New post, but it isn't much. . .

http://fauver.madpage.com/wordpress/?p=225

Monday Morning Blog

I am well-rested this morning, mostly.  I do have some of my scrambled brains cobbled back together, which is a sign that the worst of the chemotherapy side effects are over.  Only five more of these to go!  Next chemo stop is September 15th & 16th.  Hopefully a deadline won't drop in on that week.  But if it does, I will manage, especially with help of family and friends, as usual.  I really can't emphasize enough how much I love my family and friends, and it usually takes something like cancer to really have that appreciation come to the forefront.  But then again, we don't care about the air we breathe until we can't breathe it anymore, so why should anything else be different?

Read more at my other blog.

Yes, it's pathetic, but why do I find it so damn funny?

I tried to be lucid for this post, but it didn't work out too well

I TRIED to be lucid - but this is what chemobrain does. . . http://fauver.madpage.com/wordpress/

MSKCC adventures: Days of Bendamustine

Day "One", again, this time in a new facility.So my intrepid adventuring sidekick, Nate, who has medical problems of his own, took off from my home in Vineland and stopped at Wawa to gas up, grab some cold tea, and drive the hour to Trenton (Hamilton Square, actually) to pick up a Transit Train into NYC (Penn Station). The trips were pretty bland and nothing exciting happened. I finished "You Suck" by Christopher Moore and am halfway through "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". The problem with PPZ is that it's really a one-joke premise so far and I find myself not as excited as I am supposed to be. Meh. I guess when you deal with a type of plague you have yourself, you tend to be more critical of fictional plagues. We arrived in Penn Station and walked out the wrong side - d'oh! I knew better, too. So we walked around to the Mad Square Garden side and grabbed a cab. No cash cabs were available, damn the luck! Instead we had a bearded fellow by the name of Anis. Got to Sloan Kettering in average time, popped in to register and found out I was to immediately have a bone marrow biopsy - yay! Unscheduled as far as I knew. I was also informed they had been waiting for me since 11:30. Considering it was now 1:00 PM, I was late. Although in my defense, my actual appointment was for 1:45. So, they gave me the option of the manual cork-screw into my back or the new-fangled, ultra-expensive device they just got - you know, a new toy. I chose the new toy. I love the sound a drill makes when carving through flesh and bone, especially when I can hear it on both the inside and outside of my body. Still hurt when he hit the bone and crunched it as well as when they sucked the marrow for an aspiration. But it was over a LOT quicker. We're talking five minutes tops. I approve of this technology.

Docs had a phone conference to make sure I had all of my tests completed and legitimized, yada yada. He talked about HLA typing, and it doesn't seem that Sloan Kettering is on the same page as HUMC. Something to clarify later with both hospitals.

So then the true waiting game began. We bounced around to three different waiting rooms. Which you know, is ALWAYS fun. Didn't actually get chemo until five o'clock or thereabouts. They accessed my port, grabbed a handful of blood (vials of blood, that is) and pre-treated me with fluids, Zofran, and Dexomethosone. I needed something to eat, so I asked for some OJ and crackers, which I shared with Nate. They hooked up the bendamustine and I was out of there an hour later, feeling "slorshy". The nurse, Joann, told me to report at 3 the next day for more slorshy goodness. We grabbed a cab back to Penn Station, grabbed a quick bite at a Moe's inside the station and grabbed the train back to Trenton through thunderstorms. After another uneventful trainride, aside from the bouncing, jostling train car which made the slorsh slorsh even more, that is.

Got home around 10:30 feeling slorshed out, flushed, and had a bit of a headache. I did sleep well despite the weird dreams which I do not remember and the rock hard erections that kept waking me up. I've had that happen before with chemo. It's actually one of the "better" side-effects when I am able to use it for what is intended. When I'm not, it's like I overdosed on VJuice from TrueBlood.

Day Two of the clinical trial was really a lot more of the same as Day One, except no surprising flesh drills. I did notice that a) my arms were healing and not as itchy from that damnable eczema stuff, nor b) was I coughing as much. Probably an attribution from the Dexamethosone rather than the Bendamustine, though Doc Hamelin did tell me that it starts working within the first two treatments, so I am very hopeful about that. Oh, another thing I was told is that they are continuing to check on HLA matches, even with cord blood, but they are undecided about a second Allo transplant - they want to see how the Bendamustine works and possibly put off the transplant for another time or maybe never is need-be. They want to weigh everything positive and negative. So it just means yet another uncertainty in my treatment. Still looking for a match, though, just in case.

