07/14/2012:

So its still early in the morning and I still havn’t gone to sleep yet…

1:35:  I checked my temperature and it is at 100.0.  So I got a little temperature running, but I should be ok 😛  I am about to go to sleep and I’ll let you know how well I am doing in the morning.  I just took another pain pill.  I can feel the pain coming on, its about a 3 or 4 out of 10.

1:50: Getting off the computer and going to sleep after researching the pain following the port placement with the pain that I am feeling.

5:50: My dad checked my temperature and it was 97.5.

I dozed back off to sleep in the lazy boy.

10:00 I woke up and woke up my wife to take my temperature and to get me some Sierra Mist and my pain medicine.  It has been over 8 hours since my last pill and my shoulder/arm is throbbing.

10:10:  My wife checked my temperature and it was 98.2.

Had to wait for the pill to kick in, my right arm and chest/shoulder hurts. No fun…

10:40: My mother and father go off to pick up some Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast.

11:00: They return with breakfast, food, yummy, yay, just gotta eat with my left hand.

I watch Fun with Dick and Jane and then Yes Man both starring Jim Carrey.

I can get up and walk around, but can’t do much with my right arm.  According to my discharge papers I can’t pick up anything over 10 pounds because of risk of injuring the site of the port placement.

I can do the basics of operating a computer and my phone.

Simple things like raising my right hand to my mouth and other simple movements like turning on a light switch can be painful or uncomfortable.

Just taking it easy today being lazy, not doing too much at all.

2:50: My wife leaves for work, just me watching TV anyways.

First blood is on, watching that now.

3:30:  My parents are off the their normal 4:00 Saturday mass.

4:15:  Aunt Estella calls asking if I can come to the door since I am home alone because she has some fresh homemade custard for me.  I meet her at the side door and thank her for the treat.  I eat the custard.  YUMMY!

4:30: I take my next pain pill.  I can feel the pain starting to throb again in my left shoulder.  The nurses at the surgery center told me don’t wait to its a 10 to take the next pill.  Take it when its a 2-4 so it can start working before the pain gets too great.

4:45:  My mother calls me asking what me and my wife would want from Ground Pati.  I go with my normal Brisket Salad, which is always really good, and get my wife her Mushroom and Swiss Burger with fries, cooked medium rare.

5:00: I doze off to sleep.

6:15: I wake up and wait for Dee to come home before eating.

6:45: Dee arrives home, and she enjoys her burger while I eat my delicious salad with lettuce, Swiss cheese, pineapple, pecans, and a large portion of brisket.  I also add the honey mustard dressing to my salad.  I don’t need more than one container of the dressing because the BBQ sauce from the brisket flavors the salad just right.

7:30:  I am back in the lazy-boy watching NCIS.  I watch a few episodes of this.

9:30: NCIS is still on, but I am about to doze off, either for the whole night or just for a little bit.  The pain pills do make you a little loopy on top of making you a little sleepy.  That’s ok, I would rather sleep a little extra and be out of it than the pain I start feeling when those pills start wearing off, that’s no fun!

Well I may doze off, I may not, catch you in a little bit or in the morning…

10:45: I woke up needing to go to the bathroom, only problem is I can’t drop the leg rest for the lazy-boy by myself.  I have my father come from the other room and drop it for me.  I also take my temperature and I am back up with a temperature of 100.6.  Once again time to drink some cold liquids and get under a fan to bring this temperature back down.

11:30: I have a temp of 101.1  taken by me.

11:35: I have a temp of 101.5 taken by me.  I call my wife in the other room to get me some additional cold drink.

11:55: I have a temp of 100.6 taken and verified by my wife.

7:15:  I wake up, get out of bed and get ready to leave for the Jefferson Ambulatory Surgery Center.

7:55: Left the house with my mother driving me to the surgery center.

8:03: Arrived at the surgery center.

8:05: Checked in and my mother had to sign a paper saying that she would be driving me home and that I wouldn’t be driving myself home partially sedated.

8:08: Sitting in the waiting room.

8:20: They bring me back to the patient/recovery room. They give me a gown to put on. They start prepping me asking me all the questions they asked me yesterday again. Time to start the IV I tell them I am a hard stick and that I want some lidocane or they are not starting the IV. She says luckily she has some lidocane. I tell her to stick my left arm as the right one has had no luck. I tell her that they can’t see my veins and they will have to do it completely by feel. She then gives me the lidocane and and then tries to stick the vein, but it starts rolling on her. It gets a little painful and she says she is just tryin to get the vein because it is rolling under my skin. She then has the other nurse come hold my vein so she can stick it. She then is able to get it started with no problems. They hook me up to the fluid bag and start the drip and give me some antinausea medicine in the IV line too. The nurse then puts the wraps around my legs and turns on the machine to start pumping them up and deflating to prevent blood clots in my legs.

8:40: They are done prepping me and my mother comes back to the room. I am just sitting here waiting to be rolled into surgery.

9:30: They roll me back.

9:45: Anesthesia by Mr Randy is started. Time for a nice sleep

Below is what they are implanting in me.

Power-Injectable Port Profiles

Smart Port^® CT Power-Injectable Port

• Blue boot strain-relief mechanism offers a secure feel and snug fit
• Silicone-filled suture holes available for ease of explants
• Fluoromax^® 100% silicone radiopaque catheter with an atraumatic radiopaque tip – also available in polyurethane
• Footprint (in): X: 1.045, Y: 1.053*; Height (in): 0.520; Septum Diameter (in): 0.470

Identifying a Smart Port Power-Injectable Port

Smart Port^® power-injectable ports can be identified by the Smart Angle^® identifier technology on the CT and CT Low-Profile power-injectable port models. The CT engraving on all models can be seen through chest X-ray or scout scan.

Features and Benefits

• Vortex Reservoir Technology – Helps prevent sludge build-up and reduces occlusions and infections
• Indicated for Power-Injections – The ability to perform power-injections of contrast media for the purpose of CT imaging
• Superior CT Identification – All Smart Port CT models include identification on the bottom of the port for visualization under X-ray or scout scan
• More choices for patients, physicians and clinicians – Varying catheter materials and sizes, placement options and port body styles.

10:45: I am coming out of my sleep.  I was told the procedure itself took just 28 minutes.  They hit the vein with the first shot, and didn’t puncture my lung, yay!  The hard part was creating a pocket to put the port underneath my skin.  I am a younger guy and my skin is tough and thick and doesn’t stretch easily at all.  So he had to put me into a few different positions to get it properly under the skin.

11:00: I am back in my room.  Mr. Randy comes in and checks on me and talked to my mother for a little while after the surgery since I was the last one he had for the day.

11:10: The nurse gives me a Percocet for pain that is a 2 on my right top chest where they put in the port.

11:20: They move me into a lazy-boy chair with more animal crackers. Waiting to get a chest xray to confirm port placement.

11:45: Just about to go do the chest xray.

12:00: Back from the Xray. I can feel the Percocet kicking in, a little light headed, but feels good, since i never drink or do any drugs.

12:10: The nurse goes over everything with the pain medications and surgery follow up.

12:25: I am discharged, one final blood pressure reading.

12:30: The nurse walks me to the doors.

12:35: I am back in the car, don’t worry my mom is driving, heading to pick up something to eat before going back.

12:45: At McAlisters, my mother runs in to pick up the order while I wait in the AC car.

12:47: She is back at the car. We are now headed to CVS by the house to drop off the prescription.

1:00: We drop off the prescription at CVS. They ask if the generic brand is ok. We asked if they even has the brandname in stock, they said no. We called my sister, Katie, who is a pharmacist, and she said the generic brand is fine for this drug.

1:15: We arrive home.

1:20: Lunch is served.

1:35: My mom says I am blogging too much and too much info, I tell her this all a distraction for me and to include as many details for others who will be in my shoes facing the unknown as well and will not be going into it blindly.

2:00: I am done eating and talking.  I get my laptop and my phone and get ready to rest in the chair.  I bring Buster outside in the back yard, check on the fish in the pond in the backyard too while I am outside.  I then return inside.

2:15: I am back inside sitting in the lazy-boy.  I turn on Everyone Loves Raymond and relax a little bit.

2:40:  I email the pics from my phone to my gmail account so I can post them in this post.

2:45: I am catching up from lunch to now, and about to post the pics.

3:20:  I am talking to Jamie, and said that he said I looked like Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin in my pictures.  Guess I need to find me a yellow shirt with a zigzag black pattern on the bottom half of it.

4:15:  My father comes home from work.

4:30:  My father is out on his mission to retrieve my prescription from CVS.

4:45:  My father returns with prescription.

5:00: The news is on, and the only things on the news is about Drew Brees signing his 100 million dollar contract.

6:30: My wife has to play chef at work today and she comes home exhausted from work. After she tells me hi she is off to the bedroom to rest and sleep.

7:00:  Aunt Estella and Uncle Victor come over to visit 🙂  I talk about my day and go over the events for today and the the plans for next week.

7:45:  They leave and I turn on the TV and watch Napoleon Dynamite.

7:50: I began working on a clients computer remotely that was running slow and glitchy.

8:30:  I go to the bathroom to clean my face with some new face cleaner because my skin has become really oily ever since the Lymphoma diagnosis, biopsies, etc.  I notice that they took off my sterri strips on my neck biopsy.  I just saw this doctor the day before and he said to leave them on till they fell off by themselves.  I guess during the prepping me for this port placement, they got it wet with the iodine and alcohol that it just came right off my neck.  So here is a shot of what my neck looks like now…

9:00:  Scary Movie came on next.

I watch this as I was waiting for the computer to scan. I had the fan on high and was under a thin sheet as my body temperature has been steady, but my sense of what my body feels as a comfortable environment temperature are alternating constantly between hot and cold. I can feel heat rolling out from under the blanket and I can feel my ears getting hot.

11:10: I ask my mother for a thermometer and she wakes my wife for thermometer out of our room. The thermometer is one of those that you hold against your temple for the reading. The thermometer says 99.3. We find another digital thermometer that reads 100.8. And then ny mother finds an old skool mercury filled glass thermometer that has to be shaken to be reset before the next reading. This one reads 100.3. So I am running a temperature. We find the paperwork that I was discharged with and it says don’t call the doctor’s office unless the temperature is over 103, and that it is common for a low grade fever to run after a port placement.

Time to start drinking cold fluids and remove the sheets and shirt to help cool the me, because where my back is against the chair and can’t breathe feels like it is burning up.

07/12/2012

5:45: Woke up, my wife got something to drink, I then finished up some brief work that I was working on the night before so that the client wouldn’t be using the old data location after I moved over 640gb of data to the new storage array.  I then set my alarm on my phone to 9:00 am and dozed back off to sleep.

9:00: I woke up to my cell alarm, let Buster out, and got ready to leave.

9:30: I left for EJGH.

9:45: I arrived at Dr. Norman’s Office.  Dr. Norman is a general surgeon who will be doing my port placement in which they will administer the chemo drugs through.

The port will be placed in my chest right below the skin, and ran to my jugular in which it will access my blood stream. I am a hard stick and chemo is easier administered through a port. Another reason is that one of the chemo drugs will burn through and eat your skin if the IV isn’t correctly in you, so a port helps avoid such situations. Less pain is also associated with the port because they’ll stick you right everytime and won’t have to go searching for veins like they do when doing blood work and IVs. So while my port is in, I can also have all blood tests done through the port and not my arms.

I gave them my ID and insurance card as usual for new patients, and they gave me a stack of new patient papers to fill out like normal.

10:07: I finished up the new patient packet, paid my $50 co pay.

10:10: I sat down to update my blog on my phone.

10:30: The nurse takes me back, gets my weight, height, and temperature, and I sit in the patient room waiting some more.

10:45: Dr. Norman’s resident comes in and interviews me. He says that he will be with Dr. Norman for three months. He goes over everything that i filled out in the packet, does a quick examination listening to my chestand feeling my neck and abdomen. He explains to me the procedure and possible risks as in every medical procedure, and then leaves to get Dr. Norman.

10:55: I am waiting again in the patient room.

11:00: Dr. Norman comes in and goes over the port placement procedure. The worst thing that can happen he explains is that they can puncture my lung during the port placement, meaning my lung could collapse and they would have to put a tube in me to get my lung to expand again. He shows me a port that they would put into my chest and explains that it would go into a large juicy vein right behind my collar bone. He asks me how soon was I looking to get this done. I told him they the doctor’s office was ready to start treatment and just waiting on the port to be placed so that I could start. The growing lymphs have been affecting my breathing and causing me to be winded going up a flight of stairs and coughing when I am eating, so ASAP would be best. I do mention to him that I know the nurse anesthesist at the Jefferson Ambulatory Surgery Center that Dr. Norman does surgerys at on Fridays whihc is tomorrow. He says he will aim for tomorrow if they have an available surgery slot tomorrow, if not then at EJGH on Monday. He asks if I have any questions and I tell him no, I am just ready to get it done. He then leads me out to the receptionist who calls the surgery center and finds out that a slot is available and that I need to head over to the surgery center for preop.

11:15: I am done at Dr. Norman’s and heading to the van. My friend Brian sends me the following text.

” I see an old old old old blue van on level 4!”. I tell him yeah that’s me and I am just leaving. He said he was too. He also said that I needed to get a new set of wheels. I told him yeah, and I have to pay for treatment too. He replied, yeah, priorities.

I then dropped of a toner cartridge at Dr. Yager’s who is also a client of mine. Now it was time to go over to the surgery center for preop.

11:20: I got in my van and drove out the parking garage and returned a client’s phone call. They were having issues with a battery backup screaming because it needed its battery replaced. I told her I would call her back later today or tomorrow to get the model number of the UPS so that i could order a battery and have it shipped to them because they are about 90 mins away.

11:26: I let my mother know that I am going over to the Jefferson Ambulatory Surgery Center because her friend and coworker is also a CRNA at the surgery Center and he is working today and tomorrow.

11:30: I arrive at the Surgery Center.
Mr. Randy is walking out the door to meet me because my mother called him and told him I was on my way. I then signed in at the front desk and was given 4 pages to fill out as part of the new patient packet.

12:00: I am done filling out the new patient packet.

12:10: I am lead to the back where they take my blood pressure, height, and weight. They also take two vials of blood. They then go over everything for tomorrow’s surgery. Bathe using an antibacterial soap, nothing to eat or drink after midnight, the usual run down I had to follow Sunday and Monday night for ny tests and procedures done earlier this week. Then the anesthesiologist comes in and asks me a series of questions about my medications and past experiences with anesthesia in ny past two recent surgical procedures. I tell her I am a hard stick and the past two procedures and PET scan took three pricks each. She then asked me where they successfully stuck me.She said that they would be using lidocane to numb me up before trying to start the IV.

