Why I am glad to have cancer. No Kidding.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum...

Evening, Rome, April 2013, looking over the Roman Forum. In the distance with the chariots a flutter is the monument to Victor Emmanuel III, a large marble and stone structure that Sartre considered a mountain of lard, and it is.

Well, the stress test is over and after a three hour stint in the cardiac unit getting my tests, being injected with radiation juices, and generally sitting around, I completed the test. At one point, I asked the nurse doing my scans why she wasn't leaving the room, which is common during C-Scans and MRI, thinking naively that radiation was in the room and she should protect herself. She looked at me and smiled, saying, "You are the radioactive source in the room." Then it occurred to me that while I was not glowing like a lightening bug on a summer night, my veins certainly were. 

Fileted Fish, Chiang Mai Fish Market, January 2013

That night, I got a call from the Doc in charge of my potential kidney therapy at Beth Israel, and he informed me they found a significant heart or artery problem that I would have to receive treatment for that before I would be considered for the IL-2 treatments, because the IL-2 treatments are so strenuous for both the heart and the lungs.

View toward the Colosseum, April 2013.

There you go, another kick in the nuts.

Well, as you get older and get somewhat accustomed to life kicking you in the nuts, I now have to think back to all my symptoms and know that it wasn't my small amount of cancer that was the problem - fatigue, lack of breathe, and general malaise, but heart disease. And, as far as heart disease is concerned, it could have potentially extinguished this bright light I consider my life, much quicker and with greater stealth than my kidney cancer.

Buddhist saying tacked onto a tree at a Temple, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2013

So, without the periodic checks to find the cancer, which was waving a big ham-handed wave in the center of my chest, saying, "hey, the problem is over here..." the docs would not have uncovered a potential greater foe that has been building up over a lifetime. So, happy to have cancer because in the end, it may be what saved me from the express check-out lane at the local Life-Mart and to continue shopping for the goods and pleasures of this modest existent on planet earth.

Arch of Titus,  82A.D. one of my favorite monuments, depicting the temporal success of Titus bringing back the wealth of Jerusalem after his conquest of the holy city in 70 A.D. I may build a small arch when this episode is over.

Stress Tests & Results: A return to the ruins of Cobija, Chile

Cobija, Chile 2002

2002.
In 2002 I returned to Chile alone to see some of the northern part of the country. I had earlier been to the Santiago area and the coastal regions north of Vina del Mar with my wife and daughter. The return trip was to be more rigorous,  camping when needed and seeing areas without normal tourist facilities.

After a long flight from Atlanta to Santiago and another flight from Santiago to Antofagasta, sited on the northern coast of Chile, I picked up my rental car, dropped into town for some currency exchange and food from a local market for food and then proceeded north to make the most of the afternoon that I could.

Monumento Natural La Portada

Twenty-five km north of Antofagasta is the Monumento Natural La Portada, a symbol of the city. Due to seismic activity, descent to the broad sandy beach is prohibited, but a trip to see the natural arch, birds and marine life, plus a meal in one of the seafood restaurants overlooking the water,, is a must.

My car at the Antofagasta Airport

A view of the impressive coastline as it falls into the sea.

Beach north of Antofagasta.

So, there I was, somewhere in South America, alone, and headed north along the coast. It was warm, with a cooling breeze off the ocean, and only occasionally was there anyone to see and to see me who might wonder in their local view of the world, who is that and why are they here. For the most part I saw no one and no one saw me.

Inside of an old ruined Hotel near Cobija, Chile

Hotel Entrance

Cobija ruin, Ghost Town, Chile

View alongside Hotel Ruin, Cobija

View from the water's edge of the once important hotel near Cobija, Chile. The rocks were a beautiful black basalt and polished by the ocean's waves. I collected one of these rocks as a souvenir, something I normally do when I travel.

