What If We Can Go

We made it to six years cancer free! I had some recent checkups last month and everything came out good. The PET scan always detects a small mass in the middle of my chest. It’s been there since I started Chemo but it has not grown or moved. My Oncologist says its scar tissue from the Bleomycin drug that they gave me during Chemo. You try and not to freak out at stuff like that but it’s hard. I will continue to go once a year for checkups. I will continue to be active, eat healthy and try not to freak out!

These past few years my wife and I have been talking about moving from our house and living in a cleaner environment. We talk about growing real food and living off the land as much as possible. It became a dream of ours to live on land and to live simply without debt. We would go back and forth coming up with different reasons NOT to do something like this. One of those big reasons was the fear of my cancer coming back. I do not want to live fearful.  I can stay comfortable in my current situation and always think what if. I did not want to say to myself in 10-20-30 years what if we HAD followed our dreams? I do not want the “what if” I get cancer again be the reason we didn’t do something like this. I do not want to be waiting around to see if cancer will return. I do not want to wait and think about “what if”. But what if my cancer does not come back? What if the reason that I was diagnosed with cancer was to wake us up! What if we as a family can make a dream and a different way of thinking actually work! What if we can go!

So we are following our dreams and moving across the United States to live simply, growing real food and living debt free.

Our family blog
http://sewtheland.com/

The New Normal

A lot has happened since my last post, which was over a year ago. Lorraine and I are having a baby girl! She will be arriving at the end of August. We have been very busy trying to get the house situated and getting ready for the next chapter in our lives. The question that came up a lot when we were first telling people that we are having a baby is if we had to use the sperm banking. Being that there might have been a chance that I wouldn’t have been able to have kids due to the chemotherapy. Well, it was all natural! It actually happened quicker than we thought it would. So, it all worked out! I am also training to run my first full marathon in October, which has been keeping me healthy.

I have been in remission for a 1 ½ years now and I am still going for checkups every three months. Every time I go I do a blood test and a CAT scan of my whole body. Six more months of this and then I will be going every six months instead of three months for checkups for the next three years. Since being in remission its hard not to think what if the cancer comes back and how would I deal with it. Any little thing that happens with my body, such as if I have body aches, tiredness or allergies I kind of freak out about it. A part of me thinks cancer again and I try to talk to myself and say everything is going to be o.k, which it has been. When doing stuff around the house I find myself doing multiple things all at once because I feel that what if something happens and I can’t accomplish things anymore. Especially with us having a baby and the new house it makes me think about that more and more. It does become stressful at times and I try to not think about the “what if” situations but man its tough. Its different nowadays in a sense that there was my life before the cancer and this is my life after cancer. It’s like a different kind of normal. Since being in remission two close people in my life had been diagnosed with cancer and I hear through different people how they know someone that was just diagnosed. Even though the treatments were very different than mine and no matter how advanced the cancer is you need to still try and beat it. I mean if you didn’t try and give it the best you can then everyone would wonder “what if”. I know it’s easier said then done but it can be done. Don’t give up the fight!

When the doctor finally said I was in remission my first question was do I need to be eating healthier now and exercising more? She said, “No, just do the things you did before”. This never made sense to me and always stuck in my head. I thought they would give me some kind of nutrition plan to follow or something. At the start of my remission I did try and be like my old self but every time I would eat a hamburger or have a beer I would think, “should I be eating this”? It would bug me so much that I am slowly getting rid of bad food in my diet and everything in moderation. I can see it would be very easy for someone to think I can eat, drink whatever I want as long as it makes me happy! I wonder though are you really happy? It’s hard to change eating habits and healthy habits but it’s possible. I guess if cancer did end up reoccurring I would want to say that I did all I could to prevent it. So, Lorraine and I started doing our own research on eating healthier foods and started eating more veggies, fruits and organic type foods. Try to stay clear of processed foods and eat more whole, raw food. We find that eating this way is not easy and its something to get used to. I do feel healthier than ever by changing our habits. Running and training for a marathon has also been my daily routine which has made me stronger and relieves the stress. People seem like now that I’m in remission I will be back to my old self like nothing happened. Which I wish was the case. The remission part of my cancer is a whole other beast that I’m still trying to tame. The new normal!

Back from the Sea...

I am officially in remission! My results from my latest PET scan didn’t detect any cancer. I am happier about this result because this PET scan is more accurate than the CAT scan I had in December. I had to wait a week for the results of the scan and as you can imagine it was a tough week. Thinking about what the results may be was an awful feeling. You try and stay positive but every moment of the day you think about it. I am going to have to do this every three months for the next two years and then every six months for the next five years after. I imagine this first scan was the toughest and it will all be routine from here on out. It was a tough road but Lorraine and I did get through it and now we can move on! Felt like I was out at sea for seven months and finally hit land! The Doc gave me the O.K. to take out my Port! So, I may take it out within the next month. Perhaps I can keep it in a jar or something. You know, for old times sake.

It has been two months this week since my last Chemo treatment and I’m feeling pretty good these days. I was able to get my first haircut in seven months and now I am able to comb my hair and my eyebrows are getting darker. I may let the beard grow for now. I been running and hiking more and started golfing again. I still do get kind of tired but not as bad and I can tell the tiredness is going away. It’s amazing how your body can recover and become stronger from such awful treatments. I hate to say it but I feel that the cancer took a piece of me. I don’t think I feel the same as before. I have different worries and stress that I didn’t before. I feel like I was more worry free before the cancer. Sometimes when I’m out and about I look around and think that most people don’t know how much your life can change so quickly. Talking to different people about my experience almost everyone always says, “If I get cancer I don’t know what I’d do?” Unless these things happen to you we really don’t realize that we will suck it up and focus on being healthy again. I tell them, “I know what you would do” you will deal with it and focus on being better because we want to survive. Sometimes I notice when people see me they look like there not sure to ask me how I'm feeling. Its like if they are not sure if I want to talk about it or not sure if they should bring it up. Please don't hesitate to ask me questions about my experience. I'm more than willing to share them and talk to you about them. Before I started the Chemo treatments a friend who went through the similar experience told me to keep doing the things you love, never give up hope and continue listening to the music you love.

at Priscilla (Lorraine sis) & Toms Wedding 2/6/10