Beating Cancer My Blog

The date may not be the same, but my feelings are.
This year, the day after the remembrance of 9/11 I had my first yearly follow up after being diagnosed with cancer. I thought that after so much time it would be like any other doctors visit. The doctor would take some blood, check my vitals and ask me how I was feeling. He also ordered a CT scan.
It was not until the following day that it seemed to hit me that I was waiting to find out if I had to relive that moment again. Where the doctor walks in and tells you. “ You have cancer.” The fear came rushing back. When I told my wife how I was feeling she asked if I had done anything that made me fear what the doctor might find, I simply told her no. I have quit smoking (the suspected cause of the original diagnosis), I eat much less meat after reading “The China Study” and I am back to working out on a fairly regular basis. What I didn’t say was that I have realized that this is a fear I will probably have to live with the rest of my life.
My original diagnosis came at a time in my life when I was in the best physical shape I had ever been in and thought that I was as healthy as I could be. I was eating right, I had more muscle (After several rounds of P90X and a round of Insanity) than I had ever had and I almost never got sick.
Now every time I have to see my surgeon for blood work, chest x-rays and a CT scan. It reminds me of the feelings I had that day my world crashed. I am filled with fear, anger and at times sorrow for my family. That they had to endure such a time. It is my remembrance of the greatest tragedy in my life.
Cancer is my personal 9/11.

Why me? Why now? Have I done all the living I can or want to do? Who am I? Who do I want to be? How can I be that person?
Simple questions, that can be very difficult to answer.

I have realized only recently that my cancer has affected much more than my body. I haven’t spent the time since the surgery doing the things you always hear people say they do after such an experience. I didn’t get introspective. I didn’t start living every day to its fullest potential. Why? Well, that is a question that I have asked myself only recently.

I believe it is because I didn’t have the time to truly absorb what it all really meant while it was happening. I mean diagnosis to removal time was one week and after they said it was out and all tests said that I was ok. I think I really tried to convince myself that everything was OK and the only way I could do that was to act as if it was no big deal.

The problem being that in the back of my mind, in my subconscious, I knew it was not all OK. How could it be OK. I had a cancerous tumor the size of a softball attached to my kidney. That’s not OK.

I realized this as I was talking to my sister who is visiting from out of state. We were talking about some problems I was having and I told her that I had a cigarette. She looked into my eyes and said be honest, why do you think you did that. I thought about it for the first time since I had been caught having it earlier that day and I contemplated the answer I had given the person who caught me. “ I have been stressed.” At that moment I realized that first of all that was no reason to smoke at all, but I also started to think about why was I feeling stressed. Work was going well, family life was not particularly stressful. So why? This is when I began to look into myself more. I wanted the answer.

The first thing that I realized was that yes the cancer was still affecting me in ways I had not realized. It is time again for me to see my surgeon for a checkup. This means facing that I had the cancer, but more importantly it means blood tests. I’m not afraid of needles, I’m afraid of the results. The cancer can always comeback. Going through that once in a life time is more than anyone should have to endure. Then I realized that that was not the only thing I was afraid of. Some of my fears are common to a lot of people; the problem was that I realized I was concentrating my energy on my fears. My fear of failure, the fear of losing my family, the fear of disappointing my family and in doing so I had stopped trying to move my life forward. Without movement you might as well be dead.

This made me realize that I need to make some changes. For me, for my family and for our future. I need to become the person I want to be, living the life I want. If I don’t, then what good is the second chance I’ve been given. I have been fighting to get back into shape since my surgery because that was the thing that I could see every day that had been affected. I have come to the conclusion, With the help of Anthony Robbins, that When I look in the mirror each morning I need to look inside as well as outside. I need to do this to remind me of who I am inside, what I need to do that day to be the person I want and need to be.

As a side note I would recommend to anyone that can afford to take a Tony Robbins course and that if you do, really listen and absorb what he says. You will have to face the fear of looking inside yourself and being honest about where you come up short. Sometimes it is not just that you need to put in a little more effort. Sometimes you have to look inside and ask yourself. Why do I do that? That is stupid, self destructive and it has got to stop.
Cancer or not, I think everyone should take a good look inside themselves. Even if you have a great life there is always room for improvement. It is difficult and change can be scary sometimes, but it just may be pushing past that fear that makes you the best person you should be. You should always be striving for an exceptional life.