I investigated the ruins and ate my evening meal seated on the steps of the old hotel, wondering once of the carriages and important merchants that had made Chile their business. It was a beautiful view over the ocean, and the constant rattle of the rocks in the tide was very soothing. I thought to camp in front of the hotel, but my campsite would have been viewable from the highway, back across the ruins of Cobija, so I decided to move along the coast until I could find a site that was protected from view, and thus hiding me during the night.

2013
These days, my body seems to be trying to become a ruin. Completed my stress test and they found Cardiac issues for which I will need to be treated before I am returned to the IL-2 program. Not particularly happy about this, but it's just another stop along the way where the view is not so good and that I hope to get this resolved soon so that I may continue my journey toward aisle two.

Kidney Cancer and Superheros and me!



Old Spider Man

 Even superheros get old, put on a few pounds and the acrobatic skills that make them so popular in the comic books or the special effects given them in the movies, well, they erode with the oncoming years. Having eclipsed the 60 mark last year, and also having eclipsed the FIVE PLUS mark two years ago, I am living in the PLUS years now, which, despite the geriatic handicaps that have crept up on me, I still have the mojo of the sad looking Superhero, an old spider man, in the picture above. BAMMM, SHAZAMMM, and KA-POOOOW.

Well, enough of that, but it is fun.

Seven years ago this week I called the doc to tell him I was not feeling well, by June 6 of that year I was in the ER struggling with an alien life form trying to suck me down into the afterlife like Gandalf fighting Belrog in the dark of Middle Earth. Well, surprise, surprise, Alien Life form...also known as Renal Cancer, I am still here. Looking at this year as the LUCKY SEVEN year of my survival I thought I was home free. But the fucker was not totally taken down by my cast of superhero like friends seven years ago, so again we will wage battle and see who wins. This time around I have an added group of friends who will assist me in driving this Alien Mutant Spawn from my chest. It will happen at a molecular level, so they'll be no high flying stunts, no trains stopping strength, and no time bending (well, wait a minute, there might be some time bending going on, I'll update), and lastly, no plague completely driven from our time. But, a small victory for me and my friends, I hope, will continue the larger assault on my cancer and others who also suffer cancers of all kinds.

When I return from the Abyss of this struggle I will be the White Wizard, or something close, ready to pursue my continuing adventures in the real world in which we live.

Tomorrow, I go into BIDMC for my first round of testing, everything from Stress tests to MRIs. That is because the regiment of IL-2 (aisle two) is so strenous that the cast of Superheros that are going to help me, have to make sure that I am up to the fight and that my body will withstand the struggle with  the Alien life form but also how they intend to battle it. I am expecting to pass all my tests, but my optimism will need a bigger kick in the nuts than this thing has given me. And, once in the program, I expect (and really hope) that the work of these molecular superheros along with my immune system will crush my enemy and release me into the world for more of my PLUS years adventures.

Thanks for reading, and share on FB or wherever. I was hoping for 100 followers by mid-June. Not too big a mark, but I am usually modest in my goals, like trying to defeat a malignant cancer in my chest.
Tim

FIVE PLUS Kidney Cancer: Update, where this blog is going...

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Cancer, Travel, & Reality

Self-portrait with Jesus Walking On Water and Blessing me, Madrid, January, 2010

Doctor Johnson, the one of literary fame not my current Doc, wrote once that, "the use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." It's not too much of a leap to see things in one's life as they are and not as we may think they are. But Doctor Johnson was a clever guy and had a lot of good things to say.

