22 October 2010

Green Bay Packers Postscript

Last week, I blogged about my trip to see the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.  It was something I decided I wanted to do early on in my diagnosis if I got better.


I now have a follow-up to this story.


We left for Wisconsin on a Thursday, and Sarah and I drove out from Colorado.  During the short week before we left, Sarah had sent a letter to the Green Bay Packers front office telling them about this trip, and how out of London, Paris, Hawaii, or a cruise, I wanted to go to Green Bay, Wisconsin.  This letter was completely unbeknownst to me.  I first learned of this when we were actually on the road.  To this day, I still have not seen a copy of it, but the gist was that the trip meant a lot, I was really excited, and my favorite players were Donald Driver, Aaron Rodgers, and Clay Matthews, and maybe could we get a "hello" message on the jumbotron scoreboard.   She left her cell phone number with the Packers.


Sarah told me about this letter somewhere in Nebraska.  I was mildly surprised, although I told her to expect nothing.  Especially three days out from the game.


The trip came and went and was a great time!  I didn't give another thought to her letter.


A week later, the Green Bay Packers community outreach called Sarah on the phone!  There was nothing they could have done, and they don't do scoreboard messages, but they were very touched by her letter, pleased with what I wanted to do with my trip, and they were all thinking about us.  Oh, and to keep an eye on the mail as they sent a package.


Sarah told me about this and I was very interested.  What could the Packers be sending?
I could spot the packing tape on the box as it sat on my porch from my car as I came home on Tuesday.  The team logo on the packing tape is such a nice touch.   Now I was very intrigued.  The box was big, but it was light, too.  Sarah was still in Texas at a conference.  Should I wait for her before opening it?


I consider myself to be very patient, but I'm not that patient.  Besides, my name was on the packing label.  So, I opened it.   The first thing I saw was a card made out to me (pictured three pictures down).  It had the Packers logo on the outside, and said that they were thinking about me, signed, Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers.


The next thing I noticed was a Packers hat.  At this point I'm shocked.  How much stuff did they put in here?  A lot.  I also found a travel mug, and an autographed football.  The football is really neat, and luckily, many of the players signed their numbers as well, so you can identify the signatures.
The next thing I noticed was a bag from the Packers charities.  Inside it were a collection of huge football cards (for lack of better term).  You can see them below, I laid out a few favorites, including the players Sarah mentioned in her letter as my favorites.  There's also a schedule with Donald Driver on it, a Packers Pen, and a Packers key-chain.
Below that was a mini Packers pennant, and a team photo from last year.   
At the very bottom of the box is the glossy Aaron Rodgers photo pictured above.  What a great collection of stuff!  The cool thing is, I'm pretty sure all of it is special and unique to their community outreach program.   For example, if you go to the Packer Pro Shop, and you look at their autographed footballs for sale, their stock photo shows a football from 2008, the same year my football is from, but they are not the same item.  Likewise with the hat, the mug, and the pen:  they are similar to items you can purchase, but not identical, which I think is really neat.


Moreover, I think it speaks to the generosity of the organization.  In my opinion, it was unbelievably classy that they sent us all this stuff.  I'm surprised they have it on hand to send, but they clearly take community outreach seriously, and probably are involved in a big enough variety of things to necessitate having so much on hand.  (Those curious can see some of the things the Packers are involved in here, and maybe background on the football here).  I don't know what Sarah said that was so convincing, but wow!  Obviously it meant a lot to me, and was a pretty special cap on a very special trip.  I'll have to send them a nice thank you card, and I'll probably include a picture of Sarah and I from the game, probably this one, with Sarah in her Aaron Rodgers shirt, and me in my Donald Driver shirt, our favorite players.  Hopefully the Packers can get past some injuries and pick up a few wins in the coming weeks!

Oncology Follow-up #1: 3 months out

Actually more like four months, since I didn't do radiation.  As you can imagine, and as I have noted previously, I wasn't really looking forward to today.  On several occasions I had serious thoughts about canceling.  I didn't.


I mentioned earlier that I felt great for months after finishing chemotherapy.  I was bursting with energy and requiring very little sleep.  About a month ago, however, I started having fevers, chills, body aches, some lethargy, and even night sweats.  I was convinced I had relapsed.  Of course it would be really soon (and really bad, from a prognosis standpoint) if that were true, but you simply can't help but think that.  I even had my own little mini-breakdown moment one day before work when I had convinced myself of all this.


On Monday I had my bloodwork done and got my chest x-ray.  The bloodwork is basically done in a few hours as it is just a BMP, LDH, and CBC with differential.  By Wednesday, the results still were not released to me, and I remember confiding in a close friend that it had me in a bit of a panic.  Your mind races.  Is the doctor just busy or does she not want me to see it?  Logic assumes the former, emotion assumes the latter.  Although I try to live my life letting logic rule my mind, cancer really rachets up the emotion.


As it turns out, the labs eventually were released later Wednesday night and were perfectly normal.  Nothing even close to unusual.  I was relieved.  I found out Thursday that my chest x-ray was normal as well.  In other words, I'm still clean.  This didn't explain my symptoms.


When we discussed that, she noted that it is possible that I overdid things early in summer.  Likewise, it was a little unfair to assume I'd feel "normal" immediately and forever, and most folks take at least a year to normalize, physically.  Additionally, most males become frustrated by this.  (Why wouldn't females be frustrated?  I have no idea).