12:35: I am out of the surgery center, and my phone is almost dead from all the blogging.  I have just enough time to run home and grab my laptop.

12:42:  I arrive home and pack my laptop, tell Buster hi, and back out the door.

1:07:  I arrive at the EJGH and am directed to the Cardiology department.

1:15; I arrive at Cardiology, I sign in and wait.

1:20: I go through all the paperwork with billing in cardiology then told to go to another window, give them my paperwork that they just gave me.

1:25:  I check in at the window and told that my appointment is for 1:30.

1:33: I am taken to the back.

1:35: We arrive at the room.  The nurse’s name is Sharon and she will be doing the ultrasound/echocardiogram of my heart with doppler.

She first has me take everything out of my pockets, and anything off of my left side of my belt and loops of my pants as I will be laying on my left side for the imaging.  She then has me lay down on my left on the table.

She then puts the goey stuff on the imaging device and puts it on my chest.  I get to watch everything that is going on, on the screen.  This is not bad at all.  She takes a few images in this position.  This gives her a view of the heart from the front of my chest.

Then she sticks the probe under my left side which is not comfortable but bearable.  She takes a few pics in this position and a few videos including sound and blood flow direction.  She then has me lay on my back.  This next placement is the most painful.  She is pushing down between my ribs with the probe.  It feels like being pushed really hard by a broom stick.  It is not painful, well a little, but mostly uncomfortable.

The last view will look at the heart from the ground up.  She puts the  probe under my last rib and maneuvers it into a position so that it is facing my heart and capturing images from below if I was standing up.  She tells me to take a very deep breath and hold it.  She does this three times.  She said that that should have been the most painful, but that was nothing compared the last two positions.  The last of the images/video require me to do a quick sniffle through my nose to see if an artery moves in a certain way when i do this, and it does.  She has me do this twice quickly.  Then that’s it, the test is over.  She wipes the gooey stuff off of me and then has me put everything back in my pockets and put my shirt on.  She also gave me a souvenir which is a picture of my heart.  I have scanned this pic and will post it soon.  I also took pictures of the bed I laid on, and the keyboard of the machine which looks like a miniature mixing board for editing music and video, which is what she is essentially doing with the pictures, video, and sound of my heart as she is working with it.

2:35:  The visit is over, I check out with the front desk to let them know my exam is over.

2:45:  I am back at the office.  I run payroll, run to the bank, deposit money to cover payroll and payroll taxes and then back to my office.  My mother who just got off herself was stopping by with a smoothie.  I gave her another deposit to be made at another bank which was on her way home since it was already 3:10 and I had to get to my next doctor’s appointment for today.

3:15:  I am back on the road heading back to EJGH.

3:30:  I arrive at EJGH and find a spot to park in the parking garage and walk into my doctor’s office, sign in, and directed tot he back waiting room.

3:51: Still waiting in the back waiting room.

4:10:  I am in patient room 5 again.  I am the big kid sitting in the little chair as seen on my post last week.

4:25: Dr. Jacob has arrived, time to get the check-up.

Dr. Jacob asked me how I was doing, I told him today I was feeling good.  He asked me about all the test I had been having done, and the results.  I told him that I would know the results probably sometime tomorrow.  I needed to call Dr. Brinz’s office to update them about the port placement.  Today has gotten away from me, I will call the office tomorrow after the port has been placed.  We talked about the long tough road ahead of me and that if I had any questions to just ask him, he would tell me the answer and if he told me he didn’t know, he really didn’t know.  He said he would see me in two weeks for another follow up appointment to just check on the progress of how my neck was healing and to check on me with the progression of what was being done to fight the caner.  I said by then I should be on the chemotherapy.

4:45: Dr. Jacob lead me out and told me to schedule my next appointment with Bonnie.  I did, and Bonnie gave me the run down on what to do once the chemotherapy started and I was making appointments with them, to let them know when I got there and they would put me in a patient room right away that way I wouldn’t have to sit around other people with a weakened immune system and possibly catch something that someone has.

4:47:  I saw Suzanne, Dr. Jacob’s wife and talked to her on my way out.  She asked if I went to St. Patrick’s Church often.  I told her no, but my sister does go there often.  It just so happened that my sister asked me to go to church with her that Sunday, and we just so happened to run into each other after mass.  She said she would say a prayer for me, I said I can never get enough prayers, so please keep them coming!  I told her that I would see her again in 2 weeks.

4:50:  I was back in my van, heading out the parking garage.

5:15:  I arrived home.  I showed my dad the pics of my echocardiogram, but he said that he had already seen it online.

6:00:  I update the blog from the time Dr. Jacob arrived in my patient room to the time I got home.

6:15:  My wife arrived home from work.

6:30:  My mom comes from the back from taking a nap.  She said that my brother-in-law, Bishoy,  said to quit depressing him because he is reading my blog.  Hey the blog is another form of distraction for me, leave me alone…

6:35:  I asked my mother if she saw the text that Brian had sent to me.  My mom said that I do need new tires.  I told her that Brian didn’t mean I needed new tires, he meant that I needed a new vehicle, he couldn’t even see the tires from his car when he passed by.

7:10: We were out the door and headed to Phil’s Grill for some dinner my mom, dad, wife, and I.

7:25: We get to Phil’s Grill and its raining, no big deal it’s just water. I order the Bayou Bengal, which is an alligator burger and really good too with a baked potato as my side. Great Food as always and very filling. We talk about tomorrow’s schedule and the upcoming doctor’s visits and thoughts on chemotherapy treatment. Not the greatest dinner convo, but life doesn’t stop and you gotta be prepared for the next thing coming at you.

8:35: We are done eating and back in the rain to the car to head home. I can’t eat or drink anything after midnight and I have to make sure my skin is cleaned with antibacterial soap again and allowed to sit for 2 minutes before rinsing off to make sure there is no risk of anything being on my skin which could cause an infection as a result of the procedure.

9:15: Time to be brave and take the bandage off my back from the bone marrow biopsy on Tuesday. I’ll let you know how that turns out, if I don’t pass out. I hate seeing my own blood and fresh surgical wounds. I can fix myself and my own blood, but not medical things.

9:45: I am done taking the bandage off my back. Not too bad, I have some before and after shots. I then got my stuff together for a bath as not to get the steri strips wet yet because doc said they where holding on pretty good and not to take them off, just let them fall off to ensure the skin has the most time to heal.

10:05: Time to shave first, oh fun..

10:30:  Shaving is no fun, but a new razor always helps.  I won’t be able to shave with a real blade anymore once my chemo starts, this may be my last time using a blade.  They don’t want you to pick at yourself, shave, or do anything that can possibly make you bleed while you are on chemo, one is the risk of infection, two is the possibility that the bleeding won’t stop.  When it comes to chemo, it is important to keep as much blood in you as possible.  Time to jump in the bath and scrub up good for tomorrow…

11:30:  Completely clean all dialed up and bacteria free 😛  I am ready for a good nights rest and wake up tomorrow and get me some Micheal Jackson.  See ya’ll on the flip side…

07/11/2012

8:40: I was awaken by a client calling.  I got up, not too painful, but I still know its there.

8:45: I returned the client’s phone call.  The computer wasn’t acting right, another virus on the computer.  Most of the viruses here come from opening up attachments from emails or clicking links.  Even though there is virus protection, it still gets around it.  I have seen this issue on a number of computer and it doesn’t matter what antivirus is running it still gets around it.  No desktop icons, no start menu.  The only way to get past this is to reboot into safemode, do a system restore to about a month ago, then do my different scans to completely remove the issue.  I started the system restore.

9:00: Another client called about being out of toner.  Luckily I have one in stock that I can deliver.  I will bring that out as soon as I am done with the above issue.

10:00: The system restore is complete.  I then had to update the scanning software on the computer before I could start. This computer is slow and needs to be replaced before the end of the year, but for now it still does its job.  For this reason I was waiting for the blue screen to pull the icons back up.

10:04:  I returned another client’s phone call about a desktop shortcut disappearing on a few computers.  I removed a software folder last night, that 99% contained install files for setting up new computers or reinstalling software on their current machines to make room on a drive that had only 7GB of space left to give them 15GB of space for today because I would be transferring 650GB of data to the new storage array tonight to free up space.  However 1 folder within the software folder was used daily by the local machines, so I added that one Software folder back that they needed which was only a few MBs so that they could get through today.  The Software folders will be complete copied back to their original locations tonight following the transfer of the other data away from the internal hard drives to the storage array.  I added the shortcuts back to the

10:25:  The computer I was working on wasn’t doing anything, but still had that same blue screen on it and the client called me to see if I was done, I asked the client to restart the computer so that I could complete the scans that I was working on to finish cleaning his computer.

10:30:  The computer came back up, I started the scan.  I then quickly updated today.

11:10:  Time to go get dressed for work and head to the office to finish the scan and then head out to deliver the toner.

11:45:  Arrived at the office and been busy every since.  Yesterday was Tuesday, and that’s usual Update Tuesday for Microsoft, so half of my computers were restarted and I had to log back in to start my streaming music from Sweeden, my surveillance cam monitor for my office, my desktop computer, a server for scanning, and the list goes on.  I also pulled the computer up that I was working on earlier, and watched that scan.

12:35:  A client came in and said they had issues with their main phones after Cox came in and added their original fax number ported from AT&T to their office.

12:50:  The computer I was watching finally finished scanning, I looked at what was removed, and removed a few things manually then restarted the computer and the client was back on the machine working.  I will finish up the last part of my scan/clean process tonight after hours.

1:10:  A client called about picking up a laptop, so as soon as she picks up this laptop I’ll head out deposit a check at the bank and then to drop off that toner.

1:15: The client came and picked up the laptop.

1:20:  I talked to a good friend of mine who also has his own computer repair business who’s in house guy just up and left over lunch break and sent an email saying that he wouldn’t be returning.  Could be extra possible work.  Anything extra is good right now…

2:00:  I headed out to uptown to drop of the toner that the client needed.  It was raining pretty bad today and traffic was moving slower than normal on the interstate.

2:30:  I arrived uptown at the office, went up to the 6th floor and put the toner into the fax machine.

3:00: Time to head back to my office, at least this time it is not raining as hard, just if people learned to drive and not break constantly for no reason in the rain, driving would be so much easier.

3:30:  I arrived back at my office, I went up to the third floor and took care of the client’s phone issue.  Cox had come today and hooked up their fax number, and the main number stopped working.  While Cox was there, they accidentally unplugged the power wire from the back of the voip convertor.   I plugged it back in and the phone lines were working again.

3:45:  I was back in my office and returning a phone call about an issue with a program shutting down whenever the client tried to use it.  It required some permission changing, but after a few changes the program started operating correctly.

4:25: I got an email saying that the video convertor threw an error while converting a video.  I will transfer the video to my computer and try to transfer the video to see if it is a possible issue with the video, the convertor, or the computer.

4:40:  The file finished transferring to my computer and I converted the video with no issue.  I will remote into the computers tonight and try transferring the video completely as an administrator on the Windows 7 computers and see if I can do it.

5:00: I started to catch up on billing for last week and this week.  I also had to make some payments on bills for the business.

6:23:  I am heading home, long day, I am exhausted…  Getting a little more tired, nothing stopping me, but the tired feeling is there…

6:40:  I arrive home.  Jambalaya with Turkey Sausage is cooking along with some Salmon.  However my sister’s friend, Alex’s mother is cooking dinner for us tonight.  Some roast, gravy, and rice along with some blueberry muffins.   Oh the food is so good!

8:30: Alex comes over and eats with us, Alex and my sister eat what my parent’s had cooked, the rest of us eat what Alex’s mom had cooked.  This roast was very flavorful and really good!

9:15:  We are done eating, mmm, the food was great!  Now I must finish setting up permissions on the storage array for the client, and copy over the files that are selected to be on the new storage array from the server, freeing up space on the server’s hard drives, and giving us an easier way to keep upgrading the storage by adding hard drives.

10:00:  The files are copying, but I am tired, so I am going to take a nap, and finish this when I wake up, or I am going to just take care of it in the morning when I wake up.  See you soon or tomorrow morning.

07/10/2012

Blah, I am not looking forward to the events of today at all.

8:00: Woke up.

8:15: Updated my blog for this morning and to setup this post to keep you updated on the events of today.

9:00: Left the house with my wife driving me to the hospital.

9:10: Checked in at the front desk for outpatient surgery.

9:20: Finished checking in and walked over to Endoscopy for further instructions and processing.

9:25: The nurse gives me more paperwork to fill out.

9:35: I finish filling out the paper work including all drugs I am taking and cancelling those I no longer take.

9:37: Back in the waiting room until they have a room ready for me.

9:53: Just sitting here waiting makes me sick to my stomach…

10:01: Jamie is distracting me with some Google talk about business plans.

10:15: In the room.

10:25: Changed into my hospital gown.

10:27: Laying in bed now.

10:33: The nurse comes back in and runs through all the questions in the computer and on the papers you filled out.

10:40: Waiting for anesthesia to come start the IV. After getting stuck three times yesterday and three times for my biopsy, I want some lidocane to numb up the area they are going to stick, or should I say attempt to stick.

11:00:  They roll me into the procedure room.  The nurse anesthetists is there and ready to stick me.  He asks me where they have had success sticking me in the past.  I told him that 2 weeks ago they got my left wrist.  I showed him the wound that you could still see from the IV on my left wrist.  He said he would aim for that spot.  He gave me some lidocane, then started to try to get my wrist started.  He was digging around.  He stuck me two times in the wrist, none of which I felt.  He then decided to try my anti-cubical area.  He gave me some more lidocane and tried in my anti-cubical area.  After digging around for about a minute he was finally able to get the IV started.  He hooked me up tot he drip, and I was good to go.  So once again, it took 3 pricks to get what they needed done.  I had three pricks for neck biopsy, three pricks for the PET scan and now three pricks for the bone marrow biopsy.  I guess three is the magic number, but I am not too happy about that number…  I prefer 1!

