Love on Ottomatic

 

Greetings My Friends and Family!

 

Let me start by thanking all of you that have been reaching out over the past few weeks with notes, calls, emails and texts; all wishing me well and reminding of the Army of LOVE that I am surrounded by…it has given me immeasurable strength and determination to fight this fight as fully as I can…it also reassures me that this is just another chapter in a Long and Vibrant Life!  I wish I had the time and energy to respond to everyone, but lately it’s been impossible, but please keep’em coming, it helps! Give Thanks…

 

My last posting was over a month ago, the day of my “Post Round One CT Scan”…and I promised to share results when they were available; we did well.  The overall tumor burden was reduced approximately 15% and there was no visible advancement of the disease…I was thankful for that, but honestly had expected more.  As I’ve said here many times; I thought chemo would be a lot worse than it has been so far, but you gotta’ realize; it’s still pretty brutal and a lot to endure on a daily basis!  So, I guess I was hoping for more progress…I mean come on, why not 50%?  Regardless;  I do remain thankful that we are moving forward.

 

The weekend after my CT Scan I was invited on a little Sunday afternoon walk by my friend/brother Lee Williams…Although I wasn’t exactly sure what was up; I had a pretty clear feeling that there was a little more to it than I was being told!  Lee picked up Arian and I that morning and started heading for the Marina Green and tried his best to stick to the “It’s just a little walk” story, but he’s a pretty bad liar and I was stuck trying to figure out just WHAT he was up to???  Soon after we parked, we ran into about 5 of our closest friends also just “taking a little walk”; only thing is they were all wearing WHITE head to toe…ok, this is getting weird, but I had no choice to surrender to it and open myself up to the possibility of a truly magic day…as we walked down the path we ran into more friends and then even more; Yes, all wearing WHITE!  The last straw came when we just happened to run into my amazing/beautiful cousin Erik from LA…and then a few yards later we come across the WHOLE group shiny and WHITE!!!  There must have been 60 folks all cheering and laughing and sharing the LOVE…and there she was beautiful little Sierra running out of the crown to give me a BIG’OLE HUG!  Give thanks…What followed was an 8 mile round trip hike to the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge and back with ALL of my AMAZING FRIENDS!  You guys are amazing and I feel so supported by all of you it’s hard for me to communicate…I LITERALLY felt as though I was levitating that whole day and being carried across the bridge rather than walking it myself.  You are all healers and I thank you for continuing to share your beautiful gifts with me!  Much LOVE~

 

Well; at this point we had planned to take a short break from the chemo before the next round.  It was Arian’s spring break and he was heading to Ashland to spend time with his father, so Indra and I made plans to go to Maui and recover in the Ocean & Jungle for a bit before getting started on the next round!  I must say; it was exactly what we needed…but I will leave that for now and come back with a proper posting/entry about Maui…I do have to thank some special friends and my family for making that a truly memorable and healing experience for us!  Give Thanks~

  

We returned from Maui on Tuesday, March 8^th and my next chemo infusion was scheduled for the following day.  Every time you go in for a chemo infusion you start the day with a full series of blood and urine tests.  This is to ensure that your body has recovered fully from the last round and that all of your internal organs needed to process and eliminate the toxic drugs from your system are fully functioning…otherwise this could be a very dangerous/poisonous therapy…so thankfully, they are very cautious in this regard.  So far, my body has responded well to the therapy and my blood work and organ function tests were at or near normal/fully functional…very cool!  Unfortunately, this was not the case on the 9^th!  It turned out that my Liver Function Tests were extremely abnormal…which meant no chemo and that I would have to come back the next day for more tests.  This also brought up concerns with some abdominal pain I had been experiencing and helped to explain why the whites of my eyes just weren’t very white the past few days.  I was sent home and had a battery of tests scheduled for the next day.  By that evening the pain had escalated exponentially and had begin to spike way out of control…things got a little scary and it was decided that we should head back to UCSF and get this figured out NOW!  Within a couple hours I was admitted and had completed most of the tests scheduled for the next day; CT Scan, Ultra Sound, Chest X-Ray, Blood & Urine tests…it was a LOT!

