Posted by David Poncelow Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:12:57 GMT | 1 comment
I changed the name of this page after going through some of my insurance paperwork. I came across this gem and couldn’t resist- it’s just too well suited. Here’s an image of the ‘explanation of benefits’. The amusing part is the reason they rejected the claim.
Posted by David Poncelow Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:26:57 GMT | 2 comments
I’ve been really bad about writing here over the last couple of months, for a couple different reasons. I find that I have a hard time writing about something for public consumption that I don’t quite understand yet, and I’ve had quite a bit of processing to do.
As of Monday I’m done with radiation, (and I’m quite happy to be done). I’m doing OK, though it’s a bit painful as my skin renews itself. Luckily my skin held up quite well, and it’s only been the last few days that I’ve had any problems.
Posted by David Poncelow Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:14:27 GMT | 2 comments
I received my last treatment of Taxol yesterday. It went well, and it’s such a relief to have that part of all of this over with. It was a pretty easy treatment… the Taxol always seems like such a long time, as it goes in over three hours. That plus the visit with the oncologist, the blood test beforehand, and all of the pre-medications makes it stretch out interminably. I sat in the treatment room with a rather nice and enjoyable (and talkative!) guy this time.
The nurses were all so sweet, too- they brought me a piece of cake with a candle in it and sang ‘happy last treatment to you’ to me. I know that I’ve gone on about how well taken care of I’ve felt at Swedish, but I really have been cared for by some remarkable people.
Posted by David Poncelow Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:39:53 GMT | 4 comments
I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth- I’m afraid that I haven’t really known what to say lately. Three weeks ago now I got my last treatment of A/C, and a week ago I got my first treatment of Taxol. I have to admit that I’ve been having a bit harder a time these last couple weeks.
Posted by David Poncelow Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:09:18 GMT | 5 comments
I got back from my New York trip on Saturday night- it went better than I could have hoped. This last round of chemo has been the best yet. It started with my blood counts: we had known since I started chemo that there was a possibility that I would be too prone to infection to be able to risk the plane trip. My oncologist recommended that we continue to plan for the trip, but understand that we might have to cancel at the last minute. It all hinged on my white blood cell counts. They came back in the midrange of normal. That’s not something I would have expected.
Posted by David Poncelow Tue, 14 Nov 2006 07:12:27 GMT | 4 comments
I put some new pictures up on the flickr gallery - my dive buddy got a new camera and provided me the pics, so I’ve got some underwater shots of the last dive I did before I started chemo. There is also a shot of my new bald pate.
Posted by David Poncelow Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:57:40 GMT | 3 comments
Well, I shaved off my hair and my beard a couple nights ago. I was just looking too much like Bill the Cat to keep going on that way- every morning in the shower more and more hair was coming out, leaving unsightly bald patches.
Posted by David Poncelow Thu, 02 Nov 2006 21:45:15 GMT | 6 comments
I’ve been thinking a lot about statistics this past week. This cancer I’ve got is pretty uncommon, so I keep digging to try to find how uncommon it is, how unlikely that I ended up with this. The best I’ve found so far came from a study that my surgeon gave me a copy of. It’s a thirty year study, covering around 400,000 breast cancer cases. Of those, about 2000 are men, 22 under 35.
I also keep looking for statistics on my ‘chances’. I’ve found everywhere from 67% to 85% for my cancer and my stage. I’ve found graphs, charts, and mortality data. I’ve read many, many reports and study abstracts, and I’ve distilled it all down to what that data means to me.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Posted by David Poncelow Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:38:02 GMT | 1 comment
I was able to borrow a friend’s scanner last night to scan in the image from my bone scan. I just put it up in the gallery (the link is on the righthand sidebar). I tried scanning the CT images as well, but they didn’t come out. I’ll try doing that another way in the next few days.
Posted by David Poncelow Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:11:55 GMT | 4 comments
Well, it’s been a week since my first treatment, and I’m almost feeling normal again. It’s been interesting to see how I’ve responded - my understanding is that all of these things may get more intense, but this first treatment may serve as kind of a preview of things to come.
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