Richmond Marathon 2012

Today is Thanksgiving, and I think a short statement is in order. I hadn't planned to post much more on this site, but seeing as it's been a couple years, I thought I'd give an update, for any latecomers to the story. I have a great deal to be Thankful for.

I've been free from any signs of Lymphoma for the past couple of years. Nothing shows up on PET scans, no issues in the blood work. As they say in the business, there's NED - No Evidence of Disease. All in all, I think I'm as healthy as I was before the chemo and transplant. The docs don't use the terms 'remission' or 'cured', but for all intents and purposes I think I'm there. I turned 40 a few weeks ago, which was fun. Getting older, there are plenty of aches and pains that come up every day, but that's just life.

Since my last post, I've been pretty busy. Work and the kids keep me very busy, as do day-t0-day events at home. My family is well, and the girls are growing like weeds. My wife is as beautiful as ever, and continues to be a support and inspiration. Frankly, I don't see how one person can manage as much as she does.

I'm still homebrewing - I have a couple of batches in the basement. A porter, an oak porter, and an american brown.

I'm still growing mushrooms, but have had limited success this year. Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms did less well than I'd have expected, and there was nothing from the Hedgehog (Lion's mane) I'd put in last year. I'll probably need to modify my technique. Fortunately a large tree came down in the back yard, which will provide me with plenty of substrate for future batches of mushrooms (not to mention firewood).

I've taken up mountain biking with the help of my friends and relatives. It's a great passtime, but requires a lot of skill, balance, and strength - none of which am I naturally endowed with. I think of it as an opportunity for self improvement - and a chance to test my ability to heal following my numerous crashes.

One of my happiest achievements of the past couple of years is my completion of a marathon a couple of weeks ago. I ran at the Richmond marathon, which for those of you who don't follow running, is 26.2 miles. It was incredible. The weather was perfect, the people were so supportive and friendly, and, above all, the course was great. It took us past the old haunts of my youth. It was especially great to sprint past monuments that I was only able to walk around a couple of years ago, during my stay in for the transplant. I beat my planned time, and just by the numbers, did pretty well.

Richmond Marathon - 11/12/11
PACZKOWSKI, PATRICK (M40)
Net time: 3:43:36

Gun Time: 3:44:57
Place: 750
Place in Sex: 605

Place in Age Group:85

Age Group Division: M40-44

I have a great deal to be thankful for, and the above is only the icing on the cake.

Birthday Post

I'd like to give a quick status update to anyone who still checks the blog. Today is my birthday, and it finds me in much better shape than a year ago (which I celebrated with a chemo-bag full of orange goo attached to me). Results of the PET scan a few weeks ago came back negative (again), which means that so far, I'm not showing any signs of relapse. Healthwise, I'm pretty well, with only a few lingering issues.

I'm back at work in the office full time - I have been since late June. Everyone there has been so incredibly supportive, it's been great getting back to normalcy.

Today I took off work early for some scans and after I got home, I had a ten mile run. It was a great feeling doing that distance again, though my time averaged a little more than a nine minute mile (a bit worse than my 6.50 or so back in Apr 08. I keep telling myself that the distance and ease of run will come. We'll see.

Jane and he kids have been great - it's great to see them every day and we're rapidly accumulating all kinds of extra curricular activities - violin, piano, chess, and all sorts of other stuff. The deer ate much of the garden this summer, so we don't have as much as we'd like to be able to show for all of Jane's work.

My hops yielded a pretty good harvest this year, more than I could pick. The mushroom logs didn't do as well as I expected, possibly owing to a lack of watering on my part. I have another batch I plan to inoculate this weekend - Shiitake, Maitake, Oyster, and Hedgehog. Fingers crossed for this batch!

I brewed another batch of beer a few weeks ago - an amber ale. It's coming along nicely, I think it will age pretty well. I'm hoping to do a pumpkin stout this weekend. It's not as strange as it sounds, trust me.

Thanks again to all friends and family. I'm sorry I haven't kept up as well as I might have, I've just been excited to get back to leading a normal life. I hope you all are well, and will post again.

Take care!

Not yet a new post

We'll I've been away from the blog for about 3 months and come September, I'm going to be at the 7 month mark for being post transplant. That' gives me a little bit of fear, a little bit of joy, and a little bit of 'could care less'.

I'm now working (and have been working full time since early/mid july. My supervisors and the company as a whole has been very understanding about my various appointments and absences over the past year. I have some really great friends here at work, church, and at and at home in Chesterfield County. At any rate I get the blood work, pet, and doctor's review of these two in the next week. My back is aching a lot, but I don't know what that has to do with anything. My intention is to have it looked at and assessed at my next appointment.

