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