Blogging in B Minor

With everything going on, I have to find things to laugh about.  Dana Carvey is one of my favorite comedians - check out this bit on the Tonight Show.  I still can’t stop laughing!

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Tags:  Blog , Hilarious , Miscellaneous

Today is my son Aidan’s birthday - 6 years old!  His new favorite response to everything now that he is older is “I know”.  Isn’t it awesome?  Aidan, don’t throw that rock.  “I know”.  CRASH.  Aidan, please don’t use the couch as your personal pommel horse.  “I know”.  BOUNCE.  Anyway, he came bounding out of his room this morning as if he was having a party with cake at 6:30am.  If he would have had a party horn it would have been blowing hard.  Thank the Lord.  Immediate questions - who’s coming over today?  Will there be cake mom?  Dad, you have a tie on - aren’t you going to stay home??  Of course we explained all of this (how Thursday would be) and had a great party for him at a waterpark with his friends a week and a half ago - and this weekend have something planned with the family, but TODAY is his birthday and he was determined to start it off right.  So at 6:30 this morning, there we were - me in my tie, Rachael barely awake, Keegan drinking a bottle on her lap, the dogs still asleep and Aidan opening a present from his aunt and uncle.  You have to love kids.

I had an appointment with my neurologist on Tuesday and it was a very good appointment.  I had increased my dosage of Lamictal on a daily basis to make these very subtle seizures presenting in my left bicep disappear.  So far, I’ve been pretty successful in chasing them down.  No one likes to chase a problem with meds but in this case, we are not a) switching to another medication and b) the problem is not significant at all.  So, it seems to be addressing it.  As I’ve explained, it is almost like a small muscle spasm.  Oh well - I’m dealing with it.  I’ve sensed slight weakness on my left side but I checked out just fine at my appointment - he didn’t detect any at all.  So he set me up for an appointment at 6 months - Feb of 09.  Sounds good to me.

There were a few moments in the past week where I reflected on everything and thought about what is happening, albeit subtle, coupled with the latest MRI.  Regardless of how much I have turned all of this over, my faith and peace I pray for, I can sometimes fall into that trap.  I made correlations between the MRI not using the term “stable” anywhere in the final report coupled with small seizures and what I detect as slight weakness from time to time.  Mr. Logic takes over and says that these all are tied together and mean something.  However, when I speak with a doctor, like I did on Tuesday and he says a) I don’t detect any weakness, b) your report indicated some enhancement - that means the blood brain barrier has broken down and that naturally happens - it’s not really a concern and c) seizures don’t always suggest anything is occurring with regard to a change in a brain tumor, you get straightened out.  For the most part I have always let all of this be but it creeps in mostly when there are physical reminders.

Tomorrow I have my regular checkup with my neuro-oncologist which should be uneventful.  Other than that, getting back into the groove after a great vacation!

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Tags:  Aidan , birthday , Brain Tumor , lamictal , Miscellaneous , My Story , seizure , topomax

We’re back from our vacation to Victoria and it was so nice to get away.  As I said before, we haven’t been away for more than a long weekend since Rachael was pregnant with Keegan - around Jan 07!  And since he was born, Rachael hasn’t been away from him for more than 6 hours.  We needed this and it was just a great trip.  We had some really nice evenings - great dinners, went horseback riding one day, went to an amazing garden called Butchart Gardens (if you’ve been there you know what I mean) and did some shopping.  The first day we were there we slept in until 8:30 which is LATE for us!  The other mornings we were up a bit earlier.  I’ve included a number of pictures in this post that will give you a good idea of the sites. 

The weather could not have been more perfect.  On day 1 we arrived to some very light sprinkles that cleared up within an hour - enough for us to walk around the inner harbor and then Thur-Sat was sunny and in the low 70’s.  On Sunday, when we arrived at the airport and were waiting on our gate, it was pouring down rain!  I think God had planned our time pretty well there. 

Health-wise, I did pretty good.  I had a little bit of weakness on my left side at one point but it cleared up pretty quickly.  Of course I brought all of my meds in my carry-on - no issues at customs either way.  When we got home the kids really missed us.  They (particulary Aidan) really missed us.  Aidan was apparently counting down the hours.  We sort of were!

So that’s all for now.  I have a few appointments this week with my neuro-oncologist on Thursday and my Neurologist tomorrow.  I don’t expect much to come from these but I will be interested in my neurologists input on the small focal seizures I’ve been having.

Pictures (Click on each for full size)

Cheers,

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Tags:  Miscellaneous , My Story

I was deeply saddened today to learn that Randy Pausch succumbed to pancreatic cancer.  If you aren’t familiar with Randy or his “Last Lecture”, take a look at my post back in May.  He was an absolutely amazing person who fought his battle with dignity and grace and is a model  for all of us.  He never gave up, pursued many types of chemotherapy treatments and was an advocate in front of Congress.

 May he rest in peace.

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Tags:  cancer , chemotherapy , inspiration , Miscellaneous

My son Aidan loves to draw.  He sits down at the kitchen table and gets out crayons, pens, pencils, paints - you name it!  He makes cards, drawings and anything his mind can dream up.  I had this idea a long time ago that I would save all of this stuff in a drawer and then once the quanity of work built up over time, I would scan all of it and create a DVD.  So, it has built up enough over the last year and a half that I was able to produce a short DVD.  I know he’ll enjoy it (we’ll show him tonight) but I first output it in the format necessary for youtube.com so I could embed it here.

So here it is - Aidan’s Artwork slide show.  I just set it to some cool moving music.  Media is so wonderful - in this case, for me anyway, it takes you into a child’s mind in a way that you just can’t achieve in any other way. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.  Most of all, Aidan will be proud and it’s something he’ll have forever.  How cool is that.

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Tags:  Aidan , inspiration , Miscellaneous , My Story , personal

Many of you must have learned of Dr. Randy Pausch and his fight against pancreatic cancer.  I recall my wife Rachael recording an episode of Oprah that featured him presenting what he calls his Last Lecture.  Since that episode that aired months ago, he has gained much notoriety and has published a book entitled “The Last Lecture”. 

Randy’s lecture is an amazingly inspirational experience.  I would urge all of you take this in if you haven’t already.  Also, below the video I have placed a link to his update page where he is posting updates on his health.  This is obviously a huge battle and he’s way down the road with it - prayers are always powerful…

 Randy Pausch’s Update Page

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Tags:  cancer , inspiration , Miscellaneous

This is just another example of how sometimes the world’s most amazing creativity can be born out of the most tragic of times. This is an amazing performance that you have to watch - it’s about 7 minutes long so take your time and watch it to the end. It’s worth it.

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Tags:  creativity , inspiration , Miscellaneous , Other Artists

This is off of the beaten path of music but deserves visibility. It is so moving and also serves as a strong reminder that regardless of your stance on what is happening in Iraq and abroad, our troops are simply called to duty and willingly serve us.

A friend of mine sent this to me and I was so moved that I had to post it here in my blog. It has received 9.2 million hits on YouTube. Take a few minutes and check it out.

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Tags:  Iraq , Iraq war , Memorial Day , Miscellaneous , US troops