Escape from New York- A new epic begins
OK guys, this is the post you’ve been waiting for. It’s how we ended up on an idyllic little dead end in the mountains where our drive in is past the neighbors llamas, goats, and Shetland ponies. Our back yard is pasture that rolls up steeply to a ridge. Wild Turkey, Bear, Birds I’ve never seen nor heard anywhere, just incredible wildlife. Apparently we are in one of the most Bio-diverse regions in North America. Made friends with a couple neighbors and it’s like paradise. I have a lot of pics, I’ll just make a big picture page with captions, sorry light box lovers. Yeah, everything is amazing here, I feel so fortunate.
Only one catch is it looks like I’m facing the Epic Battle of my journey with Cancer. Back in mid July, while still in NY, I started feeling like I had a sinus infection. That was odd, because I’d never had one, am not prone to bronchitis or the like, even though I’m a heavy smoker. Without health insurance, I just took OTC allergy meds to help with the pressure and pain. Well, by the time I was driving down here, August 11th and 12th, I was having some bad symptoms. I still hung in there, and started scrambling to try and get medical care. The Veteran’s Hospital here, in Asheville, NC is absolutely top notch, they saved my life, as I saw them doing for so many others each day, just amazing.
September 25th I ended up in the Hospital as my brain was swelling and the pressure in my head was pushing my brain downwards. I’ve been on Steroids to control that ever since, but I’m home now for a week and feel pretty good most of the time. What they ended up discovering is a new tumor in the back of my head, one that’s big and running in the skull, up the dura, and down into the sagittal sinus, a really crucial area. The Neurosurgeon basically said they can’t get it all, the risks of paralysis are high, and not worth trying. So the plan so far is 15 Radiation treatments (finished week 1 this past Friday) and I am on Sutent. A systemic pill developed with RCC in mind, It has been a “real miracle pill” for years for people with advanced metastatic RCC like me, and it passes the blood brain barrier which made it pretty amazing when was approved.
I’m almost halfway through my first cycle (I’m doing 28 days on 14 off at the highest dosage) now, starting to have some side effects, but nothing bad, just exhausted all the time. The Steroids mess with you big time after awhile on them 24/7. So my life will probably be dealing with side effects of drug therapy if I respond well. Living on chemo cocktails and tons of meds for side effects. But you know what? That’s living. And really, most days lately, even though this sounds completely insane, life is good, I’m really happy to be living it any way I can get. Every minute is sometimes more amazing or profound than the previous, I’ve had some truly spiritual moments, been touched by some amazing peoples spirits, and just been feeling so much love and acceptance everywhere around me. I do have some struggles, my vision is impaired and changes a lot, I really can’t drive or read a book like I used to. I may have to start listening to audiobooks, I miss reading. But all in all, this instant is the place for me, wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I, of course, have so much more to ramble and rant about, and you will definitely hear a lot more about this past year and all the events that got us here, I just had to break the silence, drop the news, and get the ball rolling.
Namaste