11:20:  The pathologist comes in and goes over the whole procedure with me.  He explains that I will first be put under complete IV sedation and I’ll be asleep.  My body may feel the pain, but I won’t and won’t remember it if I do.  He will go in through my back which has the least amount of tissue between my skin and the bone.  He said he will numb the skin, the underlying muscle and the bone, about a square inch.  He will then take a scalpel and make a make a 5mm incision in which he will then use a large needle to stick into my bone and take some blood from within my bone.  He will then take a larger needle and stick it into my spongy like bone marrow and take a sample of bone marrow for biopsy purposes.  He asked if I had any questions and I told him I did not.  Then he sat down to sign the paperwork that he had.  I then thought of a question and asked him that Dr. Laura Brinz said that she wanted a bone marrow biopsy of both hips.  The paperwork submitted by Dr. Brinz’s office said unilateral biopsy meaning that only one hip they would take a sample from.  The pathologist said that it was normal for Lymphoma patients to have both hips sampled.  He called Dr. Laura Brinz’s office and spoke with someone who told him yes that I was only supposed to have on hip done, OK, if she wants another one, I guess I’ll be back here next week.

11:30: Anesthesia started.

11:47: I am just waking up.

12:00: I am in recovery.

12:10:  I am given my clothes to get dressed.

12:15:  I am rolled out on a wheel chair to the car.  My mother and sister are picking me up to bring me home.

12:20:  We stop at Wendy’s for some real food.  Well fast food, I haven’t had fast food in a while.

12:30:  We are home, time to eat, FOOD IS GOOD 🙂

12:45:  I am in the lazy boy with a pillow behind me to apply more pressure to my back to make sure no bleeding occurs.  I should check the bandage from time to time to make sure that I am not bleeding and if I am, then I should call a doctor or head in to the emergency room.

1:00: I turn on the TV and watch the Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel about WWI and the trenches and under ground warfare.

1:50:  Time for me to take a nap, I am tired :/

Well so much for trying to nap, could never fall asleep, thinking too much…

4:00:  I got up to go to the bathroom and that’s when the first real pain hit.  I was feeling fine up until now, and when not moving, but getting up to move reminds me of the procedure I just had done.  I took some Hydrocodone that I had left over from my neck biopsy, which I find usually only takes the painful edge off, but doesn’t completely remove the pain, but oh well, what are you going to do…

5:30:  I finally dozed off.

6:30:  My wife woke me up by calling me and letting me know that she was on her way home.

7:00: Rambo II came on AMC, a great movie to watch, just can’t move around too much, still painful.

7:45:  I ordered some Papa John’s Pizza online for everyone.  Tried their new Chicken Parmesan and Buffalo Pizza, they were ok.

8:00:  I started to work on client’s server to add the storage in a storage array that I just added last week.

9:00: Franklin and Bash is on 🙂

I continued to work remotely on server and a computer, prepping them for a few things to finish up tomorrow.

11:59:  Time for bed, another night in the lazy-boy, just easier not to move or my back/hip hurts.  See ya’ll tomorrow!

07/09/2012

6:45: Wake up and take Buster out.

7:15: Get dressed with loose and relaxed fitting clothing for the PET Scan, and also drink 20 oz of water prior to the appointment as per the instructions.

7:45: Left the house for the hospital/Yenni Treatment Center for the PET Scan, my wife is driving me just in case I can’t drive myself home.

8:00: Checked in and filled out all necessary paperwork.

8:15: I was given a berry smoothie to drink for breakfast by the nurse checking me in. It smelled great, just like a blueberry muffin. The taste on the other hand was only a hint of blueberry. It was kinda disgusting and chalky. Not something I would finish I’d didn’t have to. Blah

8:25: The nurse came and got me and took me to the prep room.

8:30: The object here is to take one needle to be used to draw blood and to to administer the radio active solution into my blood. The first stick wasn’t a great stick, on my right anticube, but enough to get some blood for the glucose test which i had a 93 reading. I told him that for the CT scan they used my left anticube. He said that he would try that later if he had to. They pulled it out, got another needle and tried to stick me again on my right forearm, but that didn’t work like he wanted to either. He finally got the needle like he wanted in my left anticube, pulled some blood to pull the air out of the line, and then gave me the radioactive solution and flushed the line with a saline solution and then pulled the needle out. At this point I have 3 red pieces if tape wrapped around me.

8:35: I am told to rest for an hour and not fool with my phone or anything else, just sit there. The nurse puts a blanket over me then pulls up the lazy boy foot rest, and tells me to take a nap. I just sit there and think.

9:35: They take me back to the PET Scan machine and have me lay down and out ny hands over my head. They tell me the scan will take about 25 mins. I go through the whole machine once, and then it takes me all the way out the other side and starts bringing me back in by sections. The sections are about 9 inches per scan and each scan area takes about 2-3 mins. He comes over the speaker ever 4 minutes letting me know how much time is left. You are told not to move at all except to breathe. Not moving is easy in the beginning, but takes some concentration as the time goes on. The scan is very quiet, not much noise at all. Very relaxing. The nurse then came back in and moved the platform I was on down and removed the pads under my knees and helped me up. He then let me take a picture of the 2.5 million dollar machine that I was just in.

He then lead me back to the waiting area where my wife was waiting.

We went back to the car and drove a block to the hospital parking garage for my pulmonary test. ONCE AGAIN PEOPLE CANNOT PARK. There was at least 7 parking spots that were unusable because people take up 2 spots when parking.

10:05: Checked in at patient registrationon the second floor.

10:15: Met with a billing member to check in.

10:20: Done with billing, made our way through the hospital maze to the main elevators, to the third floor, and then through another maze to Pulmonary Diagnostics.

10:30: Checked in with Pulmonary.

10:40: I was taken into the back to begin my round of test. For all the test i would be breathing into a machine. The first test was a simple breathing test, breath in deep and exhale completely. I did this 3 times. Next the chamber door was closed, we had to wait 2 minutes for my body to warm up the chamber so that we could begin the test. I was told to pant and then after some panting the air flow was cutoff to measure my resistance of breathing in and out. After 3 of these test, the chamber was then opened and my next test began. This test was a medium speed test where I would suck in as much air as possible and then blow out as long as possible, and then suck in again. We this test twice. The next test was to breath in and out deeply, then breathe in as quick and as fast and as deep as possible, hold it for 8 seconds, then breathe out quick and when told. Next we moved into another room where the first test was to breathe in as deep and as fast as possible and blow out as fast and as hard as possible, then breathe in again once we couldn’t exhale anymore. This was done 4 times. The final test was having to breathe in and out as hard as possible and as quick as possible like you were hyperventalating. We did this twice and then we were good to go. My wife took the pictures of the tests in action.

11:35: Heading back through the maze down the elevator through another maze and back to the car.

11:40: Back at the car, time to head home.

11:55: Back home after a day of tests. I can eat again. I finish up the bag of chocolate chip cookies ny wife brought home from work last night, changed my clothes, and now time to head back to the office.

12:30: Time to head on back to the office…

12:45: Fill up my van with Gas, great Gas Buddy App for the cheapest gas 😛

1:00:  Meet with a client to finish installing the phone adapter for the fax line for faxing out, all incoming faxes are relayed to email.

1:35: Done with my client, time to head back to the office:

1:45: Back at my office, and time to catch up on some work and billing. I startwd to work on a letter to notify my clients about my situation and that Hands Free Help Technologies would still be providing computer support and services as always throughout my ordeal. I noticed it was almost 3:00 and needed to run to the bank before the end of the business day for transactiona.

2:54: I left the office.

2:56: At Iberia Bank.

3:00: Back at the office. I continued to work on the email.

3:26: I retrieved a call from a client that needed some help with a website and was checking if I was in the office before stopping by.

3:45: My client stopped by. I updated him on my situation and then got down to business. We did a quick face lift by changing the theme to the sight. I will do some more editing tonight by adding the graphic to the front page and adding a contact us page. He will also get some pictures of his product and services in action for better credibility and to be able to better showcase his product rather than the sit being mostly words.

4:30: We were done conversing and planning out the website, so it was time to finish my email. I added the images from today to the blog and then sent the email out.

I received a number of emails expressing prayer and support. All the support and prayers are greatly appreciated as you can never get too much!

5:15: I am headed uptown with a toner for one client and a modem for the other. I talked with both clients giving them updates on my previous results, and that I am not looking forward to tomorrow because of the bone marrow biopsy.

6:30: I am heading back to the house for a real meal, I haven’t had real food since Saturday night with the Super Seafood Pasta. Ny mother had picked up fried chicken from a local grocery in the area that always has good fried chicken and okra, they also have good boudan sausage too.

I got home and just feeling tired, I felt a little tired driving around, but now I am home it is hitting me.

7:30: I get an early bath. I can’t eat any food after midnight.

I just laid in bed working on the computer catching up on some work, I finished up around 12:30 AM.  Time to get some rest, tomorrow is going to be a long day…

07/08/2012

My wife had work for 7AM, and shortly after she left, I had a charlie horse in my right leg.  WOW, I haven’t had one of these in a very long time, painful.  I then was able to get back to sleep after it subsided.  I woke up again around 10:00 and just when I was about to get up another charlie horse attacked.  OUCH!  That one subsided and as soon as I went to move it hit again.  Each one getting more painful than the last 🙁  Wow what a rough start to a morning.

I was then finally able to get up and my youngest sister Sarah wanted me to go to church with her for 11:00, so I went with her.  We went down to St. Patrick’s Church on Camp St. in New Orleans.  Very nice church.  It was kept just a bit chilly as well which I liked.  I told my sister just because I went with her, they had a priest from Nigeria on a mission to get donations for his archdiocese from the United States.  He spoke about 15-20 minutes and I could understand about 7 out of every 10 words he was saying which didn’t make things too interesting.  After mass, as we were walking back to our car, my sister and I heard someone calling my name across the street.  Sure enough it was Dr. Jacob’s and his wife, they had gone to the same mass as well.  We crossed the street and talked to them for a few minutes before departing on the note that I would be seeing him again on Thursday for another check up.

We got back home and ate some chicken pasta and cauliflower in a brown gravy that my mother had cooked while we were out.

I then jumped on the computer and finished up last night’s post real quick and started today’s.  I am now off to working on the room, so that it can be completed tonight.  Since I have a bone marrow biopsy on Tuesday that they are going to enter from my back, I am going to want to have a nice bed to lay in on my stomach and just rest…  So off to the bedroom I go….

I picked up the screws and taped up the box that was holding them since it was falling apart. I then unpacked two boxes which contained my collectible M&M Characters. It was about 2:30, and my wife was just arriving home. She teased me with food that she brought home from work. The PET Scan I am taking tomorrow requires limiting your sugar intake and 24 hours before and fasting 12 hours before. I had just one helping if the pasta earlier and was starting to grow hungry again. She also brought home chocolate chip cookies. I told her great, figures, when i can’t eat the good stuff. I went back to cleaning and had her clear her nightstand and around it. She then dusted the night stand and we were ready to position the nightstand. My dad came back in and finished vacuumming and dusting the walls in the corner where the nightstand used to be. The way we set it up, everything was going to be a tight squeeze, but it could fit. We made it fit but decided it wasn’t feasible. We then moved a dresser across the room which freed up some space in the corner and gave us enough room to comfortably spread the 2 nightstands and bed out.

I then ate 2 scrambled eggs for dinner around 6:15 because i can’t eat anything with sugar really or it will distort the test results tomorrow for the PET Scan. Egg is strictly protein, nothing added to it, but it is food!

At this point I am just feeling tired, and not really feeling up to doing any more, but I know I have to do it all now. I put my work phone back on my nightstand along with my laptop, and my wide does the same to her side.

We then sort through my wife’s collection of shoe’s, pair them, and then arrange them. Next we strip the bed, we have a top layer hotel type padding on the bed that needs to be dry cleaned, so we bag that and put everything else in the washing machine. Since the upcoming chemo will lower my white blood cell count, I have to make sure everything in the room is as clean as can be going into the treatment.

For the most part, the room is now done and rearranged. Just some dirty clothes in a hamper that needs to be washed,and some clean clothes that need to be hung in the closest remain. However, I like the room set up this way.

Time for another bath, which at this point is hard to do because I am so tired, then falling asleep will be so easy tonight. I am going to bed hungry and my stomach is growling non stop, but that’s too bad because I can’t eat anything because of the PET Scan at 8 in the morning. Goodnight

07/07/2012

I woke up at 8:15 and had a text message from a client and friend checking up on me and see how I was feeling.  I updated her on the events of yesterday and the events of the upcoming week.  About 8:45 I then got up and got on the computer to do a few things before my wife left for work so that I could start working on rearranging the bedroom so that I would have easier access getting in and out the bed once I really started feeling bad.  In the mean time may as well get some work done.  I created a new temp website for my client, announcing that he had moved to a new office and the address and contact information for the new office.  A client called me at 10:30 having issues with his laptop not booting.  After some limited remote troubleshooting, I decided it best for the client to bring the laptop into the office.  I met the client at the office and attempted to boot the computer with it starting to log in and then just rebooting itself in a repetitive loop.  I started a chkdsk scan to see if that would fix the issue.  While that was scanning, I decided to fix a folding bluetooth keyboard that I keep in my pocket to use with my phone.  One of the sides that act as a hinge had broke.  I first removed the broken hinge’s plastic dowel and then drilled out the other side so that i could take a miscellaneous small laptop screw and insert it as its new hinge, now the keyboard works great again, and I can use this to update my blog during my chemo treatments since i cannot use my laptop since there is no wifi access at the office.  This woks just as  well, and cheaper than using a wifi card.

I talked to my gaming friend in England and told him about the news.  I then went onto my clan’s website and forum and posted the bad news.  I also included a link to this blog in my post for them to follow my progress as well.  I will be following up with them from time to time, but everything will be posted here on my blog.

The chkdsk found a whole list of issues, but that did not resolve the issue.  I put in the windows CD and did a startup repair, which it could not find any problems but then suggested a Windows Restore from the startup disk, so I did a System Restore, and then the computer booted with no issues.  When rebooting it looks like an update was not allowed to completely install or failed to install, putting the computer into a state in which it would have never started.  I then installed all outstanding updates and about to do a clean scan to make sure that there are no infections on the computer.  So in the process of doing updates the computer starts its rebooting problem again.  So there is a problem with one of the updates.  Ahhh.  I will just have to disable updates for now after doing another system restore.  I just had another client call me up saying they were having the same issue with windows vista after doing updates this morning, I told them I would try to look at that computer on Monday.  Figuring out which update exactly is causing the rebooting issue could take all night, time I don’t have at this time.  The client came to pick up the computer just as I was done doing the restore and it must have picked up an update as soon as the restore process was done because on reboot in front of the client it went into the endless loop again.  I then did a restore while the client waited without any network connection.  Once the computer came up from the restore, I did a second restore to make sure that it was 2 steps before the update causing the issue.  I did two reboots after the final restore booted up with no problems, and was able to get on the computer with no issues.  I made sure that windows updates was disabled to prevent this issue from happening again, and will follow up more with exactly what update is causing this issue later with Microsoft.

