5 years later

Hard to believe its been 5 years since my diagnosis and 4.5 years since I've posted in this blog (I think).  Even crazier to think how much my life has changed.  I'm extremely lucky to be cancer free, have a beautiful, supportive, loving wife and the most special little guy a Dad could ask for.  Today, I figure its a good time to add to the blog I've ignored for so long.

Honestly, from time to time I have to remind myself that I was once a cancer patient.  Its weird to look at pictures of me with no hair, slim and having tinted skin from the radiation treatments.  I feel so blessed to be able to put that time of my life behind me, but there's no question its made me appreciate every single day that I'm able to get out of bed.

Before I was diagnosed, I didn't know much about cancer outside of the fact that it was a deadly disease.  But after my diagnosis, I learned that its not a death sentence, at all.  At times, I almost feel blessed that I was dealt those cards.  Its completely changed my outlook on life, all for the better.  So much so, (and as lame as this might sound) I even look forward to the seasons changing.

Today, I take things one step at a time because I have no clue what tomorrow's going to bring.  I've become so much more optimistic because there's always hope.  Hope in health, hope in love, hope in faith and almost as importantly, hope in Cleveland sports (had to get that in there).  I hear of cancer diagnosis often, but unlike before, my initial response/reaction is that its beatable, no matter the scenario.  The fight against this disease is just as much a mental battle as it is physical.  I thank the Lord daily for the support system he blessed me with.  We all have friends and family who go through struggles.  My recommendation......do what you can to support them.  Be there to lend an ear.  We all have crazy lives, many of us with significant others, work and some even with children.  Take a minute to even shoot a text to say "whats up" to someone you haven't seen or heard from in awhile.  You never know what they're going through and what they might possibly need at that moment in time.

            "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people    
             will never forget how you made them feel" - Maya Angelou

I've gained a lot of friends through this journey, I've even lost a couple.  Thoughts and prayers to Karin Diamond, Dean Paras and one in particular, my Uncle Nate.  This disease strengthened my faith and I know those who have lost their battle are basking in the riches of God's kingdom.

To close this chapter of my life, I want to thank my family for everything they've done to get me to this 5 year mark.  Mom, Dad, Evan.....I love you guys so much.  There aren't enough "thank you's" and "I love you's" to express my sincere appreciation for all you've given and sacrificed.

Finally, to my incredible wife of almost 2 years.......you're an incredible woman.  You basically take care of 2 toddlers.  Thank you for the encouragement, optimism and love you bring into my life every day.  And most importantly, thank you for giving me the most precious gift of all.....being a Daddy to the most amazing 1 year old I could ever ask for.  Hard to believe that at one point 5 years ago, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to experience fatherhood.  My prayers to all those who are trying, what a gift it is.  Continue to put your hope an faith into the Lord.

Thanks again to all of you for your support over the years.

God Bless,

Diamond

An unexpected phone call.....

I dont know how else to say it this so I'm just gonna come right out with it, but.........I've beaten cancer! I'm a cancer survivor! It was a struggle at times, but its done, its over with and I couldn't be happier!

For those who dont believe in God, listen to this quick story:

So faith has become a more intigral part of my life over the last 6 months. I mean, its always been a part of my life (former altar boy), but over the last 10 years I've really gotten away from it. I now pray almost daily.....location is never an issue. I'll pray before I go to bed, I'll pray during the commercial of a Cavs telecast, I'll even pray in the car. Today was no different, I was on my way to get my "hairz did" this afternoon (Susan, my fam and me have a nice afternoon planned with the Transiberian Orchestra tomorrow....gotta look good). I began my prayer, but this one seemed a little different. There was a TON of emotion behind it, I just kept talking and praying about EVERYTHING....most of all my health. I had my final scans taken yesterday and knew that I wasn't going to hear from my Doctor about the results until Christmas Eve, so I knew I had a good strong week of praying ahead of me. No more than 2 mins after I finished my prayer, my phone rang.......I recognized the number, it was my Doctors office. Usually when I see this number, I freak out. Not this time, there was a sense of calmness in me. Maybe it was the Hospital nutritionist calling to confirm our meeting on Monday, maybe it was my Endocronologist calling to confirm my appt in 2 weeks. Who knows, I've been dealing with so many people from the Hospital it could've been anyone. However, I wasn't expecting to hear my nurse on the other line. The good news came, he said "Mike, I have an early Christmas gift for you......you're all clear, no more cancer". My heart dropped, I was shocked and speechless. For someone who is as longwinded as me, I didn't know what to say except Thank you. I balled my eyes out for the next 20 mins. I called my mom (balled my eyes out), called my dad (balled my eyes out), called my girlfriend (she ignored my call....haha, just kidding babe, she was preoccupied at work), but I was prepared to ball my eyes out to her.