On the bright side, I'm running again - 21 miles this week alone, and I'm going ot try to increment up as quickly as possible so I can be in the best possible shape for the next avaialable race. It feels incrediblly good to do what my body wants to do for a change - with no caveats or reservations. My counts seem to have rebounded like magic. All I have left to do is to get my form right.

The girls had their pinata party this week and all of their little friends came down. They built a big pinata (I helped) and the kids tore it to ribbons. I'll post pix if I can find em.

I hope this letter finds all of my friends and family well!

God bless,

Patrick

100 days

Every day my feet hit the floor in the morning is a special day. Today is a particularly special day. 

I'm 100 days post-transplant - it seems so long ago that I was getting ready to take that first plunge into radiation and chemo. For those of you wondering, 100 days is the point at which you are (actuarially) out of the woods with respect to the transplant. I believe it also represents statistical drop in procedure-related mortality. Any statisticians in the house, please feel free to correct me. 

The 100 day mark also means I can cut out about 70 percent of medications from my daily regimen. That is an incredible relief, and will be a change that I hope will improve my quality of life.

How am I doing? I'm well. I still have some daily nausea and pain, but it's less than it was, and I'm seeing slow improvement. I have started to grow my hair back, and have the 'peach fuzz' look going. I'm nearly back to my normal weight and haven't been having any trouble with blood pressure. My white blood cell counts are still low, and so I'm supposed to be avoiding those activities which could put me at risk of infection, since I'm still technically immunocompromised. I don't like restrictions, so I try to do as much as possible without getting caught by the fun police. :) 

I'm back at work, though still working from home. I'm excited for the day that the doctor gives me the thumbs up to get back to the office so that  I can be with my crew. Thankfully, management has been incredibly patient with the recovery process.

So where does that leave me? Well, this time last year I was walking dead. I don't mean that figuratively.  By Memorial Day '08, I felt something was really wrong. I had stage IV cancer and was beginning to feel it. Skip ahead one year, 6 chemo sessions, and a stem cell transplant, and I'm well on the mend. I'm back with the people I love, and feel pretty good. I hope to begin exercise in the next month, and want to get back to running - soon. 

What did the transplant buy me?  The docs at MCV give me a 70-75% chance of disease-free survival for the next 5 years. If I had skipped the transplant, my odds were around 40%. While there are no guarantees, I think these are pretty good odds, considering my state coming into this experience. I'll continue to see both the docs here and (less frequently) at MCV. My follow-up regimen will be pretty serious as they'll want to catch any recurrence early. My understanding is that most cancer recurrence usually happens within the first two years or so, but after 5 years, you can breathe easy.  

And the blog? Well, I won't be updating so frequently unless something comes up. I would like to put this chapter of my life in the rear view mirror. Rest assured, whether I am cured or not, this 

experience will remain with me for some time to come.

To close this edition of the blog, I want to say 'thank you' to everyone. Without calling out names, and with the reader's pardon for any omissions and the maudlin nature of this post, I want to say 'thanks' to the many people who helped me survive.

Thank you: 

to the nurses - there's a special place in heaven for you, to the doctors, the lab techs, and the 

administrative folks - you were all great; I barely knew I was in the hospital - it felt more like a resort - with needles ;)  

to the people who develop the medicines that saved my life and the people who help them;

to my wife, Jane, I love you - you are more special to me than anyone I have ever known - you are incredible;

to my father, thank you for having the patience and strength to perform the incredibly difficult task of watching over me. You are a good man, and I pray that I never have to find the kind of courage to be a father who sees a child through a disease like this. Even so, I enjoyed our walks and time together more than I can tell you;

to mom, for taking care of the girls and being there when I couldn't be;

to Jeff, for talking, listening, visiting, and playing with my children;

to my family, my uncles, aunts, cousins, Sandy and Michael, and grandma - I'm truly blessed to have such relatives;

to my friends, like family, coordinating help, bringing meals, games (including that cool Wii), cupcakes, brownies with caramel, and food to fatten me up - sending me emails and IMs, visiting me in the hospital, calling me, driving me places, and seeing me off to the hospital - I couldn't ask for better people in my life;

to my neighbors, also friends, thank you for all of the meals, warm hand sewn garments, and hats, for your help, and the cupcakes, and for watching over my family while I was away;

to everyone else - those at church, in Florida, in Maryland, and Pennsylvania and from those of you who I don't know, and those of you who prayed - God was listening - he gave me strength when I needed it.

to my co-workers and management - for picking up the slack while I was out, and for being so understanding, I appreciate the help and that you treated me well - I'm lucky to have the employer I do;

to my readers - thanks for listening to my voice, knowing you were out there helped to ease the loneliness.

God bless you all.