So I waited four hours in the waiting areas of Sloan-Kettering after uneventful drives, train journeys, and wild cab rides until I was moved to yet another area and had my chemo started at 6:15 PM. From 2:45 to 6:15 is not four hours, it's only 3:30, but it was still an inconvenience. Left feeling slorshy again, but not as much as I had packed water, almonds, fig newtons, and teriyaki jerky with me. Trust me, I know exactly what to bring to chemotherapy. I'm a frikkin expert. I slept the hour of Bendamustine. They knew I was pissed because they didn't drip it, they let is drizzle in. It made my head a little bloated, but it got me out faster.

I wasn't able to visit Carmen in the city this time, but next time. I took another wild ride to Penn Station, and a ride on Transit beck to Trenton that wasn't slorshy but was fairly crowded. I worked on outlines for Hamlet, as well as other projects for home improvement and other things, so it wasn't as unproductive as the day before.Another night of sleep, another flushed face, another bout of all-night stiffies.

One round of chemo down, five more to go. Cancer, you're one done SOB.

Did you like this one? I have more coming. Leave me a buck! or fifty cents. or twenty-thousand dollars. I don't mind.

Brett Fauver (not Brett Favre, but he can donate too if he likes!)

856-265-3687

brett.fauver@gmail.com

Thanks! If you do, I'd love to thank you - leave me your address!

You can also buy a shirt to help out. http://www.cafepress.com/fauverarts2

Course of the day

Waiting in Suite 7 for chemotherapy. Been here over an hour and it's not because of socialized medicine.

ugh, I hate to admit it, but I need help again

So, of course, it's down to this again. . .

I'm looking for a little assistance in the transportation/food/lodging department for my frequent chemotherapy trips and visits. They are long days (so far) and plunge me deeper into fatigue. The train ride home after chemo was so damn bumpy I almosty blew chunks all over the seat. I was a little queasy and it didn't help that the train felt like it was on a paint mixer at points and at other points, going over a gravelly pothole filled road. Yes, I know it's a train, but just imagine if. . .

So, it's already put a pretty bad strain on the already tight finances, and I haven't been able to make jam or salsas yet to defray costs (a week or two when fruits and veggies are ripe enough), it has caused some wear and tear on vehicles, the gas issue is there, as well as the costs for parking, taxis, subways, and NJTransit trains. Then there is the question of eating. It is just such an added expense for me as well as taking precious time away from any work I might have coming in. So, could you spare a dime for a man who's down on his luck?

Thanks! If you do, I'd love to thank you - leave me your address!

Sometimes. . .

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to please someone, they turn on you and prove how much of a douchebag you already knew they were. . .

douchebags. . .

Stunning display of GvHD

Well I have GvHD, I think, over a lot of my skin, maybe about 60%. It's itchy, red, and irritating. Does the GvHD mean I don't need chemo? Does it mean my own body is finally taking care of shit like it's supposed to do (after a transplant, I mean)? Probably not, but there is always hope.

I am irritaed right now at my printer, which prints one postcard (usually) before jamming. I haven't even gotten to 200 yet today. Only 800 and some to go. It's not actually printing the full postcard, just a mailing address.

In between deadlines right now. The last deadline was last week at some point, but the issue was finally uploaded on Friday evening. I was yelled at vociferously by the publisher because I said I would get it to the printer by the afternoon. I told him that it WOULD have happened if he hadn't changed so many pages around. Each time he would do that we would have to repaginate. The upload time to Box.net was atrocious (so he could see the proof). Anyway, the issue is done and out of my hands at this point. Northern NJ papers are due this week, and I had asked to get all material in to me by Aug 4, due to my associate being at Wizard World Chicago this weekend (I was supposed to attend as well, but I had a conflict with a wedding of a good friend which I am in - the wedding, not the good friend), so of course, I only have info for 30 of 70 pages. These papers always seem to be an afterthought for the publisher - oh yeah, we ARE doing those papers, too, aren't we? And I get stuck holding the dead fucking rat.

I have a doc appointment tomorrow for a fun fun bone marrow biopsy. Have I mentioned it's fun?

Thursday I have a trip to Memorial Sloan Kettering for a PET scan, a CT Scan, an EKG, and blood work. Not a lot of fun. I will be pretty damn tired.

Friday I will no doubt be working my ass off to get the issue uploaded, and I have a rehearsal dinner to attend that night.

Saturday is the wedding on the beach, and I can't wait. It shoukd be a lot of fun if not sweat-inducing.

Had a meeting with a prospective presenter of Hamlet. Looks promising but I have a lot of work to do on the proposal. Luckily I have some talented friends who have already signed on to help. Anyone else?