I know that my travels, as limited as they have been, have always provided me with a sense of lives lived by people struggling for survival in many times extreme situations, like the Indians that live in the Altiplano in the Andes like the village of Caspana. But also, those people that live on the outskirts of towns like the impoverished slums of Rio that I saw in 1971, the shanty towns on the way into Madrid, or the poor living in homemade housing using pallets placed on end and covered with cardboard to break the intense Altiplano wind that comes at the end of each day near San Pedro de Atacama. They are all hoping for something better than what they have and usually when that hope becomes politicized enough they elect some figure or creature as a godhead behind which they perform all sorts of festivals, sacrifices, and ritualized pageantry or political insurrection that secures for them a place in the cosmos, and thus is the march of civilization large and small. It's a normal human trait to organize and herd together behind an idea or a belief. And more power to us for that, because without that, I wouldn't have had a modest career in the arts studying the artifacts of those beliefs, either Christian, Buddhist, or some less well-developed peoples somewhere in the world. And, it is around that hope that many acquaintances now express many well meaning thoughts for my health as the latest speed bump has thrown me in the Eazypass lane toward the vacant lot at the end of the street. My hope relies mostly in the fact that I have a firm grip on what's taking place, not that I am not fucking pissed about it because having an illness is quite an inconvenience, but hey, I am at a point where medical science might be able to squash this little outposts of mutants in my body.

Survival rates for kidney cancer

Survival rates for kidney cancer

Some people with cancer may want to know the survival rates for their type of cancer. Others may not find the numbers helpful, or may even not want to know them. The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of patients who live at least 5 years after their cancer is found. Keep in mind that many of these patients live much longer than 5 years after their cancer is found and treated. And survival rates are based on patients whose cancer was found and treated more than 5 years ago. Better treatments now may mean that patients have a better outlook. (well, I hope so. I already have hit the five year mark plus two.)

A quote that seems appropriate: "More die descending mountains than ascending. Because they are a spent force? Or because the goal they have striven for has already been achieved."

In many ways, that sums up FIVE PLUS, the idea that I, in particular, still have goals to be achieved. And, the overall concept of being ill is a major inconvience. I am glad I might participate in the IL-2 (aisle two) treatments, because I have a few more FIVE PLUS trips in mind that will build upon my Chilean trip of 2011, the original FIVE PLUS trip into the high country of Chile's Atacama desert. To me, that's partly the point, to have things I want to see and do, whether just to sit in my backyard and enjoy the cherry tree that has just blossoms this Spring or to visit ruins in some distant land. First, though, we have to get this tiger back in the gate.

A little Zen for the day



Somewhere in the Atacama, 2002, no road, no sign, just the spirit to go forward.

 The practice of Zen teaches that it is impossible to add anything more to a cup that is already full. If you pour in more tea, it simply spills over and is wasted. The same is true of the mind. A closed attitude, an attitude that say, "I already know," may cause you to miss important information. Zen teaches openness. Survival instructors refer to that quality of openness as "humility." from Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales.

When I was studying for my black belts during my two year tour in Korea many years ago, I learned one of the key things in individual combat is to slow everything down and to be aware of the strengths and speed of your opponent. Breath as though you are at rest and it will keep the heart and the mind from racing thus allowing your reactions to be relaxed. In many cases getting hit can be expected, but making sure you hit back with strength and focus maintains the sense that a fight isn't over until you can no longer get up.

Life with Cancer and Survival



FIVE PLUS Breakfast, San Pedro de Atacama, May - 2011

 I have known something for most of my life. It is not secret information, but living by it provides a sense of freedom especially when your understanding of it is clear and unencumbered.

What I know is that our instinct is to survive. Now, you may be thinking that this is obvious to the point of being mundane and that they have started my treatments a little early and that I am being effected by the toxic impact upon my brain, one of the multiple side effects of my upcoming treatment. But, really, it is a simply thing to know but we, in the larger sense of we, fall prey to the things we want and forget that what we are doing is surviving now under the comfort of this civilization we have built up over the past 4-6000 years, but mostly over the past 200 years.

All living things seek to survive and once you respect that knowledge and accept it, confronting those things that are surviving means accepting their right to try to survive. Now, obviously as the self-absorbed species we are, we think first about our survival, which is normal because it is the perpetuation of our lives first of all, and secondly the survival and perpetuation of our species that drives us in the basic DNA that makes us do a lot of things we can not many times understand. Think adolescent here. Many times our survival depends upon the elimination of others that are trying to take what we have and will just as soon see us individually extinct so that they can supplant us. Bigger issues here, so watch the nightly news to stay up to date with who is trying to supplant whom.