Praise the Lord, I'm healthy again, and I couldn't be happier.

For all the minutes in a day, for all the days in a week....why did my nurse call me RIGHT after one of my most heartfelt prayers? Coincidence? Hell no!

Thanks to EVERYONE for all your incredible support, I wish I could fly around the state/country/world and give you all a hug, handshake, or pat on the butt for all my former baseball teammates (Good game). You all have been my rock, without you guys I dont know where I'd be. I love you all!

Hopefully this is the last ever blog :)

Have a Merry Christmas! Always be thankful for friends, family and just as importantly......your health! Most of us take that for granted a little too often. It can all change in a heartbeat, and if it ever does (god willing it doesn't), please reach out to me. I want to be there for you they way you were there for me!

God Bless!

Hell yes.....I'm done with treatments!

Just a quick post here:

As of 11/18, I'm officially done with cancer treatments! The last 2 weeks have been the roughest I could've ever imagined, but I got through it and now its time to finally relax and take a fresh of breath air! The Dr's aren't going to take a final scan for another month, I still have some radiation flowing through my body. There's also still a bunch of inflammation and scar tissue from all the treatments, so they'd like to let that subside a bit before taking my final scans. Until then, I'm just going to assume the treatments have worked and I'm cancer-free. I know its a strong assumption, but I'm trying to be optimistic here.

Scans will be done on 12/17 and my oncologist set up an appt with her for 12/24 (yes, Christmas Eve) to discuss the results of the scans. That appt COULD be the most incredible gift God could offer......complete remission, I'm hoping and praying thats the case!

In the meantime, I'm slowly going to try and get myself back into my normal lifestyle. I've been waiting 6 months for this, can't wait!

Thanks to all of you for your amazing support through this entire process. I know we're not out of the woods yet, but I can see the clearing and I'm getting antsy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

1.5 weeks of Radiation left

Alright, its 6am on Monday morn and I've had a terrible nights sleep (thats been the theme over the last 1.5 weeks). Went to bed at 11:30, woke up at 1am, 2am, and 430am......been up since. I'm gonna be "realistic" during this entry, so dont get discouraged if I'm not the 100% positive cancer patient you've been used to hearing from.

This radiation process is REALLY starting to get to me, its definately much more difficult than chemo. My throat is completely ripped up from the treatment, its also affecting my lungs. I can barely swallow my own saliva as I cringe every time, I wake up in the middle of the night with my throat feeling like its completely swollen shut, I can't stop coughing and trying to clear my throat. Through this process doctors have been adament about me monitoring my body temperature, anything above 100.4 I need to report to them, especially with all this flu crap flying around. I've been taking my temperature over the last couple days, and unfortunately its been fluctuating from normal to 100, which is starting to raise some concern on my end. I'm going in today for my 16th radiation treatment, I'm going to mention this to the nurses/doctors and see what they recommend.

Its great to think that I only have another 1.5 weeks of this hell. To be accurate, they'll only be radiating my neck another 4 days (thru this Thursday), the last 4 days of treatment will concentrate solely on the active node they found in my chest from my last scan. Unfortunately, the current side effects will last for another 1-2 weeks after treatment has been completed.