I am done here for today.  A long day for a day I didn’t plan on coming into the office.

So much for trying to work on that bedroom today….  I guess I’ll be rearranging the room tonight…

I got home and they were trying to decide where to go out to eat.  We had some time to research the different places online because my wife was still at work and wouldn’t get off for another half hour.  We  finally decided that we were going to go to Sting Ray’s, a nice  seafood restaurant that I don’t ever  remember being to.  While we were waiting i noticed that the Thunder Blanket had arrived for Buster.  He hates thunderstorms, you can tell one is coming because he starts shaking and acting weird before and during any storm.  I had to figure out how to put it on him, which took about 10 minutes, and then once I figured it out, it was actually very simple.  My wife arrived and we were then on our way to eat.

I ordered the Super Seafood Pasta which had crab, oyster, shrimp, and crawfish all mixed in with fettuccine.  MMMM, Food Very Good!  My wife had the Shrimp Feast which consisted of Stuffed Shrimp, Boiled Shrimp, Grilled Shrimp, Fried Shrimp, and Shrimp Etouffe, along with 2 sides.  Sounds like a Forest Gump type of plate!  We all enjoyed our meals, and we will definitely be returning.  Great food for a reasonable price.

By the time we got home it was 8:30.  The bedroom still has not been worked on!!!  First we moved boxes and furniture so that we could more easily access the wall to put the shelf up.  My dad helped me in hanging three supports 32 inches apart for the shelf and make it all level.  Not too tough. Measured 33 inches down from the ceiling screwed the bottom of the shelf bracket in, then followed up with the two screws towards the top of the bracket, making sure each one was level in the process.  We had to disconnect the portable AC in the process to get one of the brackets on the wall right behind it and the exhaust hose.  My wife left to go off at this point, so now it was just my dad and I.  We then put the shelf up on top and screwed down the shelf from underneath the brackets.  I then shifted the 2 pieces of furniture towards the closet, one on which the portable AC for the room sits, and hooked the AC back up and turned it on.  We need the extra room on that wall for the head of the bead.  The next fun part was turning the King sized bed.  I replaced the floor protectors that were on the bottom feet of the bed with the plastic easy slide coasters.  We had enough room to turn it, just had to take things slow because it was a tight fit, and I am not planning on painting any walls anytime soon.  We then got the bed in the proper position and got out the vacuum to clean under the bed.  I was starting to feel a little tired, but my dad wanted to make sure everything was clean before quitting for the night.  I turned on the extra lights and you could see the dust from under the bed and partially on the walls from the remodeling we had done not too long ago.  He first vacuumed the floor, and then took the hose and brush attachment and got all the dust off the walls in the front corner of the room.  We then pushed the bed as far as we could and got the dust and dirt off the floor on the other side.  We then decided that was enough for tonight and called it quits.  When my wife comes home from work tomorrow we will let her move her stuff around, so as not to get yelled at…  The joys of being married.  When it comes time to do something, it is easier to let your wife move her things for two reasons, you don’t want to break anything that is hers, and if you move something, you better be able to identify where exactly you put it just by her giving you a description.  I am not playing charades here, I will just wait to she comes home and let her move her things and make everything flow a lot smoother.

Off to another nice warm bath, looks like I will shave my head and face tonight.  I have been trying to avoid getting the then stitches, and now sterri strips wet as I want that wound to stay closed as the doctor said its only about 6% healed and if I hit it just right, I could pop the whole incision back open, NO THANKS!

07/06/2012

9:22 I Woke Up after a good deep sleep.

9:31 Left the house.  My wife and mother are accompanying me on this trip so they can ask all the questions to the doctor that they want.  About a quarter of the way there, I realize that I forgot the pathology report at the house.  I told them to just drop me off so that I could get the new patient paperwork started and they could run back and get it, and then get back before I was even done filling out the new patient packet.

9:43 I got to Dr. Laura Brinz’s office and found out that I had to walk around the buildings and walk in through the courtyard, no big deal, the courtyard gives it a nicer feel.  Walking in the door here is where it kind of hits of you of the battle you are about to partake in.  Past the waiting room area is a large room with about 20 large reclining chairs.  In these chairs are about 10 people sitting, with 3 people with IVs dripping their dose of poison, I mean chemo.  Don’t worry, that’ll be me in a week or two.  I open up my laptop, oh no, NO INTERNET!  How am I supposed to live blog, how am I supposed to distract myself, how am I supposed to send and receive emails, GONE, ALL GONE!  Hmm, I got paperwork to keep me busy this time around, but I am definitely going to have to fix this before my chemo starts.

9:50 I received the new patient paperwork, and I started filling it out.  Simple normal stuff, breezing right through it.  My wife and my mother got there while I was half way through the packet.  I wasn’t don’t the packet when the nurse running the front desk decided that instead of calling my name and having me get up to see her or walking around to see me, gave my insurance card and driver’s license to another patient to give to me.  VERY UNPROFESSIONAL.  That just set off alarms in my head.  I was irked, but finished filling out the packet.  I got the last 4 pages and it was an Affirmative about what to do in the case that the doctor saw that no more treatment would help me.  WOW what another wake up call.  REALLY?  I was reading this for me saying that if I my outlook was bleak enough that I could possibly die in the next 6 months to withhold all treatment, but just make my bare needs were met and that I was comfortable, or the other choice was to give all support to keep me alive even in whatever grave condition I may be in.  WOW, no way am I reading something that will determine how I want to die.  This right here is just saying if you want to give up, we will allow you to give up.  COME ON.  I don’t want to give up, never will, that’s why I am coming here.  What a SLAP in the face, especially at my age before being staged or knowing to what extent the cancer has made it.  Whatever, I blew off those pages and just told the nurse if I ever had to contemplate that, I would do it then, not now.  She said that was fine, and it was just standard operating protocol for them to offer their patients the chance of filling out their options then.

10:10 We were lead to the back where I was weighed, blood pressure taken, pulse taken.  We were then told that the doctor would be with us shortly that she was in the hospital making her rounds with patients.

10:30 The doctor came in and apologized for being late.  She said that while in the hospital she had accidentally discharged the wrong patient as she was learning the new computer system at the hospital as well.  She went over with the nurse there and told her to fix it so that she could leave, and then just left and returned to her office and then walked in to the patient room.  She assumed I was Craig since I was the only male in the room…  She then went over my whole history of how it came about that I was in her office today, so I started off with being sick in February (the beginning of this blog) and continue through to today.  She then examined me and felt all my nodes.  She said that from what she felt she had an idea of the stage, but that would not be confirmed until I had the PET scan because then she would get a full body image with the cancer regions lighting up.  She did tell me that her goal was to CURE this.  She said that this cancer make them look good as it has the best reactions to treatment.  After the examination, she asked me if there was any questions, I went over a few things that I had discovered by reading everything online, and she confirmed most of it.  My mother had a ton of questions to being a normal, upset, caring, loving, overreacting mother, but isn’t that her job, to worry, and what she is supposed to do? (Someone remind me to give her a bonus next mother’s day).

11:00 We were back in the waiting room, and the nurses scheduled a pulmonary test for Monday after my PET scan, a Bone Marrow Biopsy for Tuesday, a General Surgeon appointment for Thursday for port placement and surgery scheduling, and a Echocardiogram for Thursday.  Next week is going to be a very busy week.

11:30 We are finally leaving the Doctor’s office, we head over to Houston’s for lunch.  We have Chicago-Style Spinach & Artichoke Dip for an appetizer and then I had a Chicken Club Salad which was very good!  Food Good!  We then return home, and I get my things and get ready to head back over to the office.

I get in the van, and realize I need to deposit two checks that I have sitting in the van from the previous night that I had put in the bank pouch before heading over to my clients the night before.  I go to the bank’s drive through, and then to the office.  When I get to the office, I scan all the documents that I have from my biopsy and the pathology reports and upload them all to google drive for safe keeping.  I then begin working on a few things for work and before I know it it is 3:30 PM and my client is at the office with his old desktop computer to transfer all his documents and web passwords from his old computer to his new computer.  The documents transferred over with no issues.  He didn’t give me the right password for the antivirus safe and that took a little while to figure out, then he remembered it and I transferred all the password information over.  The next problem I ran into was installing adobe reader.  For some reason I kept getting a script error everytime I would go install it.  I did a good bit of troubleshooting too and could never get past the script error.  I then found a Microsoft fix it tool to fix problems with installing programs.  I ran this and it found a few corrupted registry entries that it fixed, but I also found the full download for adobe reader and downloaded that.  I restarted the computer and installed the full install.  During this time, my partner, Jamie, arrived at the office. Jamie got to meet this client who is also open to another business venture, so while I finished up the computer, they talked about the necessary steps needed to start that venture in the next few months.  Once I was done with the computer, I brought up both the old and new computers to the front desk.  Once we were done conversing, I asked him if he wanted any help bringing the computers down to his car.  He said no, he had it, and then he took both computers, one under each arm like they were just small books he was carrying and left with no problems swinging the door open and heading down the hall.

My partner and I caught up on a few things with everything I have scheduled for next week and him wanting to be prepared to take the load off of me when I needed him to when I start not feeling up to working as much as I work now.  We discussed a few things, and then he showed me his new climbing equipment.  He was telling me that he had to go climb a water tower tomorrow to adjust a radio antenna’s direction.  All this was very cool.  Something I want to look forward to once I get over this, possibly next summer I can go take the safety classes needed to climb some towers.  Why not?  Give me something to look forward to!

8:25 I am leaving my office to head on home.  The family is hungry and wants to eat.  I get home and they are wound up in their Bones episode and by the time its over, no one feels like going out to eat.  So its some turkey burgers and hot dogs left over from July 4th. YUMMY, I am easy to please 😉  It just so happens that the Matrix is on TV too, something else to eat up a little more time.  I then go on my computer and continue some work I was working on yesterday.  I then made all my appointments on my calendar that I received today for next week.  I then needed to catch up on today’s happenings, so here I am typing away catching you up.  Just about to go relax in a nice warm bath.  Feeling a little tired, but just a long day, fun fun… Tomorrow is another day, update you then!

07/05/2012

I woke up at 9:00 AM and checked and answered text messages and emails.  I ate a tuna salad sandwich for breakfast and then got on my computer.  I then received a phone call from a doctor’s office saying that their modem used to transmit insurance claims was no longer working properly on multiple vendors when transmitting claims.  I ordered a replacement modem, woke up my wife, and then got dressed for the doctor’s appointment.  We left the house at 10:25 and got to the hospital for 10:37.  If people would learn how to properly park in between the lines in the parking garages everything would flow with no problem.  I saw at least 10 parking spots today unusable because people were taking up 2 parking spaces to park their car.  A lot of people didn’t even have new cars, people just don’t know how to drive and park the vehicles they drive.  Me, I always make sure I am in between the lines just right before leaving my car parked.  I finally found a spot where the person had parked on the line.  I just squeezed my van into the spot and got out.  Yeah my van door did hit their car when I opened it, but that’s not my problem.  For those of you who have seen my van, not much damage can be done to it from scratches or nicks in the paint job, so doesn’t really matter to me how I get in and out my car, as long as I am in the right and in between the two yellow lines when I park, all else is fair game.

10:43: I checked in to the doctor’s office and waited in the back patient room area.

11:36: I was brought to patient room 5, asked the reason for my visit, which I replied to have my stitches taken out and then had my blood pressure taken.  The picture of me there to the right, in the patient room, in the chair doesn’t do me any justice.  I think I look like a big kid.  My wife joked to me saying that I took up almost the whole screen when she was taking the picture.  I filled up that chair pretty well as you can see.  I look goofy in that pic, but oh well, there, I am, that’s me!

11:45:  The doc saw me and looked at the stitches and said everything was healing nicely.  He asked me if I have seen the oncologist yet, and I told him that I was seeing Dr. Brinz tomorrow at 9:45.  I told him that the other Doctor was not available to Thursday, and therefore I wanted to move things quicker and made an appointment with the doctor he recommended Dr. Brinz.  He said that his nurse would be taking the stitches out and applying steri strips to the area, and then he left off onto his next patient.

11:50:  The nurse came in, cut the stitch in multiple places with a scissors and then used a tweezers to pull the stitch out of my skin.  She then cleaned the area, and applied some adhesive and then layed the steri strips onto the area.

11:55:  The steri strip process was complete, and now I am waiting for the Doctor to come back and check everything out.

12:03:  The doc came back in and checked the steri strip placement, and went over the results of the biopsy in person.  He also said that I would get paper copy of the results when I checked out which I will post up later today.  He said that he wanted to see me back in a week to check on the progress of the wound healing.

12:10:  I checked out with Ms. Bonnie and she gave me my paper copies along with an appointment for next Thursday at 3:30PM

12:15:  My wife and I talked with Mrs. Suzanne, Dr. Jacob’s wife for a few minutes and then left the office to return home.  My wife has a meeting at work, and I have 3 or 4 appointments with clients this afternoon.

12:25: Back at the van in the parking garage, the car that was over the line had left, and a new properly parked car was in its spot.

12:35:  I arrive at home and start to update this post with pictures, and my battery on my laptop runs out, so I move over to my desk computer.

12:50:  My wife get’s ice out of the ice maker, and brings it to me saying that, I am not sure if the ice is supposed to be like this, I looked at it, and it had a brown tint to it.  I looked at it and said that is weird, and then thought and said, I bet someone left a coke can in the freezer and it exploded again.  Then I told my wife to just empty the ice maker and clean it out.  She couldn’t figure out how to get the ice maker apart, so I went and looked at it.  In the ice I found a crushed coke can that had been pulled down by the teeth of the rotary dial used to shift the ice to the front of the ice maker to be pushed out into the cup.  I then asked her what she was thinking, why would you put a coke can into the ice maker and then try to use the ice maker to get ice out.  Common sense says that the coke can should be taken out before trying to dispense ice out of the ice maker.  This could lead to quite a catastrophic event.  The freezer had to be wiped out, the shoot had to be cleaned, the ice tray was full of coke syrup, everything was just a mess.  I took the easy way out and turned on the hot water and sprayed out the ice maker while she wiped down the inside of the fridge, the ice shoot, and the water tray below the ice dispenser which was all brown.  The ice maker now is completely clean, and empty 🙁 No Ice! I told her I am putting this in my blog, she would make my blog one way or another.  She said that she forgot that she had just put the can in there 5 minutes before, and she said that she would never do it again, let’s see how long it takes for her to forget that this ever happened, I bet there is a coke can in there tonight or tomorrow.

1:25:  Back on my way to the office!

1:50:  Back in the office.  Putting checks into the system to go to the bank, and then stopping by two client offices to check on things before heading back to my office.