 

The results of all of this testing were pretty clear; there was some kind of an obstruction in my Liver’s Biliary Tree; which was causing bile to back up in the liver and effecting the organ’s ability to do it job.  So, we had to make a plan to resolve this ASAP so that my liver could return to it normal function and I could get back on the chemo and back to killing tumors…that is the point after all…isn’t it?  A decision was made that they would install a stint in each of the two main branches of the biliary tree to remove the obstruction and allow for the organ to begin draining properly and being to heal it’s self.  The procedure was pretty straight forward; using an endoscope they would follow my digestive track through my stomach and up into lower intestine where they would find the entrance to the main bile duct and should be able to place a stint on both the right and left branch of the tree as it enters the Liver, the procedure is called and ECRP follow that link for a pretty good animation what they did. 

 

Unfortunately, we received some bad news after this first procedure.  Although they were able to install a stint on the right branch of the biliary tree, the left branch was so fully obstructed that they couldn’t get either the endoscope or the stint to enter the left branch.  So, what does that mean?  Yeah, I wanted to know too…basically it was time to watch and wait for a couple days, so they sent me home again.  The hope was that after a few days the right side would have drained sufficiently to allow for the overall liver function numbers to return to normal, or sometimes its even possible for the body to figure out a way to re-route fluid drainage opportunistically allowing for the left side of the liver to drain trough the right branch of the tree!  Yes, the body it an amazing machine…Give Thanks!

 

By early the next week the liver function numbers had not improved and in some cases getting slightly worse.  So I was re-admitted to UCSF where they could monitor my progress more closely and help me manage the escalating pain.  It was decided that if the numbers did not turn around within a week of the initial stint installation they would go back in and remove the existing stint, try to reposition it for maximum drainage on the right branch of the tree and try to install one on the left branch again…we were hopeful about this approach and went back in this Monday to get this thing right!  Well; almost right I guess…they were able to remove and replace the existing stint on the right with out and additional complications, in fact, they were even able to re-position it in a far more ideal place and again were hopeful that this would help with overall liver drainage.  Unfortunately, the left branch of the biliary tree was still so obstructed that placing a stint there was impossible!  This Tuesday, I was able to leave UCSF again and head HOME!!!  I can not tell you how amazing it is just to be HOME after two weeks in the hospital…I don’t know how anybody gets better in those places…between the bad food, constant interruptions, other sick people and all the beige…wow, it was driving this kid NUTS!

 

Well…what’s next?  This Monday morning I am heading back to UCSF to have an external drain installed on the left lobe of my liver. This is a far more invasive procedure than the endoscope and comes with more risk, but likely a much more immediate and dramatic impact on my liver’s ability to drain bile and other toxins…this will in turn allow my liver to begin functioning normally again, which will allow me to get back on the chemo…Once back on the chemo, we can focus on destroying the tumors in my liver blocking the natural drainage…this should enable us to remove the external drain and move on with fighting this battle full force with all of our collective strength and LOVE!

 

People keep asking me some version of the same questions; mostly ending in “How are you doing?” and “How can I HELP”!  How am I doing; well…that’s a tough one.  This has been the first real ‘set back’ since the initial diagnosis and it has come at a pretty bad time.  I felt like we were turning a corner and on our way to kicking some serious ass here…one thing I know better now that a couple weeks ago is that cancer don’t play fair!  So I must remain diligent always and be ready to bear down and fight whenever called upon to do so…I feel ready for Monday and whatever comes next!  My sister Elana will be here again to help manage the process and act as my advocate…she rocks and I can’t wait to see her again.  I’ve spent a lot of time over the past week on some good ‘internal’ work too…very cleansing and grounding with the help of some amazing and talented healers…I am indeed surrounded my an Army of Angels!  Give thanks!

 

How can you help?  Well…I need all the good words, thoughts and vibes you can spare!  Monday at noon I go in for the procedure and would love all of you to be there with me, raising my spirits and increasing my strength…Yeah, just like on the Golden Gate Bridge when it felt like you were all lifting me with your LOVE and I was floating along this path!  Please keep the notes, texts and calls coming each and everyone gives me SO MUCH strength!  But most of all, please take some time to slow down and focus on you too and Give Thanks for all the amazing blessings that happen every day in your world.  You are worth it and I Give Thanks for you today and everyday!

 

Much Love, Maximum Respect and Gratitude!

Ops~

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 8:43 am and is filed under Sending Love, The Medical Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.