So, what does that have to do with me? Well, I have this colony of cells that have been trying to use me as their host for onwards of 14-15 years in their attempt to survive. About seven years ago I thought we had evicted the little bastards after their surprise announcement that they had been living as squatters in my left kidney for 6-8 years. With some of the best surgeon's anywhere, the eviction notice was posted and out went the progeny of the earlier settlers, their progeny and the great, great, great progenitor of the entire mass from my gut in what amounted to (not a record) but one large mass of cells that were trying their best to survive at my expense.

That's another thing about survival, many times it is at something or someone's expense and if we stopped our own ruthless attempt to survive, well, then we become extinct. Getting back to my surgery of 7 years ago, the surgeon, who came into my room the morning after, described what he took out of my gut as something in the neighborhood of a soccer ball in size. He said this with a satisfied grin on his face knowing for the moment he had joined in battle with this intruder and defeated it.

Now I have had the unpleasant and disheartening news that we did not, in fact, get all of those little fucking pirates but that they have been sailing beneath the best detecting equipment medical science possesses to return this past year and establish a new colony in a lymph node just below the y-branch of my air ducts leading from my wind pipe to each of my lungs. At the moment no other colonies have been found, but if they are there, they are out there pitching their little camps of mutants and infringing upon my otherwise good health.

Now it is up to what treatments are available to me, aisles two, to see if we can slow these guys down some or just burn them out once and for all, think Sherman's march to the sea here. Life comes with an expiration date for us all, but I'll be damned if this cancer will put me in the express checkout lane when I have more things in my cart than allows time for in this life. So, the battle is joined again and this time I feel like I have the edge because I know they are there and go willingly to the fight.

Where in the world did this blog go?

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INFO: Chemotherapy versus Immunotherapy?

When we think of cancer and treatment I think it is normal to base our perception of what that will be based upon by what we know from our experience. Everyone has had a relative or a friend with some type of cancer. I grew up learning about cancer by watching my grandmother slowly die of cervical cancer in the 1960s. The treatments she received were both chemo and radiation, after a number of surgeries to remove cancers from her body. And, for many with cancer, those treatments are still used.

However, other investigative medical researchers have, over the past decades, been exploring other types of treatments and ways to combat the spread of cancer within the body, as well as help with other medical procedures, like transplants, that improve the individuals own immune system in the success of that treatment: that is the treatment program that I will be participating and it is called immunotherapy. Below is a quick reference guide to the differences between chemo and immunotherapies.

What is the difference between chemotherapy and immunotherapy?

By: Robin Geller

Chemotherapy is the use of drugs and other toxins to kill tumor cells.

Actually most of these compounds are designed as metabolic poisons to kill

any rapidly dividing cell, normal as well as cancerous. That is why

chemotherapy patients often lose their hair and have skin and digestive

problems during the course of treatment; hair, skin and gut epithelium are

all rapidly dividing cells.



Immunotherapy on the other hand, includes a variety of approaches designed

to augment or redirect the body's own immune system to destroy the tumor

cells. The immune system is extremely specific and when these approaches

work they are able to target just the tumor and not normal tissue.

However, most tumors have developed mechanisms to avoid detection by the

immune system so it often takes a great deal of effort to get immune cells

which can effectively identify and destroy the tumor cells. Drugs and

other compounds are used here,too, but they are designed to act on the

cells of the immune system in order to activate them, they do not act on

the tumor cells directly.

Kidney Cancer: IL-2 pre-screening physical schedule

This screening is important, because a patient is not admitted into the program if they do not physically meet the standard required to withstand the rigors of the IL-2 treatment. In my case I should. When I participated in the Bethesda NIH program, I had to also do a tissue match before I qualified for the vaccine level into which I was admitted.
As anyone with disease can vouch, having had it every test brings its own level of anxiety not only for the ancipation that a test might indicate a relapse (curious word choice) or in this case to qualify for specialized treatments.
So now the next step is to wait for this screening to be over and a move, I hope, to the treatment level beginning in June.