2:40:  Stopped at Iberia Bank

2:50: Stopped at Whitney Bank

3:00: Stopped at my new lawyer client, no phone adapter yet, but obtained a domain name for the client and will setup the website tonight.

3:30: Stopped by my second client and accountant.  The paperwork she signed for me so not much to do here, but explained the biopsy results and what was to come next.

4:00: I got back to the office, and deposited a few checks via my phone that I had been holding for myself from my company until I had funds available in the company account to deposit them.  One of the joys of being a business owner, everything and everyone else comes first, you are taken care of last, but that’s life right?

I returned a phone call to the Doctor who had called me, and they had figured out the issue with the modem and not being able to transfer claims.  The phone line for the fax machine was the same phone line that they were using to submit the claims.  It just so happen today that all of the faxes they were trying to transmit today were failing because the claims were trying to transfer all day as well.  They called up the manufacturer of the fax machine, changed a setting, and then they were able to fax and once all the faxes were sent out, they were able to submit claims again.  So that problem is resolved, but they will get the modem I ordered earlier today as a backup modem to keep on hand.

I then scheduled a storage array additional install to a server for 6:00 PM, and followed up a few more emails about another desktop upgrade that I had to do for another client.

Now its time to make a mailing list for all my clients so that I can deliver the news of the results of the biopsy and to also alert everyone of this blog so that they can follow my progress.  Answering the same questions over and over does get a little tiresome.

5:49:  I am leaving the office and off to do the storage array install.  I will get to the mailing list later tonight!

6:10: I arrived at my destination and moved the storage array from the back area to the server closet.  I started the shutdown process on the server while I unpacked the unit from its box along with its power cables, data cables, and the card to put into the server.  I then put the unit on its side next to the server as there was no real other good place for it.  I then connected the data cables from the storage array to the server and also connected the power cables from the storage array to the UPS.  I then powered up the Storage array and powered up the server again.  Dell’s website is where I wondered to next to download the latest OpenManager for that server so that I could configure the drives inside the storage array.  I let this start downloading and then focused my attention on the laptop that I started working on on Friday because I had lost connection to it and hadn’t been able to connect back to it since.  I removed my remote software from the computer and reinstalled it which gave me remote access again.  I then did a scan on it while I was there in person which detected a lot of adware and other items to be removed.  The laptop I noticed was also running real hot.  I took a can of compressed air and blew out the cpu vent area and a small cloud of dust came out of the laptop, which explains why it was running so hot.  I then rebooted the computer and it was back to running normal except no antivirus, I would install antivirus later tonight remotely when I connected back into the server.  The server was hooked to the storage array and the laptop was accessible again, so it was time to head home for supper.

8:10:  I was back in my van heading towards the Coke-Cola plant, this is where I got my time reading from.

8:25: I was home, and my mother and father had cooked a great meal of broccoli, cauliflower, tomato sauce and catfish in the oven in one pan and okra, cauliflower, tomato sauce and catfish in another pan, along with some pan fried shrimp and Kraft mac and cheese.  You know me!  Food is GOOD!  So this healthy variety of food was very appealing to the taste buds and hit the spot.

I then remoted into the server and the laptops I was working on earlier to finish up this work.  Sounds simple enough, just tedious troubleshooting.

07/04/2012

I went to bed around 3:30 this morning, just researching the ABVD chemotherapy treatment routine along with the possible side effects.

I woke up at 9:30, and made sure that my wife was up since she had work at 11:00.  My mother had cooked some Cinnamon rolls, mmm, food is good!  LOL  I watched her and my dad cut up different ingredients to throw in the pasta salad that we would be bringing to my sisters house.  We are leaving here at 11:30 to get there for 12:30.  My wife left at 10:45 and got to work for 10:55.  I just jumped on the computer to add today’s date and give a quick list of nothing I have done today, LOL.  I’ll catch you in a little bit.

During the drive to my sister’s house, I worked on my rubric cube solving skills again, it’s been a while since I have completely solved one of these, and I may as well pick up some practice again to give me something else to do during my chemo treatments as well.  On the left is a picture I took over my shoulder of buster chilling in the back seat on the way to my sister’s house.  We also had a person on the road who did not know how to drive and didn’t know what it meant to drive in the right hand lane and use the left hand lane for passing only!  This driver was creating a dangerous situation by people attempting to speed up past him in the right lane and squeeze between him and the slower moving cars in the right hand lane.  We passed up the many signs that said KEEP RIGHT, LEFT LANE FOR PASSING ONLY – STATE LAW.  This idiot was the prime example of why you should not drive in the left hand lane.  Not only was he creating a dangerous situation but he was also holding up 20 cars behind him at one time because of his inability to drive in the right hand lane and just coast in the left hand lane next to other cars without passing them up.  These cars were also becoming dangerous to stay within distance of because of there attempts to weave in and out of each other trying to get by, but always being held up by the left land driver.

We got to my sister’s house and the cooking began.  Between the watching the cooking and TV, I watched my sister get in between her two dogs, Angel and Sara, rough housing with Buster.  Buster is about half the size of the other two dogs, who were used to playing together already.  They would tag team Buster and Buster was usually on his back on the floor trying to defend himself because they could just put their paw on top of him and push him down.  However, he was happy to have the extra attention and company.  All the dogs took part in time out in the cages for getting too rough, but for the most part they got along just fine.  Buster will sleep good tonight, that is the most exercise he has gotten in a very long time.  There were turkey hot dogs and turkey burgers for me, and any other healthier conscious people, like my sister Katie, along with some chicken and some regular hamburgers and hot dogs for the family.  My dad cooked the food great as always on the pit.  It was then time to eat, food is served!

After I was finished eating, I felt a little more tired than normal.  Not sure if it was all that food, or how late I stayed up, or all that turkey or what.  Oh well, I have to get some pics on here, so here I am, fighting the urge to go to sleep to update this post.  I will add a few more pics and then fall asleep on the second floor over looking my sister’s TV watching the Band of Brother’s.

I just woke up from my nap and it’s 5:00 PM and they are ready to leave!  I gotta go catch up with them, give you any interesting facts about the ride home when I get there…

Nothing too interesting about the ride home.  I solved the rubric’s cube two more times, picking up a little more speed with each solve.  I heard of some people thinking a little more slow when on Chemo, getting what they call Chemo Brain, so this will be one way to keep my brain working and sharp.  Buster was happy to get home.  He ran to his bed, and just plopped down, he slept on the way home, and I don’t blame him for trying to sleep some more after all that playing he did today.  My wife then came home from work and told me all about it.  She rested for a bit, while I updated this blog and also did some more research on what was coming up for me.

I then watched undercover boss, the episode of the MGM Casino COO, which was pretty interesting.  It was something different that I haven’t watched in a long time, just because I haven’t just sat in front the TV in a long time and just watched TV.

I then took another hot bath to relax and did some more research.  Supposedly taking hot baths can also help with the Lymphoma too, not 100% proven, but they say it can help with the flow of the lymph system and also hotter temperatures can kill cancer cells.  I know, this is not 100% medically proven, but warm bath’s can be relaxing.  I’ll be glad to get my stitches out tomorrow and back to quicker showers, but who knows, if the hot bath’s really benefit, then I may be looking at many more of these.

Time to hit the lazy-boy and go to sleep.  Goodnight!

07/03/2012 7:15 PM

THE WORD IS IN!  The doctor called saying that he had good/bad news.  The doctor calling is my Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor, Dr. Jacob’s.  He said that the bad news is that I have Lymphoma.  The good news is that I have Nodular Sclerosis Hodgkin’s Lyphoma, and it is one of the most common and treatable Lyphoma’s.  He said that he was sorry to say that I have Lymphoma, but there was a positive side to the type it was.  He told me that when he started practicing medicine in 1974, this was a death sentence.  However, now in 2012, it is one of the most treatable cancer’s and technology and medicine has come a long way.  He asked if I had my appointment with Dr. Brinz, but I told him that that appointment was set for this upcoming Friday, with a possible PET scan set for Monday if there were no cancellations on Thursday or Friday.  He told me that no matter what oncologist I picked, I should be fine with this form of Lymphoma.  Just make sure I am comfortable with whoever I go with as they will be one who I will be in much contact with over the next several months to treat and fight this cancer.  He said that he would be there for me through the whole thing unless I wanted to release him and move on to someone else.  I told him that I had been with him since I was a baby, being that he took out my tonsils when I was 6 years old, and seeing me as a patient long before then.  I told him I have been with him since he could throw me on the operating table himself.  I also told him that I knew that he couldn’t throw me on the operating table or take me off the operating table this time around because I am probably 200 pounds heavier now than I was then.  He said that was right, he has known me since I was very little, and another reason why he is glad that he can tell me the bad but good news seeing that it could be much worse.  He said that his wife said that I must telephone my mother and tell her the results, as they all know my mother is worried sick about me, and to be sure to tell my wife as well.  Well since I am home with my parent’s and my mother was the one who originally answered the house phone, my mother already knew that he called and was overhearing the conversation as it went on.  My wife on the other hand was at a coffee shop, and I google talked her the bad but good news.

07/03/2012

I woke up at 9:00AM and had a tuna salad sandwich for breakfast and took my medications.  I then got dressed and headed outside.  I saw that the garbage men had come and decided I needed to take in the garbage cans.  I stacked them up and carried them up the driveway.  However, the simplest things of picking up garbage cans and carrying them 50-75 feet can alert you that something is wrong.  Usually I have no issues bringing in the cans, but I can feel myself exerting extra effort carrying the cans up the driveway.  It is the little things that remind you that something is wrong.  I then get in my van and head to the office stopping at the bank first to deposit additional payroll withholding taxes.  I arrived at the office and caught up on some more administrative task and ran the invoicing for the previous days work.  I received a call from Dr. Brinz’s office the oncologist, and they said that my PET scan was scheduled for 8:00 Monday morning.  They said that the office visit was still on schedule for 9:45 Friday evening, but since Wednesday was the July 4th, holiday, the PET scan could not be scheduled any earlier, if there were any cancellations this week, then I will take their appointment.  During this conversation my wife google talked me saying that the doctor’s office had called the house and that she gave them my office number to reach me at.  Google Talk, another powerful IM tool reaching across both the cell phones and computers.  I then went into the back office and cleared off a table that had a number of shipping boxes on it.  I stacked the boxes for my wife to go through later and then to be put out to the trash.  I then checked the bank accounts and created the rent check for this month’s rent for Hands Free Help Technologies, and I brought it upstairs to the Building Management Office.  I came back to my office and changed a few settings on the phone service that I had setup yesterday, and called and checked about that.  The client wasn’t in, so I sent two test faxes and saw them show up on the web interface, so the client was now setup properly as far as the phone number designations, just have to wait to the adapter other adapter comes in to finish up those details on Thursday.  My accountant for end of the year taxes called me up following up with 1099’s and W-9’s for 2011.  I will also be stopping by her office on Thursdsay to sign those forms that she had created.  The lawyer from yesterday called me back and we squared away a few things with the phone service, and I made sure he was getting all of his notifications via email from the phone service as well, which he was.  Another client then called me up who has been wanting to meet with me for an hour or two to see how my schedule was this evening.  I told him that I would be available for about an hour and a half to two hours and if he wanted to come over we could attempt to complete the work that he wanted to get done.  He got there at 5:00 PM, and we started to work on what he needed done.  We found out that somethings were not setup right and I corrected a few things that would let him continue working on the project on his own for now.  It was about 6:30 PM when I left and it was storming outside.  My sister called me on the way home and wanted to know if I was going to her house in Prarieville for July 4th.  I told her that I would go, just I didn’t want any red meat, I would take turkey burgers and chicken.  My wife has to work tomorrow from 11-6, so we will be at my sister’s between 12:30 and 5:30PM.  When I got home, my sister had cooked some broccoli and cheese and some chicken jambalaya.  Again food is good!  Yummy!

I then got a phone call from my ear nose and throat doctor which can be read about here.

BIOPSY RESULTS: NODULAR SCLEROSIS HODGKIN’S LYMPHOMA

After the news, I went and researched some of the treatments for Nodular Sclerosis Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and found a blog of someone who had actually included everything from getting a port placed in his chest for the chemotherapy, to a live blog of the process of his chemotherapy days.  He got into some details, but I it was a good basis for something that I want to do myself.  I am planning on having my laptop with me during my therapy’s and entering in information as it happens for others to read, but also for future chemotherapy patients to help them get a better understanding of what to expect during the treatments.

I then went and watched my Franklin and Bash Program on TV and fell asleep here and there while watching it, I was just tired.

A nice strawberry, blueberry, and banana smoothie which my mom had made was next on my list of yummy things today as its high in antioxidants which is what I have been trying to get a lot of lately.

I then made my wife some kraft mac and cheese since she was hungry 🙂

I then updated this post and added my biopsy results post.  Now it is time for me to go get a warm bath to relax me and then on the lazy-boy for some rest.  I can’t wait to get these stitches out and able to lay in bed again.  I know I am being over cautious about not sleeping in bed with the stitches, but I would rather be safe than sorry.  I’ll be happy once I can lay next to my wife again in bed on one side, and Buster on the other.  Ok, Ok, so maybe Buster is the real reason I am not laying in bed yet with the stitches.  Sometimes he can scratch at night and I don’t want any of his claws catching one of my stitches, which I am sure would make a very painful awakening.

Goodnight!

I woke up and shaved since I hadn’t shaved since the biopsy.  Dry shaving can be a little painful, I wised up as I wanted to speed up and added some shaving gel to the mix.  Once I was done shaving into my work clothes with a collared shirt that was open that would not rub against my neck and stitches.

I received a call from my Internist office stating that the oncologist, Dr. Thomas Cosgrif was off on Friday, he was also off today, Monday, Tuesday, and of course the July 4th holiday, on Wednesday.  I decided that I would call another oncologist to see if I could get an earlier appointment than having to wait all the way to next Thursday just to see him, not include waiting to start treatment.  I called Dr. Laura Brinz’s office and asked when I could make an appointment as a new patient.  The first question they asked me was what insurance I had, I told them Blue Cross and Blue Shield HMO.  She said that they must ask that before any additional questioning and answers.  She then said that the first available appointment was Monday at 4:30, but there was a possibility that the Dr. was going to come in on her day off on Friday to make up for Wednesday.  She asked me who had referred me, and I told her that Dr. Jacob’s had mentioned her as a great Doctor with plenty of faith.  Faith never hurts in such situations!  The nurse said that she would call me back if the Doctor was going to have office hours on Friday once she found out.  If not we would schedule the Monday appointment.  I told her that was fine and gave her my info.  She then instructed me to call Dr. Jacob’s office and Dr. Yager’s office and have them fax over the results of the XRay since it was not done at EJGH.  She said that everything else they should be able to pull up in the computer system.  I called up my Internist’s office and had them fax all my information and documents over to Dr. Brinz’s office.