In the meantime I'm staying positive, but again it hard to keep a high quality mindset when I can't ever get a good nights rest. If you guys have any suggestions on how to manage this, please let me know, I'll run it by the Dr's to see if they approve. This almost feels like the absolute WORST case of strep throat you could imagine.......throw in a chest cold and about 4 mouth sores. Oh yea, the salivary glands in my neck are completely disintegrated, so my mouth is dry as hell too. The list just keeps going and going........

Hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the Holidays. I'm hoping I'll get a clean bill of health before Thanksgiving!

Fundraiser & Radiation

Sorry, I've been meaning to get back to the blog, my bad to those who check this from time to time. Just a quick catch up:

First and foremost, thank you so much to those who were able to either attend the fundraiser and/or make a generous donation. The fundraiser was a complete success!!! We were anticipating 200-220 people show, I was stunned to hear that 450 were in attendance, so much more than we could've asked for. I had an absolutely amazing time, but gotta say I was exhausted half way through. I lost my voice and actually ran to the bathroom to chill out and get away from all the madness from time to time! The manager told us that this was the biggest fundraiser they had ever had at the Blind Pig aside from a fundraiser that was put together a few years back; it was a day long event. So again, thanks to all those who came out to support. It couldn't have been done without all my close family and friends, and a special thanks to my girlfriend Susan :)

Now, back to the serious stuff. I began radiation last Monday 10/19. The week prior I went in to get myself fitted for my radiation mask. I laid down on the radiation table, the techs then proceeded to put some type of slime on my face, they spread it out over my neck and part of my chest, it was actually kind of cool, felt like I was on Nickelodeons "You can't do that on TV". The slime hardened over about a 5 min span to turn into a mold of my face. I was thinking, "hey, this is kind of cool, I got my Halloween costume (it kind of looks like a Hockey mask, like Jason from Friday the 13th). All was good, until they bolted the mask (with my face in it) down to the table. Talk about claustrophobia, never thought I had it until that moment. Wow, I was freakin out. The techs have to do it this way because any slight movement during radiation will throw off the entire treatment. I'm thinking there's NO way I'm going to be able to do this every day for 23 treatments! Luckily, each treatment only takes about 5 mins and I've gotten used to the mask now, so no worries these days!

I'm about 25% done with radiation, but I'm already starting to feel the side effects. Sore throat, slight difficulty swallowing, and the worst is probably the indigestion....all were expected. I can also expect fatigue, but that hasn't kicked in yet.

So, where's that leave us? Well, according to the Doctors, this radiation should take care of all the residual disease left on my neck and chest. If all goes well, 11/19 should be my last day of treatment!!!!! I'm prayin hard

Finally, I'm going to try and upload some pics of the radiation process, hopefully this works!

NO MORE CHEMO!

Yep, you heard right, I'm done with chemo! Had a follow up appt with my oncologist today and she told me that I've concluded my chemo treatments. I got the results back from the biopsy done this past Monday, and I'm excited to say they came back negative! Yes Yes, it sounds all fine and dandy, but these results aren't 100% accurate. The biopsy that was done was a fine needle aspiration, and similar to the needle aspiration originally done on my neck back in April, that came back negative too. If you can recall, it wasn't until the full removal of the nodes in my neck did the doctors confirm it to be positive for Hodgkins. Sooooooooo, what I'm trying to say is that its still possible that the node in my chest is still cancerous.

So, whats the next step? Well, for the time being I'm just soaking up the good news, its been awhile since I've gotten any!

My oncologist mentioned I have 2 options:

Option #1) We can head straight into radiation. 20 years ago Hodgkins was treated solely with radiation and the cure rate was pretty good with that plan of attack, so radiation to this node will hopefully knock it completely into remission. PET scan will be taken afterwards to hopefully confirm no cancer. However, IF radiation doesn't work and PET scan still comes back positive, I'll need to have another biopsy done, this time removing the ENTIRE node to figure out why its resulting in positive form on the scan. This procedure is called VATS (http://www.rush.edu/rumc/page-1160429783340.html). The problem in doing this procedure AFTER radiation - there will be A LOT of scar tissue from chemo and radiation, this will probably make it very difficult for my surgeon to grab the lymphnode from my chest, maybe even impossible. Another negative to this procudure is that again, they'll have to collapse my lung, so recovery will be a little tougher and will require at least one nights stay in the hospital.

