mentor with an adult leadership training program at our local Boy Scout camp and that is still my plan.

The whole unfolding Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow cancer stories are really telling part of my story. Last June, I heard "treatable but not curable." Talk about a shock. I was numbed.

I decided to keep living life like I will be around for a while.

Elizabeth Edwards really summed it up well last week in an AP story: "Either you push forward with the things that you were doing yesterday or you start dying. That seems to be your only two choices," she said. "If I had given up everything that my life was about -- first of all, I'd let cancer win before it needed to."

I, too, have chosen the push forward.

Thanks to everyone for the comments.