My schedule for Wednesday 5/22/13.  Do not have anything to eat or drink between 8:30am and 10:15am and please do not smoke cigarettes or consume caffeine between 7:30am and 10:15am in preparation for the stress test. Please also do not eat or drink anything between 11:00am and the conclusion of the CT Torso and MRI's around 6:30pm.
HD IL-2 Screening Schedule Wednesday 5/22/13


9:30am-10:15am-Stress Test
(Preparation: Nothing but water 1 hour before testing, NO caffeine or cigarettes two hours prior, wear comfortable clothing and shoes).
11:00am-11:30am
EKG, Location:
1:00pm-2:00pm
Pulmonary Function Test, 
(Preparation: No inhalers 12 hours prior)
3:00pm arrival, 3:15pm-3:35pm
CT(Chest) scan,
3:50pm arrival, 4:35pm-6:30pm
MRI (abdomen, pelvis, and head) scan,

Kidney Cancer

A friend and myself, Chile, 2002

A few thoughts about kidney cancer that will be important to remember. The first is that kidney cancer, especially once it has metastasized can return to three areas of the body: the lungs, the bones or the brain. It may start in the small tubes in the lining of the kidney, but once free in the body it will return to these areas, primarily. In fact, I have just become aware of someone who had a kidney devoured by the disease but that the cancer had also already spread into his bones, making them weak and brittle. In my case, the cancer has returned to a lymph node in my chest just between my lungs. So, while it is known as kidney cancer, or renal cancer, it can be found in other areas of the body beside the kidney.

My Cancer in the 21st Century



Ho Chi Minh's House, Hanoi, January - 2013



This post is also now part of the introduction to this site.  

Greetings.

I am starting a blog about my up coming cancer treatment.

I have had cancer probably for about fifteen years. Six to seven of those years I didn't know I had it and it was growing and consuming my left kidney like it was at the buffet table. The malignancy only decided to make itself known when it was trying its most to kill me in the Spring of 2006. Well, that was seven years ago right about now. And, as a result, it didn't kill me and I was saved by some skilled surgeons at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine.

After my surgery I recovered, I taught art history and design at Colby-Sawyer College, and published my novel Seasons in the Kingdom, events I will talk about more in the coming days and weeks ahead. I also participated in a vaccine trial at Bethesda's cancer research hospital, where over a period of six months I traveled to Bethesda, stayed for four days and over which time each day I received a vaccine for my trial group. They followed me for another year finding no noticeable evidence of cancer in my body.

Now, however, after almost seven years of finding no disease my periodic check with my oncologist in Portland has found a lymph node in my chest that is the return of the renal cancer. Upon his recommendation I have contacted and been received by the Beth Israel kidney cancer specialists and will participate again in a treatment plan for someone with active renal cell disease. That treatment is call IL-2 (pronounced aisle-2) or High Dose Interleukin-2 treatment. You can read about that by finding it listed under pages on the homepage here. It will describe the treatment and how responsive it has been to curing kidney (renal) cancer. Obviously I want them to claim another success after I have gone through the program myself.

When I was talking to my Doc he kept mentioning IL-2, which my ears heard as aisle two. I was thinking maybe I should select door #3 and see what's behind that. It wasn't until later that I figured out what he was talking about. I still would rather have selected door #3 because there was a nice sunfish sailboat behind it and well, summer is coming. But, no, I will be going down aisle two.

So, here goes with the blog. I don't know how it will work, but I should be making comments and observations as I go through the program, especially as I get closer to the time of treatment. I will also be posting pictures from my FIVE PLUS event that I undertook to celebrate the five year threshold of two years ago.

You can follow me by signing in your email in the appropriate spot or just check in periodically. Also, if you find the information pithy enough or interesting, you can share these posts on facebook or google.

Wishing you all my best.............