She looked at my nail beds and determined my body was still getting rid of chemo.  From a pharmacokinetic standpoint, this doesn't make sense, but I can assume the point to get at is that my body is still recovering from the effects.  My (possibly incorrect) rationalization is that chemotherapy immediately affects the cells in your body that turn over the fastest:  cancer, of course, but also hair, skin, your GI tract, etc.  Perhaps the effect to the rest of the body is much slower, and therefore much slower to recover.   I'll go with that theory for now, hopefully someone can correct or validate it.


Beyond that we talked a little bit about survivorship issues and life outlook.  She was happy to order a PET scan for me to ease my mind on my subjective symptoms, but I simply refuse to give in to that.  Logically, the objective findings are what they are, and I do not want subjectives to trump that.


In the meantime, I get another four months until I get to do this roller coaster all over again.  If symptoms change, I'm obviously supposed to call.

18 October 2010

"What is the one thing you want to do when you get better?"

This was a question I was asked many times.  Most of those were from Sarah.  I think she was anticipating a trip to Europe or Hawaii or somewhere like that, but the first time I answered it, I could see in her face she was quite surprised.


"I want to go to a Packer game at Lambeau."


We can do that, but don't you want to go to Europe or Hawaii or somewhere?


"I want to go to a Packer game at Lambeau.  I want to see a win, too."


So, that's what we did.  We looked at the schedule and picked an early October game against the lowly Detroit Lions which we thought would fit the bill.  Sarah and I drove up and met my parents, her parents, and our good friends Dave and Marv for a Packer game.  Prior to the game, we went to the Packer Fan Tours tailgate party at Brett Favre's Steakhouse.  Actually, the BF steakhouse parking lot.  It was great.
Who wants a 9am beer?
Blood Marys were also available for the health-conscious.  They also had one of the "premier" DJs of the area.  I guess.
GREENMAN!!!!
Maybe we'll take a few for the road.
Going to Lambeau is like no other sporting event that I know of.  I am sure I could not accurately or adequately describe it.
Within minutes of sitting down and watching the coin toss,
Aaron Rodgers flipped a pass to Donald Driver for a touchdown and Lambeau leap.  This exact sequence is what I had wanted to see for months.
Just like that the Packers took the lead.  Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, and Jermichael Finley all caught passes for touchdowns and all took Lambeau leaps.  Especially nice was that all three are on my fantasy football team, and Aaron Rodgers is on Dave's.  (Marv remains ahead of both of us).  The game wasn't the blowout I had expected or hoped for, though.  The Lions fought making it more exciting than it had to be.  

Charles Woodson came through with a clutch interception and ran it back to help out, though.  Here he is diving into the endzone.
Here is a neat shot of the line blocking for Kuhn on the final drive to put the game away.
It ended up being a terrific game, and I had a blast.  The packers have since fallen apart somewhat, but that does not take away what a great trip we had.

Just a few more pictures, the day before the game, we visited the Packers Hall of Fame and ate at Curly's.  Some old uniforms, important game balls, Donald Driver's uniform from a record setting catch, a picture of us, and one of the Lombardi trophies, as well as some championship rings.
A huge Thank You to Marv, Dave, Sarah, and out parents for all coming to make this such a special day for me.  

Livestrong Day update

Haven't posted in a while, but I've been pretty busy.  A few fun posts coming up.  I am several fun things behind.


Today is the update on what Sarah and I did for Livestrong Day.  As noted, we were going to run where we did in college.  So, a few weekends back we did stop to visit the campus, which is near the capitol building.
We also walked around to see a few familiar spots on campus.  Hello, Bucky!
If any of you get a chance, do ask Sarah what happens in this building:
This one is easy to figure out:
Bascom:
Weird being back.  So much had changed.   Some things hadn't.
Obviously, we had a beer at the union.


Our run was going to go down lakeshore path to picnic point starting from the union.
Lakeshore path:
Picnic point (in the distance, as viewed from up by Elizabeth Waters Hall):


Let's stop and back up 12 years, shall we?  Our first date:  Sarah and I were sitting in biostatistics class.  This class wasn't so much learning as social / study hall.  She asked what I was doing that afternoon.  Same as always, running at the SERF.  She asked why I didn't come down and run lakeshore path by her.  The reason is because it was farther, and the SERF is climate controlled with a nice soft track.  (Not to mention a view of 100 girls doing aerobics and loud music).  Sarah convinced me we'd run lakeshore. So, I pick her up and we walk down to the path to run.  Two blocks later, she is tired of running.  Just like that, my workout was over, and I knew I'd be going to the SERF anyway.  However, we did arrange to go see a movie later.  Isn't that sweet?


This time, the tables were turned.  She left me in her dust and I was sucking wind hard.  She beat me to both picnic point, and then back to the union on Livestrong Day.  Uncool.  She even got there fast enough to get a picture of me in pain.
"Oh yay!  Happy Livestrong day!"  
But, the views were as nice as we remembered.
I don't even know how far this run is, so, I had to check it on mapmyrun.com.  (Turns out it is about 5.2 or 5.3 miles round trip.  Obviously, we stopped halfway for pictures).  As noted, she beat me back as well.  That was a little bit of a new experience for me, but I was very proud of how well she ran.
She seemed very happy with herself afterwards and said how great it all felt and how she was very proud to be in much better shape now than college.
Strong work, Sarah.


Also during our time in Madison, we had the opportunity to have dinner with some good friends of ours, as well as their three kids, two of which are infant twins.  I even got to hold both.   All of this at the Nitty Gritty, which was always my favorite bar/restaurant in college.


So, it was pretty fun to visit Madison again.  Definitely one of many fun things during that trip.