It has been a bit since my last update. In a nutshell I've been busy with my kids and working on my health. They are my two most important things at the moment. The blog has been great at helping me get my thoughts together and letting people know my current status.
With the kids back in daycare and heading back to school soon I expect to have some time outside of family and heath to provide more regular updates. If you are looking for a similar blogs with more regular updates you might want to follow Brian Koffman's Great site written from a cancer patients view. He is also a doctor out of California.
My second chemo treatment on Aug 3rd went well. The follow up care from the nurses was fine. My chemo bag was removed on Aug 5th on schedule. No side effects other than some constipation and the opposite of this.
The constipation did get me a bit concerned. When the doctors gave the OK for me to get Avastin they gave me many warnings about my existing partial blockage of my large intestine. The worst case is a full blockage and the need for emergency surgery. They also listed some potential side effects such as blood clots and stroke. If they were looking to freak me out - Mission Accomplished!
On Sunday night, Aug 7 I was feeling fine other than constipated. My last BM was early on Friday. Thinking back to the warnings I was starting to get concerned. Late into the evening I called into Mt Sinai to talk to the on call Oncology Surgeon. We discussed my symptoms and the lack of any vomiting or similar. Can't remember his name but he was great. Very calm and confident. He all but told me to go to relax and verbally patted me on the head, saying to go to bed and have a good sleep.
This might sound a bit condescending but it was exactly what I needed. Later on Monday everything shall we say worked it's self out. Since then I've been fine. More energy than before and re-started daily exercising.
On the movie front we slowed down. Too costly and no more good summer flixs to see. We did make an exception over the weekend for the original Karate Kid. We saw this at the Bell Lightbox downtown TO. If you have not been you should go. Great movie theater and no teenagers talking and texting during the show. One of the neat things for the kids was watching the movie in the Mackenzie Financial theater (Tanya's employer) and playing in the BlackBerry lounge. The only thing I can relate this to is attending the Dofasco Christmas party with my dad. (sorry for losing 97% of you)
The kids loved the movie. Both Cameron and Gavin had seen the remake and didn't really like it. We had to pull rank as Parents to get them out to the original. By the end of the movie both kids were out of their seats and glued to the screen. Cameron said that now he understand how original movies are way better. I'd have to agree.
Most of last week was spent doing chores and prepping for my next chemo treatment. We did have time to take the kids to Wonder Land and a few other smaller day trips.
Today for lunch, went out with the team from work. It was great to see the guys and one gal. It was put together last moment and some people were out of town. Sounds like changes are still going on within RIM. Re-organizing in preparation for new devices and application launches in 2012. Based on the chats today and the quality of the teams I'm confident that RIM has started to turn the ship around. Honestly, I do miss going into work. Some really cool stuff going on and great teams to work with.
Tomorrow I'm staring my 3rd round of chemo. Hope all goes well. Expect I will be sleepy till the end of this week and I need to get to bed soon.
Thanks everyone for your notes, updates and taking the time for lunch. Thanks to Mike for driving an hour each way to meet up for lunch. Also thanks to Kay, Janice and Rebecca for the nice card and notes, it's always a bit of a rush to get an actual card with handwritten comments with the Canada Post mail drop. It's not just for bills and flyers any more.
TX - Stephen
With the kids back in daycare and heading back to school soon I expect to have some time outside of family and heath to provide more regular updates. If you are looking for a similar blogs with more regular updates you might want to follow Brian Koffman's Great site written from a cancer patients view. He is also a doctor out of California.
My second chemo treatment on Aug 3rd went well. The follow up care from the nurses was fine. My chemo bag was removed on Aug 5th on schedule. No side effects other than some constipation and the opposite of this.
The constipation did get me a bit concerned. When the doctors gave the OK for me to get Avastin they gave me many warnings about my existing partial blockage of my large intestine. The worst case is a full blockage and the need for emergency surgery. They also listed some potential side effects such as blood clots and stroke. If they were looking to freak me out - Mission Accomplished!
On Sunday night, Aug 7 I was feeling fine other than constipated. My last BM was early on Friday. Thinking back to the warnings I was starting to get concerned. Late into the evening I called into Mt Sinai to talk to the on call Oncology Surgeon. We discussed my symptoms and the lack of any vomiting or similar. Can't remember his name but he was great. Very calm and confident. He all but told me to go to relax and verbally patted me on the head, saying to go to bed and have a good sleep.
This might sound a bit condescending but it was exactly what I needed. Later on Monday everything shall we say worked it's self out. Since then I've been fine. More energy than before and re-started daily exercising.
On the movie front we slowed down. Too costly and no more good summer flixs to see. We did make an exception over the weekend for the original Karate Kid. We saw this at the Bell Lightbox downtown TO. If you have not been you should go. Great movie theater and no teenagers talking and texting during the show. One of the neat things for the kids was watching the movie in the Mackenzie Financial theater (Tanya's employer) and playing in the BlackBerry lounge. The only thing I can relate this to is attending the Dofasco Christmas party with my dad. (sorry for losing 97% of you)
The kids loved the movie. Both Cameron and Gavin had seen the remake and didn't really like it. We had to pull rank as Parents to get them out to the original. By the end of the movie both kids were out of their seats and glued to the screen. Cameron said that now he understand how original movies are way better. I'd have to agree.
Most of last week was spent doing chores and prepping for my next chemo treatment. We did have time to take the kids to Wonder Land and a few other smaller day trips.
Today for lunch, went out with the team from work. It was great to see the guys and one gal. It was put together last moment and some people were out of town. Sounds like changes are still going on within RIM. Re-organizing in preparation for new devices and application launches in 2012. Based on the chats today and the quality of the teams I'm confident that RIM has started to turn the ship around. Honestly, I do miss going into work. Some really cool stuff going on and great teams to work with.
Tomorrow I'm staring my 3rd round of chemo. Hope all goes well. Expect I will be sleepy till the end of this week and I need to get to bed soon.
Thanks everyone for your notes, updates and taking the time for lunch. Thanks to Mike for driving an hour each way to meet up for lunch. Also thanks to Kay, Janice and Rebecca for the nice card and notes, it's always a bit of a rush to get an actual card with handwritten comments with the Canada Post mail drop. It's not just for bills and flyers any more.
TX - Stephen
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