Me 'n Mini-me

I am settling into a resting mode. Not as stressful as before the holidays. I 'm tying up some loose ends with initial treatment. In any case I am stuck with this for life.

Mini-me has kept me company (see Dec 16 post) Over 60 lbs of steel sits next to my brother's fireplace. Anyway starting to get creative in finding ways to entertain myself.

albert

Albert-1, Cancer-0

TARCEVA

The first round of this epic battle between good and evil is over. In one corner are the cancers: stage 4 lung, metastases in brain, bone and spleen. In the other corner are Albert, his medical and support teams and a relatively new cancer drug, Tarceva.

After all the counting of tumors in my head and lungs, the judges have unanimously awarded the first round to team Albert. All tumors have shrunk. The largest marble in my head shrank from 2.6cm to 1.6 cm. The largest in my lung looks like it shrank from 3.6cm to 1.2 cm, though the reports are slightly ambiguous. Many of the smaller tumors disappeared! My hip, which sent me to the ER has not hurt throughout the whole ordeal. This is without any pain killers.

So far a clear victory.

Even better, there was a clear consensus amoung the doctors to forego/cancel traditional Chemotherapy and stay the course with my single agent targeted treatment, Tarceva. Through clinical trials, Tarceva has shown some good results for never-smoking, asians with adenocarcinoma, right up my alley. Funny, results for most others are poor.

All I do now for treatment is take ONE small pill a day. Which is basically what I have been doing after the initial Wide Brain Radiation. It causes a slight rash but very easily taken care of. I basically eperience very little of the side effects of that even a stage 1 cancer patient experiences. Looks like I will skip all the discomforts of chemotherapy and risks. Though, the price tag on just 1 Tarceva pill is $113!!! That is an expensive pill.

It looks like I am going to ride the Tarceva wave for the foreseeable future.

Scan scan scan scan...

. "My brain on drugs"

Well, I am back in Arlington with my brother after a brief stint in my SF home. I cancelled a lot of appointments and basically only went out with a few groups to save time. I am back in DC to effectively complete my "initial" round of care at Mid Atlantic Kaiser. I finally saw my first medical oncologist before Xmas and she sorta freaked seeing how Mid Atlantic ignored me. She ordered a barrage of tests to finally set my baseline, ... two months and a lot of stress later.

I also got a referal to another specialist, Radiation Oncologist from my new Medical Oncologist that I see tomorrow. I originally asked for a referral to a Radiation Oncologist to cover my second opinion outside the system, $426 for the meeting out of my own pocket. Getting denied was the expected result, however the front office denied me in spetacular fashion. In a form letter they wrote:

"Radiation therapy is not medically necessary..."

Odd since most of my initial specialists were Radiation Oncologists and I was recovering from Wide Brain Radiation. It's like getting your totaled car fixed at a mechanic and being told half way through by your insurance company the you aren't covered for any more fixes. Obviously nobody with a medical background read the letter, maybe the janitor did. All my doctors wince when I tell that story.

I was running around a few days before xmas trying to get the testing done. I had about two hours worth of MRIs just hours before I was leaving on the last flight to SF. The MRIs were torture. Lying still for 20min at a time. The noise amazingly was like a construction site. So many sounds and very loud.

We were allowed to bring CD's to play through cheap plastic headsets. Of course I brought a 3 CD set of my brother's infamous band:
shamelessly exploiting tragic events, human foibles, and the absurd, through loud music and other media for fun and profit

http://users.erols.com/mlaird/shbangers/

They got world wide coverage on CNN, ABC, the Economist and wrote songs for the local #1 rock station.

All I heard most of the time was the MRI machine pumping out a lot of noise.

~50 of my closest kayaking friends


2008!!!!

I made it to 2008! As many of my kayaking friends would say after an adventurous trip:

"Cheated death once again!"

To celebrate the new year, I paddled on the Oakland Estuary like I've done the last few years. The owner of the local kayak store graciously hosted the "Paddle with Albert Wang on New Year's Day." I got to see a lot of old friends and then participate in what turned out to be a Roast/Eulogy. Thanks Keith for putting it all together.

See pics in following links:

http://kayak6.blogspot.com/2008/01/alberts-new-year-paddle.html

http://paddler.smugmug.com/gallery/%204094942/1/238681327

http://gallery.mac.com/bbstender#100012

We talked a bit about a few of the recent holiday adventures over the last few years. One of the favorites was " Santa's San Diegp Surfin' Safari". I invited a few of my friends to a last minute party in San Diego over the holiday break at my empty 3bd place. No furniture, but carpeted, and was a cushy indoor campsite. I only had two weeks notice but about a dozen of my paddling friends came down for a week over xmas. We surfed a lot, paddled Sea World, dinner parties with my San Diego friends, etc, Over all a great time.

But the hands on favorite was:

"I'm dreaming of a Black Xmas" So good that many of us repeated the trip the next year.

Read about it here:

BlackXmas2002.pdf

See ya in 2009!