I then returned a client’s phone call that I had missed.  The client was wondering on the status of a storage array install, I said that we had scheduled it last week for this upcoming Thursday or Friday, and that I would forward her the emails on the storage array install schedule.  I then put together my laptop computer, put on my shoes, and headed over to the office.

When I got to the office, I put together the checks that had to go to the bank to transfer funds from one account to another for payroll taxes and the upcoming rent that was due.  I then emailed out all the monthly statements that I had run the night before.  I also prepped for going to install a new VOIP to analog phone adapter and setup a printer/copier/scanner for a new client moving into a new office at an existing client’s office.  I packed the van with my laptop, toolbag, printer, toner, and wire and headed out.  I deposited the checks at the bank and then continued onto the new office to do the work.

I arrived at the office that I had to do the work at, and I unpacked the van, putting the printer, laptop, toolbag, toner and wire on the hand truck.  I pulled the hand truck up the 5 stairs and into the office.  I then went to work.  The VOIP phone provider only had sent one phone adapter, so I had to call up the phone provider and explain to them that we wanted 2 phone adapters that way we could have 4 concurrent calls at one time on 2 different numbers.  To save the time and physical expense from having to setup an entire phone system, we simply used a VOIP to Analog adapter.  I then put this phone adapter into the closet and attempted to test it out, however the cisco switch that I was plugging it into had portfast disabled.  I had to log into the switch and configure it for portfast so that the connection would be established as soon as the wire was connected and not be delayed for 20 seconds while the switch checked to see if there were any loopbacks present on the new connection.  Once the VOIP adapter was working, I then used a piece of velcro to mount the adapter to the wall since it did not have any mounting holes.  I then ran 2 network cables from the switch down tot he adapter on the wall for network connectivity.  I then ran 2 wires from the patch panel to the telephone punch panel for putting the phone line on multiple phones.   It was during just running these wires I felt hot and sweating a little more than usual.  I also felt a little weak, but not enough to stop me.  After all, all I am doing is putting ends on wires and punching down 12 wires on a 66 block.  However, this did make me aware of my limits of what I could expect to do the remaining of the week, but I’ll take each day, day by day.  My sister texted me about this time, asking me what I was up to.  I was working, she replied to me, always finding something to keep me busy, well that’s just who I am.  I am doing OK, starting to hit a wall, but not too bad just yet, but back to the work and what I was doing.  I then patched the phone adapter to the telephone punch panel and added the metal connection clips and the 2 lines on both of the phones in the office now worked for dialing in and dialing out.  I then unpacked the printer, and took off the 25 pieces of blue take they had all over the printer.  I then plugged in the printer and it was ready to be used as ac copier/fax.  The added functionality of a scanner/printer can be added once the office is completely setup.  I attempted to fix an issue with the computer, but could not get the voicemails to play through the website because of a problem with Silverlight continuing to crash.  I will have to do this later.

During all this, my cell phone had rang, and since I was done setting up everything, and it was a little after 3:30.  I decided to return the phone call since it was the nurse saying that the Doctor would be working on Friday so that she could see me.  I used the new phone system to make the out going call to test out the quality.  My appointment was for Friday at 9:45 AM.  She just needed to know my height and weight so that she could order the PET scan to stage the Lymphoma.  She faxed the paperwork to the insurance company for approval while we were on the phone, and told me that she would call me back with the date and time of the PET scan once she received the approval and setup the scan with the appropriate people.  The quality of the phone was great with no issues.

I then went and talked with my client in the building I was working in and explained in greater details about my situation and what was upcoming depending on the outcome of the biopsy.  She wished me the best of luck, and wouldn’t know what they would do without me.  I told her that I am not a quitter, I am not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.  My plans are to overcome this obstacle and continue on providing my greatest possible level of service as always.  I then got my hand truck, toolbag, laptop and wire and packed up my van and headed back to the office.

I arrived at the office, and I brought all the items up my office and started following up entering into the computer everything that I had done today at the client’s office along with everything I had done over the past few days for client’s while I was out of the office for billing purposes.

My parent’s then stopped by with a Pomegranate Smoothie from Smoothie King.  I invited them back into the office to show the the portable ice maker that my Business partner had gotten as part of a Hurricane survival plan, that is if another Hurricane like Katrina was coming our way, we were not going to leave, but stay, and that would provide us with ice, as we already had a water filtration system and plenty of bottled water to last a few weeks, which is more than enough time for a baseline recovery as seen from Katrina.  The reason I showed my parent’s the portable ice maker because on days that I am not feeling hungry from the chemotherapy, I may be able to drink smoothies and such, and smoothies take plenty of ice.  During the middle of the summer the icemaker in the freezer at home cannot keep up with general icing drink needs along with the greater amount of ice for smoothies, so this was to show them what we would need to supply the demand for ice without having to run out to buy extra ice.  My parents left and I finished up the admin work.

I then put 4GB into a desktop I had in the back and emailed the client the invoice for the RAM and to let them know that they could pick up the computer tomorrow.  It was then time to head home.

When I got home, I ate a homeade salad with mushrooms my dad had cooked and some chicken from the weekend.  I then plugged in my laptop computer and caught up on yesterday’s update, and wrote about my events for today.  It’s only 9:15, but I am not planning on staying up late tonight, I’ll watch some more TV, get a bath, and then go to sleep on the lazy-boy.

07/01/2012

I took the day pretty easy.  As always checked messages and emails on my phone.  My wife had work for 11:00 AM, so she took off at 10:30.  I ate a chicken and tuna salad sandwich and took my medications.  I then watched some Pirate’s of the Caribbean, and just took the day easy.  I did some more research on the computer, and went outside and sat in the sun for about 20 minutes.  While out in the sun, I also played with Buster, my dog, throwing him a Mardi Gras cup, which he would go run after and bring back.  He likes to chew things, so he has destroyed a few smaller balls and Frisbees, so until i can get him to stop chewing, its cheap free Mardi Gras cups for him to destroy for now.  I then came back inside, got some drink for myself and some fresh Ice Water for Buster.  My Aunt Rosie and Uncle Frank stopped by and gave me some family support and encouraging words.  After they left I dug into the wonderful gift they brought me. FOOD!  Yes, you know me, food is always a good thing!  Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Corn Grits, and Very Moist and Juicy Turkey.  I had my share of food :).  I then decided to take it easy and get a bath to use my phone to research more chemotherapy information so I know what more to expect.  I did a good bit more research.  I then got back in the lazy-boy, and got on my computer and installed some software for a client.  My wife by this time was home and was hungry, so i sat with her while she ate some of the food from earlier.  I then sat back in the lazy-boy and another Pirates of the Caribbean was on.  I fell asleep watching TV this time around.

06/30/2011

I woke up around 6:30 to go to the bathroom, and then checked my phone for messages which there was none.  My father gave me some apple juice as he was up and about to head out for his normal Saturday morning routine of cleaning out my Grandmother’s house.  I went back to sleep and woke up again around 9:45.  My wife was going off with my mother for repairs to my wife’s car.  I got up and ate a egg/potato omelet that my Aunt Estella had brought over Thursday night.  My sister then came home and talked about a few things, and then she insisted that we play some chess.  My father got my chess set out from the backroom that hadn’t been touched in over 15 years.  I beat my sister in 2 rounds of chess and then played and beat my dad in two rounds of chess which was the end of the chess for today.  I then sat back in the lazy-boy and watched some History Channel on WWII.  I also checked my phone for emails and messages which I had none.  My wife then came home and fixed me a tuna salad sandwich and a chicken salad sandwich.  Both of which were very food, again food is always good 🙂  I then opened up the chess set again and started to teach my wife how to play chess.  We played two games and then my parents called and wanted to go out to eat.  We have been eating out a lot more lately ever since my situation was brought to light.  We headed over to Smilie’s and I had Augie’s Special Salad.  It was a great spinach salad with shrimp and chicken.  I have been eating a lot more healthier lately as well.  I would normally be eating steaks, hamburger’s, red meat, all cooked medium rare.  Now I am mainly eating greens, chicken and fish.  Good food taste great too!  We returned home and my mother and my wife went to pick up her car that was being worked on at Aunt Estella’s house by a friend of hers.  My dad and I set up the chess board and played 3 additional games of chess.  I won the first one, and then he won the second one.  My wife came home during the third one and distracted me, but I still lose fair and square.  I then went to my bedroom and evaluated what had to be done to change the layout of the room to make it easier for me to get in and out of bed during my chemo treatments.  Right now I can get to my bed with no issues but it is a little bit of a tight squeeze.  Once chemo starts I am going to want to have no issues getting in and out of bed to get to the bathroom as needed and help managing the side effects of the chemo treatment.  I took the measurements of the room and the furniture and put it all on paper and discussed the new arrangement with my wife.  I then drew out the new arrangement on paper and discussed that we would put it together next weekend after my stitches were out and I would have no issues moving furniture around.  I would also hang a shelf to hang more of my M&M collectibles characters that I have next weekend to get them out of boxes where they have been sitting since I redid the bedroom paint and floors.  I then watched some TV and did some additional research on the treatment and what to expect when the chemotherapy started.  While I don’t have any problems really with anxiety, reading all can take a toll on a person and add up.  I took my blood pressure and it was 140/80 with a pulse of 89.  I took my medications and then sat down to complete this blog.  I will be taking a bath soon after wrapping this up to relax and not get my stitches wet, but also I read that warm bath’s can also help lower blood pressure overnight.  Again too much research and time on my hands, but I think too much and want to know what to expect in jumping into fight my Lymphoma.

06/29/2012

I woke up from about 6 hours of sleep and couldn’t fall back asleep around 5:00 am.  I did some more research on my phone on Lyphoma and treatments.  My parents were getting up to return to work, and I talked to them while they were doing their normal morning routine.  After they both left it was about 6:30 am. I fell back asleep for 3 hours and then woke up and got up for the beginning of a normal morning with the stitches in my neck and the reminder not to move too qiuckly.

I got on my home office computer and called up Dr. Jacob’s office to make the appointment for Thursday to get my stitches taken out of my neck.  The appointment was set for 10:40.  I then did some more research on Dr. Thomas Cosgriff and a few other oncologist.  During the day I got a few emails from clients with a question here or there and that I answered via email.  I also got one phone call about a computer with some malware on it.  I remoted into that computer, restarted it into safemode and started working on that computer.  A client emailed me about a new server storage array that was going to be delivered today.  I responded to the email saying that my stitches would be taken out Thursday and I would plan on installing the storage array either Thursday or Friday evening of next week.  The client agreed that that would work and we will touch base next week to make it definite.  Another client emailed me for an cell phone number of another client of mine which I replied back with, and then a client said was checking up on me saying that if I needed to talk to just simply call when I was up to talking just to chat.  My Aunt Estella then called me up saying she was bringing me some soup for lunch.  She callede me again once she was outside and I went outside and got the pot.  The soup was great, she had mixed vegetable soup with carrots, cauliflower, squash, broccoli and rice.  I ate three small bowls of the soup as I worked on the computer remotely.  While waiting on the computer to scan I updated the blog for Wednesday and Thursday.  My mother came and dropped of me a Pomegranate smoothie and picked up my wife to go to Sam’s to get some fish and other healthy snacks and food for supper and cooking over the weekend.

While they were off I decided it was time to take off my dressing since the doctor said that I could take it off at noon on Friday.  It was now about 4:00 PM.  I sat in the bathroom because blood and stitches can make me whoozy, and pulled off the bandage very slowly while watching myself in the mirror.  The bandage came off without sticking to my stitches, however the gauze did stick to where my drainage tube was coming out of my skin.  I very slowly peeled the gauze off of this part as not wanting to open up the hole from the drainage tube.  It was during this time that I was taking off my bandage that my dad arrived home from work.  After the gauze was off, I returned to my desk and saw that the computer was still scanning remotely.  So I continued to work on my blog.  My dad  sat at the other computer next to mine, and I had him pull up the blog and read through everything that I had written so far.

Then the phone call came that my mom and wife was home and he went out to help them unload the groceries and also cook the salmon that they had picked up.  My partner Jamie called and we went over the events for the past few days about the phone calls and emails and issues that were handled for the business while I was out of the office.  After the phone call, I sat down with my wife and my parents and we had a salad with salmon and chicken all mixed together which was very good. (Food to me is always good!)

Now it was time for me to go get a bath as I had not bathed since Wednesday at 1:30PM before going to the hospital.  I got in the warm bath and was very careful around my stitches.  My wife helped me get off the remaining dry blood that was on my back from the surgery.  I relaxed for a little bit and did some additional research on my phone about the side affects of chemotherapy and everything that I was going to be going through.  I had a client text me about the phone needed for his new phone system that I would possibly be installing on Monday to see if he needed to have a messaging system built into the phone.  I told him that the phone service would be the voicemail for the phones, that the phones didn’t have to have a built in messaging system.  It would be just like his cell phone that after 4 rings the service provider would provide the voicemail service.

I then got out the tub and returned to the lazy-boy chair I had slept in the night before to continue some work on the computer and turned on Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  I then checked on the computer which i was scanning earlier which finally finished the scan after 5 hours of scanning.  I made some corrections on the computer and restarted the computer.  While waiting for the computer to restart I started blogging about the events for today.  I finished up the computer I was working on a my parents left to go get my sister from the airport who was returning from a week long class.

06/28/2012

The nurse came in around 5:00 am to check my vitals, and I didn’t have a temperature.  The new nurse came in at 7:30 am to check on me and to introduce herself and check my vitals again.  I got up again and added another 750ccs to my output.  I then watched some TV and checked messages on my phone.  My breakfast then arrived.  I had eggs, hash browns, bacon, and a blue berry biscuit, along with some orange juice and coffee.  Since I don’t drink coffee, I gave it to my wife.   Once I was done eating it was about 9:00 and my wife had to leave to go home get a shower and then go to work for her first day on a new job.