Day 9 P90X

Plyo went ok this morning. The second week is my least favorite. Every time I have done P90X my numbers drop during the second week and it really bothers me. I know it’s my body re-adapting to working out, but seeing it and the muscle soreness kind of get me down. This is when my coach really helps keep me going. It doesn’t hurt that my coach is my wife and she is there right beside me every morning helping me push play.
I hope that my coaching means as much to some of my clients. I just have to remember the real progress starts to show next week, if I just keep pushing through this week. I am also finding that the right side that was opened for the surgery gets much sorer than the left side.

I keep looking at my pre surgery pictures. All the motivation I need!

I did have a small indication of progress today though. I was able to keep my heart rate down around my max for most of the work out.

Well today was day 5.
P90X legs and back.
A friend of ours has decided to join us at 5:30am on our P90x journey. She is doing great. As for me I have been a lot more tired this week than usual. I’m still better off than the first time I did P90X, but I have to remember sometimes it’s not me giving up. It’s my muscles giving out. I am trying to reign myself in a bit so that I can still function at work, rather than let myself drive to hard and end up injured. I’m a little worried about yoga this weekend. Since the surgery I have had the most problems doing yoga. All the twisting posses were causing a lot of pain in the incision area.
I am feeling a bit of concern that my doctor hasn’t gotten back to me since my chest x-ray 3 days ago, also that my blood work was off a little from normal. Trying to keep positive and concentrate on getting things done, however that doesn’t always work.
I took before pictures the other day, so I will get those up this weekend. I also still need to take my measurements. I know you’re supposed to do that before you start, but what can I say, it didn’t happen. I have decided that I will be posting all of my workout numbers at the end of each week. One more to do tomorrow is get my meal plan finished, so I know what to eat. Not the greatest start to my comeback, but it’s a start and that’s the most important thing.

Well today was the day. Chest and back, today it became my favorite workout. Because it means I’m on my way. I’m on my way back. It was dissapointing to say the least. I’m trying not to beat myself up too much over the numbers, but it’s hard . Even if the only one I am competing with is myself. I know what I was capable of before and I realize now, that it’s a long road back. I will get current pictures posted soon and I will post my workout numbers weekly.
today was also my six month check-up. Have to wait for blood test and chest x-rays, but the doctor said I am doing well. That P90X should be fine. He simply made me promise that if something didn’t feel right or the way I felt changed to get in as soon as possible. So, so far so good, I’m keeping my fingers X’d.

Day 3
 
Aside from my medications and the barium for the contrast MRI, we picked up some things we knew had been proven to help fight cancer – things like spirulina, chlorella and vitamin D. We knew of these things because my wife and I, a couple of years before, had started a web site about health and wellness. So we already knew some of the information about fighting cancer and we had already made changes in our life style because of the information we had attained. For me, that had been quiting smoking, working out with P90X and drinking Shakeology daily. The reason we chose spirulina, chlorella and more recently vitamin D have been shown to have dramatic cancer fighting properties. I had already been getting good doses of these from the Shakeology I had been using for the past year or so.
 
I knew it was a little late in the game to start trying to bombard my body with anti-cancer agents, but It couldn’t hurt. Also I think it helped my self and my wife feel like we were doing something at a time when there was nothing we could do, but it somehow gave us a sense of having some control, however small. I think that was important, without a sense of control it would have been easy to giveup. I couldn’t give up! I had to much too live for my- wife, my daughter, my family and that only scratches the surface.
 
By that time (in only three days) I had more people than I realized I even knew, sending me good thoughts and prayers. It was like a Seattle Knights show- hearing the crowd cheering me on and the horse becoming an extension of myself. You use their energy (the crowd and the horse) as your own and in that moment you can fight harder and faster than you ever have before, because you are not alone. The crowd becomes a part of you as well. It makes you stronger. It becomes a perfect moment when the whole is greater than the sum. Outside of those moments it was quite often miserable – 80 pounds of armor 90 degree and above heat or cold and occasionally snowing – and yet even those times seemed to become worthwhile somehow, when you got this look from a child who wishes that they could be just like you!.I miss it sometimes.
 
I Digress.
 