Option #2) We can go right back to the Operating Room and have the surgeon do the VATS procedure ASAP. In doing this, we will get a definite diagnosis from the biopsy on the lymphnode and it will probably be much easier for the surgeon to get to the node. Whether the biopsy comes back positive or negative, radiation will be required.

So my next plan of action is to call my Thoracic surgeon and get an idea on what he's comfortable with, I'll be doing this tomorrow. In the meantime - physically, emotionally, mentally I feel great, its nice not having such a burden on my shoulders like I did this morning. My blood pressure reading prior to the oncologist meeting with me was 145/90.....for those with BP issues, you know thats not great! I was nervous as hell!!!!

Anyway, Im really looking forward to the fundraiser, I can finally "let my hair down" (though its not much) and enjoy a few beers with family and friends. If you plan on coming and have any questions, please dont hesitate to reach out ot me.

2nd round of scans

Lots to catch up with, so here goes:

Ok, I've been holding off on this post because I was hoping that it would be a little bit more positive, but it is what it is. I had my 2nd set of scans administered on 9/17. They did the typical CT scan and PET scan, along with a mugascan (heart test) and pulmonary test (lung capacity test). The 2 latter test are taken to make sure my body continues to handle the chemo well. Those 2 came back great! Unfortunately, the PET scan wasn't as positive. The good news: all of the cancer found in my neck and middle of my chest is gone! The bad news: there's a spot just under my right collar bone that continues to show up positive on the PET scan. This is not a new enlarged lymphnode; this has been there since my original diagnosis. Unfortunately, its not reacting to the current chemo treatment. Oncologist isn't sure if its Hodgkins disease or just an area thats coming up active on the scan for another reason. Aside from the cancer, she mentioned it could be an infection, a false positive from the scan, or something else...... Needless to say that when I got this news, I was a bit devastated. Most people (with 2A Hodgkins after 8 rounds of chemo) are typically cancer free, they just need to finish out the final 4 chemo treatments, then on to radiation.

So, where do we go from here you might ask? Well, my oncologist set up an appointment for me to meet with a Thoracic surgeon (which occured last Tuesday 9/22). We scheduled another biopsy which took place just yesterday (Monday 9/28) to have part of that lymphnode removed. I'm recovering at home right now, feeling pretty good, just a sore neck, feels like I just got off the Mean Streak at Cedar Point (that ride's waaaayy too bumpy!). Along with the biopsy, the doctors also did a bronchioscopy (I believe is how its spelled), just to make sure the cancer hasn't spread. From what I've been told, we're all clear there. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to speak with the Thoracic surgeon post-op, but my parents did. He made a cut into the base of my neck (where the neck meets the chest) and navigated his way through my uppper chest to the lymphnode just under my right collar bone. It was tough for him to get a sufficient piece of the node due to all the scar tissue from the dead Hodgkins cells, but he got something. Hopefully its good enough to make a diagnosis. If not, then we gotta do it all over again :(. Next time they'll actually have to make a couple incisions under my right armpit and will then need to collapse a freakin lung to get to the node to have the entire thing removed.

Honestly, I'm not sure where we stand. Obviously I hope that the surgeon got more than enough of the lymphnode to make a diagnosis and I'm praying like crazy that it comes back negative for Hodgkins. However, if it does come back positive, the Oncologist will need to make some changes in my chemo, then head into radiation. Hopefully that does the trick!!

I've been doing great through all of this treatment, part of me actually felt that it was going TOO good, like there had to be a setback somewhere. Well, this is it, and I'm hoping thats all this is, just a minor set back. For those of you who might be praying out there, I'll need them the most in the next couple days. I have an appointment with my Oncologist this Thursday and she should have the results. I'll keep you all posted, thanks for checking in!

Oh yea, and hopefully I get to see most, if not all of you, at the fundraiser this weekend!