My internist then came over to check on me, and said that he didn’t have any reports back from the pathology yet, but he would let me know when he did hear anything.  My mother being an certified registered nurse anesthetist knew that the IV tube connection to my arm could be changed and asked the nurse if they could put a port on the iv instead of having to stay hooked up to an empty IV bag.  The nurse took off the tape and then took of the tubing and put on a splice adapter so that I could get up with only a 3 inch line hanging out my arm instead of a 10 foot line and bag.  Once this was changed out, I got up and passed another 800ccs to my output, and then I put on a pair of shorts and sat in a chair and opened up my laptop again and began working again.  I first took care of the static route entry that was requested the previous day and followed up with that via email.  I then did some more research on Lyphoma while waiting around to be release by my doctor.   The internist gave me a call to see if I was still in the hospital as he got a preliminary report back from the pathologist.  My mother then told me that the Doctor who did the surgery got a report back the previous night when the surgery was over that it was a non Hodgkins form of Lyphoma, but no one told me anything about this report.  My internist then showed up and sat down in the chair next to my mother and said that the pathologist just called him following up on me because they recognized my name from talking earlier in the morning and wanted to give him a idea of what they think it is, well at least 99% sure what they think it is, the full results would have to wait to Tuesday or Thursday of next week.  The report from the pathologist was that it was 99% likely to be a Hodgkins Lyphoma.  While it is bad news that it is Lyphoma, the good news is that it is Hodkin’s Lyphoma and therefore easier to put together a treatment plan than trying to figure out which of the 23 different subtypes of Non Hodgkin’s it could be.  We discussed different oncologist and Dr. Yager said that friend’s and family is here and since it is Hodgkins there is no real reason to go all the way to MD Anderson for a treatment plan as this form of Lyphoma is easier to treat.  Dr. Yager then said he would keep me up to date with the reports he got from the Pathologist and be relaying this info to the oncologist he recommended Dr. Thomas Cosgriff.   I telephoned my dad who was at work, and told him the change in diagnosis from last night from Non Hodgkin’s to Hodkin’s Lyphoma.  I then showed my mother the different slides on the internet of how to tell Hodgkin’s Lyphoma by seeing the Reed-Sternberg Cells in the lymphocytes.  However we would have to wait for the final results for complete confirmation.

It was now about 11:30 AM.  I had my mother grab another sandwich from the fridge which was chicken salad along with some graham crackers.  Again another delicious sandwich.

Then Dr. Jacob, the surgeon who did the biopsy came in to check on me and remove the drainage tube and pressure dressings.  He had another surgery that morning, so he was seeing me between surgery’s and office visits so that he could release me.  Before he took care of my wound care he did that he said that he had also talked to the pathologist and it appears that I have Nodular Hodkin’s Lyphoma, which is better than the news that he gave them last night following my surgery.  He said that while its still bad news about me having Lyphoma, the good thing is that the Hodgkin’s side the better one to have.  We talked about oncologist again and while he pushed MD Anderson the previous night with NonHodkin’s he didn’t push it with the Hodkin’s side and said that the many oncologist here at EJGH would be able to effective treat the disease.  He said that I should see him next Wednsday to have the stitches removed.  He then took the dressing off and cut the stitches that were holding the drain line in and pulled out the drain line which didn’t hurt at all.  He then squeezed my neck to make sure that there were no liquids or bleeding under the skin which there was none.  He then had the nurse put on a water tight bandage over the area so that I could get a shower later in the evening.  He said that everything looked great from what he could see following the surgery and that he would see me on Wednesday.  He said he was then going put into the computer that he was releasing me and I was good to go home.  However, after he left I realized that Wednesday is July 4th, so I will be scheduling my stitches to be removed on Thursday instead.  I then waited around to be release.  Lunch came before I was released, so I had some turkey and gravy, some stuffing, some cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, and pecan pie.  I then started packing up my computer and phone and got everything ready to leave.

The nurse then came in to release me and take the IV out.  She had a bandage and gauze.  She untaped the IV and then pulled the IV out, put the gauze on and put the bandage over the IV.  She was talking to my mother and I about how she works with the oncologist in the treatment center at EJGH.  I was watching where the nurse had taken out the IV and watch the gauze change from white to blood red.  When I realized it wasn’t going to stop bleeding I asked the nurse, should that be doing that pointing to my arm where blood was now leaking out of the gauze, and she said oh no, that should not be doing that.  I hate the site of needles and seeing my own blood when coming from needles, started to make me feel queasy and weak and sorta sick to my stomach.  Its only when seeing my own blood in a medical sense do I feel bad.  I don’t mind seeing my blood if I hurt myself while working with a tool or item, as I just grab a napkin to stop the bleeding and if I need to wrap the wound in electrical tape, I will and be fine to continue working.  Anyways, back to my blood dripping from the gauze through the bandage, my mother grabbed some additional gauze and bandaging from the cart in the hall while the nurse worked on taking off the gauze and dressing that was on my arm.  She applied pressure and my arm was hurting because the blood was now going under my skin.  They worked the blood out from under my skin and help warm compresses to get the blood to stop bleeding.  The nurse said that since I was such a hard stick that they must have got me good when they were trying multiple times to get it started.  Once the bleeding was under control and stopped, they then put a larger gauze on my arm and wrapped my arm in the elastic bandaging nice and tight to prevent any further bleeding.  I then drank two additional apple juices which helped me feel a little better but still a little queasy from the blood.  The nurse then grabbed the paperwork about my stay and had me sign a paper saying that I received the services and a copy of the forms that I had signed.  I was then cleared to go home.  My mother went out to get the CRV and I got into the wheel chair to be rolled out to the third floor of the parking garage where the Outpatient Surgery Center signs were.

I then got into the CRV for the drive home.  Getting into the CRV, I told the nurse that I may see her in the Treatment Center sometime since she rotates around hospital in the different departments.  The clock in the car said 2:35, meaning that I was in the hospital for 24 hours.  That is if I can make it home in one piece.  My mother almost pulled into a truck that tried to fit in between her and a parked car in the parking garage.  Then the ride home wasn’t too much fun either.  It was a very bumpy ride with too much acceleration and turning and stopping that caused discomfort to my neck and to my arm where the IV was.  I had to mention something to her about the discomfort and then she slowed down and took the turns easier.  I was happy to get home and get out the car.  I was a little dizzy but made it to the side door without any issues.  I then just stepped back and soaked up the sun for about 10 minutes.  It felt good to feel the skin tighten under the warmth of the sunlight.  My dog buster, was going crazy to see me after not being home all night.  I ate a salad and then sat in the chair to watch some TV and take a nap.  I then woke up to my sister and her husband coming over to visit from Baton Rouge and my dad getting home from work at the same time.  My sister had brought me a card and some great piroutte’s which were luxury wafers with chocolate creme filling.  My Aunt Estella and Uncle Victor stopped by to see me and brought over some delicious homemade breadpudding.  My wife got home from her first day on her new job, which she enjoyed.  She is a dietary aid, she serves food to the residents of a home and make sure they have their food and drink and anything they may need throughout their meal.  I also talked to my Uncle Frank on the phone and my Aunt Dot on the phone as well.  I followed up on some emails via my laptop and then just rested and watched some TV and fell asleep.

06/27/2012

I woke up, took a shower with antibacterial soap.  I used no shampoo, well I don’t really need shampoo, no hair on my head anyway, no deodorant or anything else on my body as instructed by the nurse for the patient prep.  I then just through on a pair of shorts and shirt and my crocs and headed to the office to square a few things away for the rest of the week.  I stopped by the bank to make the two deposits I prepped the previous day and then went to the office.

When I got to the office, I first went across the hall to another client of mine and explained to them that I was going to be having a biopsy later that day and if they needed anything for the remainder of the week that my partner Jamie would be able to handle anything they needed.  They did not have to do anything special to contact him, but just call the office as normal and to email me as all my emails will be forwarded to him.  Frank told me that everything was going to be fine.  He has gone through surgery, chemo, and radiation treatment for his Mesothelioma.  He said it may get rough at times, but once its all said and done with, everything will mostly be back to normal with just regular doctor check ups from time to time.  He said that if he could do it, I sure as could do it because was younger and healthier.  I told him that was my plan, I never give up, just one day at a time and get through the treatment to continue a normal life.  Another client showing support just helps me keep my spirits high knowing that people understand what I am going through and know that it may take them a little longer to get a response from me or my partner than normal, but they will still be there once everything is back to normal.

Another client emailed me about videos and posting them on the website for clients to see, they wanted to possibly see if I could meet with them this week.  I replied back saying that everything was in place for the video converting, I would just have to install the video convertor after hours which I could most probably do either Thursday or Friday evening from home following the surgery I had later today.  I also explained in the email that I possibly have Lymphoma and that my business partner is prepared to handle any questions or service needs that they have while I am unavailable.  I also sent them the tutorial pdf that I had created on how to use the program that I would be installing to convert mpg to wmv files for playing files using Windows Media Player without having to install other codecs or other media players.

Another client emailed me about updates to the website that we had started working on, but hadn’t done anything to it in about a month.  Since this client was upstairs in my building, I went upstairs and discussed the news with them.  I told them I would take care of the website changes later this week or weekend and then meet/email with them to discuss further changes and to add pictures to the website.  Again this client was another client who knew someone with Lymphoma who has made it through the treatment and now back to a normal life, so more positive reinforcement!  I then headed back to my office.  I packed my small travel laptop and then headed out.

I arrived home and took another shower with antibacterial soap to make sure that I was completely clean and ready for the surgery and to minimize the chance of infection.  My wife and my mother then drove me over to the hospital.  We arrived on the 3rd floor at the outpatient surgery center.   It was 2:15, and the check in desk was supposed to be open to 2:30, but the nurse had left for the day, so the volunteer brought me down to the 2nd floor check in desk.  I then waited in the waiting area for 10 minutes and then was brought into an office to verify my information, and then it was back up to the 3rd floor.  The volunteer saw me come out the elevator and led me to a room in which I would be prepped for surgery.  I was told to change into a gown getting rid of all clothing.  So I changed and there I was sitting in a blue hospital gown with patches of color.  I received a few emails about a password for a wireless access point and fixing a router’s static route.  I followed up on this with a few emails leaving it open to follow up after my procedure.

At 4:00, the first nurse came in and gave me a breathing treatment.  At 4:30 the next nurse came in and verified all my information again and went over all medications that I had taken that day and if I had eaten anything throughout the day, which I had not.  She said that I would have to have another EKG and she ordered that on the computer and she also ordered for an IV to be started on me.  She said everything was ready to go and since it was close to 5 I would probably have the IV started in the back if not right before I left.  The EKG nurse then showed up and attached the probes on my legs, chest and arms and then attached the wires.  She took her reading and then moved out the way so that the IV nurse could attempt to start the IV.  As usual they could not start an IV on me.  After about 3 to 5 minutes of poking around the IV nurse said that anesthesia would have to start the IV.  The orderly then arrived when the IV nurse was leaving and he rolled my bed into the preparation area.

Once in the preparation area, the nurse came and checked on me and everything I had scheduled to be done.  I told her that I had gone over everything, but they were unable to start an IV on me in the room.  She then called anesthesia who came.  The first anesthetist said that to start the IV it was going to have to be all by feel because the he could see some but they were not big enough to start an IV in.   He localized my right arm above my thumb and attempted to poke the IV needle around but could not find the vein.  An anesthesiologist localized my left arm above my thumb and then attempted to start the IV on my left arm.  After two or three slides in and out, the left arm was started and I was ready to go.  The Anesthetist that would be overseeing my Surgery, Melissa, then gave me a cocktail in my IV.  She asked if felt anything and I felt a brief 2 minutes doziness come over me and then that subsided and I felt normal again.  However, I did notice that the cocktail took the nervousness and the edge off.  I then sat in the bed for about 5 more minutes and then Dr. Jacob came in to draw on my neck for the site of the incision and biopsy.  He then left and I was there for about 10 more minutes and then I was rolled to Operating Room #1.  They put the rails down on the side of the bed and helped me move from the bed to the operating table and then they took the bed away.  They then put the air mask over my face and started had me breath deep breaths.  I remember breathing about 25 or 30 deep breaths and then I don’t remember anything else.  I don’t remember getting tired, I don’t remember going to sleep, I don’t remember a single thing.

Next thing I know I was waking up in the recovery room feeling like I had taken the best sleep that I have had in a very very long time.  I felt well rested.  There were two nurses next to me looking at the computer and monitors when I started coming through.  I focused on seeing what time it was on the clock across the room and I could make out that it was 8:00 PM.  I started had some pain in my stomach and told the nurses that my stomach was hurting me about a 5 – 7 on the pain scale.  It wasn’t excruciating but it wasn’t comfortable either.  I believe the nurse put something in my IV because the pain subsided soon after.  My neck was maybe a half to a 1 on the pain scale, but that subsided as well.  I asked the nurse how long I had been in the recovery room, and she said I had been in there 15 minutes, so I arrived at 7:45.  I felt the blood pressure cuff pump up, and asked her what the numbers where and she said something like 116 over 68.  My oxygen level was 95-98%.  So everything was going good.  I was completely awake and aware within 10 minutes of coming to.  As I laid there I had a conversation with the nurse for about 20-30 minutes.  We were talking about the new medical system Cerner that she was using as I was already familiar with it since I my internist who is also my client uses the software.  She asked me who I worked for and I told her myself and then we had a discussion about my business to pass the time.  At about 8:45 she said it was time to roll me back to the room.  I got to the room at about 9:00 and my mother and father where sitting in the room waiting, my wife was getting coffee.  The nurse adjusted my bed and locked it in place, put my iv bag on the pole.  I told them my experience and that I wasn’t in any pain.  Everything had gone well from my perspective.  My wife then arrived and sat by my side and we all talked a little bit.  The nurse said that if I could start drinking liquids and hold that down then I could start attempting to eat.  My wife gave me 4 apple juice containers which I drank with no issues.  My wife gave me my laptop and I checked on the emails that I received while I was in my surgery.  I had also received a voicemail from Dr. Baum’s office for an admin password to install a program on the computers.  I remoted into Dr. Baum’s server and set the temporary admin password and sent into to the requester and the office manager.  There was some info for the static route that I would follow up with in the morning.  My wife had work in the morning, but she didn’t have her car at the hospital.  My dad left to go home to take care of the dogs and to sleep and my wife rode home with him and returned with her car.   My mother gave me 2 more apple juices.  It was 10:15 and I knew I was going to have to go to the bathroom soon.  At 10:25 I called the nurse who said she would be there soon.  At 10:35 the nurse got there with a urine bottle.  I filled up approx 800cc’s which was almost the same as an IV bag.  I then asked the nurse about the food she said that they had available.  She said they had a tuna salad or turkey sandwich.  I opted for the turkey sandwich, which she went and got and brought back.  I added the mayo and mustard to my bread and then ate the sandwich with no problems along with the graham crackers that was included in the plastic container.  I drank an additional 4 apple juices while eating the turkey sandwich.  My wife then arrive and I had to go to the bathroom again which I added another 700cc’s to my output.  I was still hungry as I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours, so I had my wife grab the ham sandwich that was in the fridge.  I ate that, and it was good!  I had a few more juices with this sandwich and then settled down to watch some TV and go to sleep.  I woke up once during the night adding another 700ccs to my output, and then went back to sleep.