I awoke Wednesday morning to take the second bottle of barium for the MRI. This is a thick, slimy yet chalky tasting, not quite jello, not quite liquid substance, which I can look forward to tasting on a regular basis for the rest of my life. Then I was off to the hospital for my imaging. First up, full body bone scan. This of course started with “put this robe on” and went down-hill from there. How to describe the experience? Imagine that time someone told you not to look behind you. Before, that you could have gone for days without looking back, but as soon as they told you NOT TO, it was nearly impossible, maybe even painful not to look. Well this is how it went. “Lay down here on the table and get comfortable. Just relax while the machine warms up.” So far so good. “Now what we need you to do is stay in that position and hold perfectly still until all the scans are done.” No problem I think. Then it starts to happen what I thought was a comfortable relaxed position that I could have stayed in for days, became the most uncomfortable contortion that I have ever forced my body to endure and I have done YogaX (extreme yoga)! It started with an itch just as I heard the first scan start. It can wait I told myself, have a little control. Then I realized how slowly the scan was happening. Ok, I think to myself I can deal with this. Finally the scanner reaches the abdomen and they tell me to hold my breath. I didn’t know that I could hold my breath for that long, that comfortably. I was proud of myself. All the working out had already made dealing with something a little easier. Not so bad, Then as I heard the words from the scan operator only three more passes my body screamed in protest “Viva la revolution!!!” A cramp in my calf. Fine! Tighten the muscle and hold your ground. A second assault! Another cramp in the hip! It was moving towards the weakness. My lower back had been my Achilles heal since my involvement in a major car accident in 1992. On occasion, in the past, I had put my back out with a simple sneeze. However, getting fit had strengthened and stretched the muscle responsible, and took care of most of my problems. Unfortunately, this attack was coming on relentlessly. So again, tighten the affected muscle, immobilize, then relax everything else. All I could think about was Tony Horton in Yoga X saying “calm within the storm.” Then the scans are finally complete.
 
You would think after that a simple MRI would be easy and yet it came with its own challenges.

The scans do go much faster, though you still have to hold your breath, it’s not nearly as long. They don’t stress the staying still quite as much. However, the contrast agent is the culprit here. Drinking the Barium apparently is just the beginning of this fun. Now comes The I.V. Yes, apparently the activating agent. “You will feel a warming sensation; it’s a little different for everyone. You may even feel like you wet yourself.” Wait. What? I’m forty 42 years old.
 As the solution entered my veins I felt not just a warming, but almost a burning sensation up the arm into the neck. It became more of a warming as it spread across my body. Then it came- the warming sensation reached the groin, and now I remember vividly what it feels like to wet yourself. At this age it was a bit of a humbling experience, feeling as if you had wet yourself and not knowing until it was all over whether you had or had not.
 
After leaving the hospital I made my appointment to meet with the surgical care nurse to show me around the surgical check-in area and get my paper-work filled out for Friday. I spent the rest of my day at work worrying if anything went wrong, would my family be ok

Day 1

 It started on a Sunday evening. I was just finishing up Seattle Knights practice ( I’ll get into what that is later, but if you can’t wait to find out here is our link: www.seattleknights.com ). I felt an aching in my right side. When I went to the restroom before driving home, I noticed blood in my urine. My wife, worrying, called a nurse friend who said to get to the hospital, so we did. We went straight to the emergency room. For some strange reason the emergency room was not very busy, so they took me back immediately and checked me out thoroughly. They figured it was most likely a kidney stone, so they sent me for an MRI to be sure. After the scan it was back to the room to wait and hear if I was going to be looking forward to the (from what I’m told) excruciating task of passing a kidney stone. The nurse came in and told us the blood work showed a possible infection. I didn’t realize how quickly the scans could be read, because in short order; there was the nurse practitioner with my scan results. I felt like something was wrong from the moment he walked into the room, but I didn’t know why I felt that way until he said the words. The scans show a mass on the right kidney. It looks like cancer. The greatest writers who have ever lived could not put that feeling into words. It’s right between beginning to fall, and hitting the bottom. It’s not losing everything or having lost everything. It’s the feeling of everything being taken away. It’s a swarming, rushing, ever changing explosion of emotions, tangling and entwining like a tornado till you don’t really know what you feel. You just know that you are feeling things you would never wish on anyone. So quick are the emotions that by the time I turned to look at my wife the tears were half way down her face. That’s when I realized that mine were as well. We could both see the pain in each other at that moment and as quickly as the tears had started down her face she said: “No, no it can’t be cancer you’re too healthy.” I don’t know if she was saying this for her benefit or mine but it didn’t matter. At that moment all I could think about was why had I been so stupid in my younger years. I had started smoking when I was sixteen and of course the 80’s is when they started doing things like putting vending machines in the schools. At that moment it really hit me it was my fault. It was my fault those tears flowed down her face. All the stupid decisions I had made in my early years. The NP said it looks like cancer, but that doesn’t mean that’s what it is. “I was able to speak with our best urology surgeon and he said he will open his office early tomorrow to see you. They will have to do more scans to be sure whether it’s cancer or not. You should keep your hopes up, it could be something else. You seem to be very healthy.”