06/26/2012

I knew I would have to tie up a few final things before going in for my Biopsy.  I met with a new client at my office about setting up a VOIP phone service for both voice and faxing.  We ordered the equipment and the 2 phone numbers which would give him 4 phone lines for two years while he was in the office.  He was also interested in a fax/printer/copier all in one, so I ordered a Brother printer for him as well.  We planned on getting together possibly Monday or Tuesday of the following week if I am up for it to set everything up.  I also ordered 3 toner cartridges, one for him, two for other clients.  Another client then came in to pickup a laptop that I had replaced a hard drive in, and also brought up the possibility of creating two websites for her husband’s businesses.  I let this client know about the possibility of me having Lymphoma and that I was having a biopsy tomorrow and that I would know the results sometime next week.  She said that she had a friend who’s daughter had it and has since had a child of her own, so I looked at this as another positive discussion.  We discussed the different possibilities and I sent her an email after she left with our domain website and a list of websites that we have created over the years.  I then met briefly with another client who had come in to pay off his balance and explained to him everything that was going on.  He said that, that explained why I was not so quick in my responses when he was talking to me on Friday about a few different things and had him wondering over the weekend what was going on in my mind.  We got everything squared away and will possibly meet the following week to follow up on some work that he needs with a website and mailing list depending on how I feel as well.  All in all I am looking at everything in a positive light.  Whatever I have I have and there is no changing it, just have to figure out exactly what it is so that I can get the proper treatment and put it all behind me!  I caught up on some financial and administrative tasks for my business, went to the bank, and then came back to the office.  I talked with the building Manager and let her know what would be going on if she didn’t see me around the next few days, and a few days here and there at a time.  She was positive that its nothing yet as there are no Biopsy results yet.  I said that’s one way of looking at it.  I took care of a few small minor issues for 3 clients and then I prepared additional bank deposits for tomorrow on different accounts, and then headed home the day.  My wife and I and my parents went out to eat at Lager’s.  I had a nice Grilled Chicken Salad as my last meal before my Biopsy as come 8:00 tomorrow morning I can’t eat or drink anything until after my procedure which is scheduled for 5PM.  Well goodnight, and I will catch you tomorrow!

06/25/2012

I got up, showered, went to the office, took care of a few things around the office, and then went to my Dr. appointment with Dr. Jacob, the ear, nose, and throat doctor for the preop for the biopsy.  This was from about 11:50 – 12:45.  I then went to the patient prep area in EJ North building and met with the financial lady and paid my copay, i then was directed to the 5th floor where i was put in a waiting room to talk to a nurse, the nurse weighed me and my weight was 255.5 with a height of 6’2 and a blood pressure of 145 over 75, but I believe the machine was wrong on this.  I then answered a number of questions and gave info to my doctors and emergency contacts.  I then was put in another room to wait to talk to an anesthesiologist.  I then talked to the anesthesiologist and answered a number of questions and signed the consent forms and then was sent on my way.

I met my parents in the parking garage where my dad was about to go into a doctor’s appointment for himself.  They had a pomegranate smoothie waiting for me which I devoured and went back to my office.  I met with another client when I got back to the office.  I then headed home ate a salad with asparagus, avocado, tomatoes, alfalfa, chicken and honey dejong.  I drank water with my meal and drank some pomegranate juice after.  I then worked on a computer remotely and then went with my wife back to the office to pick up my cell phone that I had forgotten.  I then came home and wrote the missing parts of my blog for the weekend and today.  I will most probably do some more research on lymphoma before going to bed and catching some sleep.  I’ll see you soon!

06/24/2012

My sister and her husband came in town, my parents, my wife and I went out to eat at Smilie’s.  I had gumbo, 2 crab cakes covered in a crayfish sauce, mashed potatoes, and vegetables.  Very good!  I came home and decided I could use some more sunlight for Vitamin D.  The fish pond pump was not working so a perfect reason to do some work outside in the sun.  I took it apart and found that there was a broken plastic piece inside the pump and that this would need to be replaced.  I stretched the hose for the waterfall around the smaller pump that was in the pond to keep water circulating and spent about a good hour in the sun working on the pond.  I then came inside and took a 2 hour nap.  I then went through all my clients and added passwords to those who were missing passwords, and added other notes for other clients to help my business partner when he would be looking at all the data.  I then ate some biscuits, took my medicine did some additional research on the internet for Lymphoma and then went to bed.

06/23/2012

The joys of running your own business is just that, you run your own business and work your own schedule while also meeting the needs of your clients.  However, the down falls of running your own business too is that if you get sick, hurt, or need to take time off, there is no one else that can fill your shoes just like you do.  Sure there are other people come close to it, but there will be a bridge to gap along with someone else having to juggle their schedule to take care of their needs and your needs.  This is what my business partner and I are meeting for today.

We first had to go to a client who could not get online or see the network on one of the computers.  The issue was that someone had disabled the network card in the Device Manager.  After fixing this, we talked with John for a little bit and then left.

Jamie and I went back to the office and Jamie rebuilt his laptop,  during the rebuild I helped Jamie walk through the program I had written to manage our clients.  This was the main reason Jamie and I met at the office.  We needed to go over all the things he needed to know about the daily operations of the business and interactions with the clients since it was I who was mainly running the business at this time.  Hands Free Help Technologies has a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program that I had custom wrote to take care of our clients information, services and billing all in one location.  However Jamie had not had as much experience using the program as I have, and has only glanced at it a time or two.  I had Jamie load the latest version of the program on the computer and we clicked through all the functionality of the program including how to look up info, create helpdesk tickets and work orders, how to close these items and how to invoice clients.   We also went through each client and discussed the different particulars and needs of the different clients.  Jamie was now ready to take care of clients as needed with some additional learning here and there as things would come up.  The laptop was almost done but it was about 5:00PM so we took a break to eat.

We met my wife and my parents for dinner at Johnny Trouts Seafood off of Williams and I got the all you can eat fish and chicken which i got a second round of chicken.  After filling up on food, Jamie and I then headed back to the office, finished up Jamie’s laptop and then got the program running on his laptop.  Jamie is good to go and can use his computer to take care of our clients when I am unable to.  Jamie can access everything at the office remotely including data and phone calls.  Once everything was setup for Jamie, we both left the office around 9:30 to go home and rest.

06/22/2012

The cough syrup did not help me sleep this time.  I was sweating really bad throughout the night.  I then also smelled a weird smell from my sweating which I could only think of as the iodine from the CT Scan the day before.

I called the intern office to see when I could pick up the additional bloodwork form so that I could go get the last bloodwork needed by the anesthesiologist for clearance for surgery.  While on the phone with the assistant they told me then that my appointment was moved up to 11:15am from 2pm.  I was about to go into the office and since I only had 40 minutes before I would have to head to the hospital, I called up my business partner instead and explained to him what was going on.  I told my partner, Jamie, that I had some bad news.  At first he thought that the monthly rent went up or that we had to move out of the office because the building management was looking to renew the leases and we were not in the position to renew just yet and he just had returned from being out of town.  I told him it was not that and that there it was possible that I had some form of Lyphoma and that we would have to prepare for me missing some time for my biopsy and then some more time for my treatment.  Jamie said that he would talk to his other contracts he was working for time off as needed to cover my position when needed for Hands Free Help Technologies.  We would go into further details this upcoming weekend and scheduled to meet at the office on Saturday and possibly Sunday.

I then went to the Hospital at 10:30 hoping the bloodwork paperwork would be ready to go so that I could get the bloodwork done before the appointment, but the Doctor didn’t want me to go get the bloodwork until he saw me first.  I then was seen at 11:15 and had an EKG done in the office.  I then saw the doctor who took my blood pressure and listened to my breathing which sounded much better than the day before.  He then saw me back in his office where I blew a 240 again for peak flow meter.  He then gave me the list of additional bloodwork to go get that done.  He said that my EKG was just fine, he was going to fax the EKG, the Xray and CT Scan results to my Ear Nose and Throat Doctor along with my letter of clearance for the surgery.  He said that it would take 3-4 days to get the results back from the biopsy following the surgery and then I would see the oncologist to proceed with a method of treatment.  He said that he wanted to see me again in a month, but not within 14 days of any chemo treatment as the office would not be a safe place for my immune system after chemo.  I got the name, it was Dr. Thomas Cosgriff who is a Hematology-Oncology, a doctor that treats blood cancers. He is also part of the MD Anderson network here at the local East Jefferson General Hospital (EJGH).  I then checked out and went to get my bloodwork.  I saw the same nurse that I saw the day before, but another nurse tried to withdraw blood with a butterfly needle.  She could not get a good enough bloodflow to even fill one tube.  The lady that had me the day before then took over and went a little further down my right arm and got three tubes of blood.

I then left the hospital and headed back to my office to catch up on a day and a half to two day’s work.  I had mentioned the findings to two clients, and then a client called me about problems with some toner.  I traveled to the client and delivered some new toner and then talked to the client about everything I was going to undergo, so if they couldn’t get in touch with me, they would be able to talk to my business partner or my wife.  This would be the same talk that I would have with most if not all my clients before my biopsy on Wednesday.

A long 3 day week, and the beginning of a long weekend.

06/21/2012

I slept very well because of the Cough Syrup the internist had prescribed me the day before.

I headed over to the hospital for my appointment.  I stopped by the Quest Diagnostics lab that was on the same floor as my Doctor’s office and  I had my blood drawn for the previous day’s bloodwork.  I then went and saw my internist again.  I was in the examination room when he walked in and told me that the XRays came back abnormal.  Dr. Yager said that there was a good chance that I have Lymphoma.  He said it was a cancer, and that if I wanted to have any cancer, this was the cancer to have as it’s prognosis was good and very treatable.  He said that he would just have to get some more test to put together a full way on how to treat it.  He said that the XRay of my chest showed that my lymph nodes in my chest were enlarged and that they were pushing on my breathing tubes with one closed over 50% by being pushed on by the growing lymph node.  He found a growing lymph on the left side of my neck and said that they could biopsy that one and not have to attempt to biopsy the ones in my chest.  He would just have to get a surgeon.  Since it was on my neck he would like to have an ear nose and throat specialist.  I mentioned the name of my doctor who took my tonsils out when I was a kid, took my wife’s tonsils out a little over 2 years ago, and just took my mother’s thyroid out over 2 months ago.  He said that since I already knew him, that he would use him for the biopsy.  I blew a 240 on the peak flow meter.

The internist then saw me in his office and called an oncologist to let him know that he had another lymphoma case, the third one in the past 2 months.   He then gave me a paper for additional bloodwork and gave me orders to go have a CT scan of my throat and chest.  I went and visited the same Quest Diagnostic Lab and had my blood drawn by the same nurse who withdrew it just a little over an hour before.  The internist office said they would call me once the CT scan was setup and ready to go.

I went and picked up my wife and told her the diagnosis.  I also told my Dad and Mom who called not long after I got home.  The intern office called me saying that the Imaging office was ready for me to do the CT scan.  My wife then brought me over to the Imaging place to have the CT Scan done.

We arrived at Imaging Center and I was given additional paperwork to fill out for the CT Scan.  One was for the CT Scan of my neck, the other was for the CT Scan of my chest.  The tech called my name in the waiting room, I went to the back and she was going over everything they were going to do.  I was going to lay on my back and then she was going to start the scan and the bed would move me through the machine.  She said that and IV would be used to pump Iodine into my system to help with the Xray.  She said that I may get a metal taste in my mouth, or my jaw may feel warm and that the inside of my body may feel warm when the drip started.  If I felt it hard to breath or a heaviness in my chest it meant that I was having a allergic reaction and I should let them know right away so that they could stop the IV and hit me with an epi pen to stop the reaction.  Once all this was explained she then tried to start an IV in my right arm, but that didn’t work, so she then started the IV in my left anticube area.  She said that she would do scan first without any Iodine, so she left the room and told me to swallow and not to swallow again and had the machine take the first CT scan of my neck and my chest.  She then came back into the room and started the IV drip for the next CT Scan.  She said to swallow and then don’t swallow until the neck scan was done.  Then she said put my hands above my head and the Doctor said take a deep breath and hold it. Then my chest was scanned and that was it CT Scan completed.  She told me to drink plenty of water so that I could pass the iodine out my system.  The more water I drink the better.  She told me that her daughter in law had lymphoma as well and had been in remission for over 6 years now.  She wished me luck and on my way.

I then went over to the Ear Nose and Throat doctor whom I had not seen for myself in over 2 decades.  My mother who just had her thyroidectomy called the office and had them fit me in.  I filled out the new patient paperwork and then waited in the waiting room, then got transferred to a second waiting room.  I then was seated in the patient room and had my temperature and blood pressure taken by the nurse.  I then got to see the Dr.  He felt my neck and said that the lymphnode was a good size and that he would have no problem taking a biopsy of it.  He said it was about 4 – 6 cm and about 3 cm large.  He said that he would just have to cut around some muscle, but the excision of a piece of the left jugular lymph could be done.  He said that he would take a good enough size to do a full thorough biopsy on and that a simple needle biopsy would not be enough for a great thorough result.  He did a full examination checking my nose, ears, and mouth/throat.  He said that he would like to get the procedure setup for the following week, and then lead me to the checkout counter and told me to wait there while he talked to his wife the surgery scheduler.

My wife and I then met with his wife in her office who had scheduled the surgery for the following Wednesday, 06/27/2012 at 5pm.  She said that I needed another round of bloodwork from my doctor for the anesthesiologist to clear me for surgery.  I also needed an EKG and a letter of clearance from my intern.  I then gave the lady the back number for my internist and she told them exactly what she needed and faxed them the information too.  The intern office also spoke to me on the phone saying that I had an appointment the following day for 2pm to take care of this additional work that had to be done.  I was then scheduled the following Monday for 11:50 to go back to the Ear Nose and Throat Doctor for a preop, and said that I should visit the preop with the hospital right after with all the paperwork for admit.  I then paid my copay and head home for the day.  My parents and I had planned to go eat Indian food the day before, and we stuck to our plans to go out to eat an Indian Buffet with my parents and wife that night.  However after such a long day and everything that was revealed to me, I ate and found the food delicious just couldn’t eat as much as I normally wood.

After I got home, I laid in bed as usually and had my computer in bed as usual, just this time instead of doing work, I googled everything and anything I could on the Lymphoma battle I had ahead of me.