Day 2

One very sleepless night later we (meaning me my wife, my parents and my sister) all occupied the waiting room at the doctor’s office. I went in and the nurses did the usual. They took my blood pressure checked my pulse (yep it was still there, right where I left it). After a short wait the doctor came in and introduced himself. I immediately knew there was something different about this doctor. First of all,  when he started talking to us, it was evident that he had actually taken the time to acquaint himself with my chart before entering the room. As I remember it,  he said: “First  we will need to do more tests to determine if it is cancer. According to your chart, you exercise and you look very healthy, however it looks as though it probably is cancer and you need to prepare yourself for that.” Wow a doctor that actually in no uncertain terms told it like it was. Even with the looming despair this put into my soul, I liked this doctor. He then proceeded to give me a prescription to clear up the urinary tract infection that had caused the discovery of the tumor, telling me we had to take care of that first. “One week should do it. So I am going to schedule your surgery for next Monday.” When we asked abouta biopsy he said the best thing was to remove it. In cases like this with a tumor that size, a biopsy would be as risky as removal. Regardless, with its size, the tumor needed to come out. If it was indeed renal cell carcinoma it grows very slow and could have been growing for years. “We will also have to do full bone scans to determine if it has spread anywhere else. RCC likes to spread to the bones and brain tissue; however I don’t like to do brain scans unless you are showing symptoms.”  So for the rest of the day I was run around, setting up appointments for scans and picking up prescriptions.

I didn’t have much time to think about what I was going to say before I went on stage. All I could do was to listen to the stories being told by the others. Some telling of how Beachbody had helped them to quit their jobs and devote all their time to helping people. Some people telling about how much weight they had lost or how much muscle they had gained with Beachbody products. I partially related to all of the stories being told. I have not come to a point where I can quit my full time job yet, though I can see that day coming; but I had lost 40 pounds and five inches off my waist with P90X and Shakeology. So when it came my turn, this is what I said:

“Losing weight and looking great are fantastic things but they are not my true success with Beachbody. Yes, I did lose 40 pounds and five inches off my waist, but my biggest success with Beachbody was getting healthy. In May of 2010 I was diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma (Kidney Cancer).”(The doctor said it is a slow growing cancer and because of its size, it could have been growing as long as 5-8 years. )“When the doctor told me I would have to go on a liquid diet before the surgery, my daughter leaned over and asked my wife if that meant that I could have Shakeology. The doctor without hesitation said, ‘No. Shakeology is not a liquid diet.’( The liquid diet was to clean out my colon before the surgery, in case something happened and it got nicked, the chance of infection was decreased. There is too much nutrition in Shakeology to leave the colon empty.) My daughter gave him the look of surprise; he looked at my family and said, ‘I know all about Shakeology, P90X and Insanity. I drink Shakeology and I have done both P90x and the Insanity workouts.’ He also said it was the best thing I could have done for myself. That being fit and otherwise healthy was going to make everything go a lot easier. At that moment we knew I was in good hands. He also said they would order extra blood to be available for the surgery because there were a lot of veins supplying blood to the tumor. Keeping that last statement in mind, when they did the pathology report; after removing the tumor they said it was dying on the inside. I believe That Beachbody gave me the tools that helped me beat my cancer, and the tools to get back to where I had been before the surgery. By the way my surgeon is now one of my best customers.”

My wife told me later that when I said that it was dying inside it stirred  the audience. I had a lot of people thank me later for sharing my story. There was one gentleman in particular that connected with me. He said he had a friend that had gone through the same thing with RCC and that we was going to share my story with him and try to encourage him to work on his health and fitness. I wish I had gotten his name, because that is part of the reason this blog exists. The other reason is that I found that telling my story has helped me face what has happened to me. I only had one minute, but there was so much more I could have said. It is a continuing story.  What I have told so far all happened in a span of three weeks, starting with the trip to the emergency room, the final diagnosis 2 days later, the surgery 4 days later and my recovery time and return to work 2 weeks later. It all happened so fast that it almost wasn’t real, but sharing my story helps me accept what has happened. I’m already finding that writing this blog is helping me face and deal with the emotions I was hiding, trying to play brave for my family. The experience has taught me what really matters to me when the chips are down. After I got the news initially from the doctor I spent the next several days until the surgery making sure that everything was in place for my family to be taken care of if anything went wrong.

I also learned that you never know who really cares until you are in a crisis. Friends I had not seen for years sending me their thoughts and prayers. It took cancer to teach me how truly blessed I am.