2017 is coming to a close. Christmas is almost here.
Pretty soon social media will be abuzz with all the posts of “looking forward to 2018” etc etc
Although this won’t be an annual wrap up/reminiscing post – I can honestly state that I am looking forward to 2017 being over. I didn’t think 2017 would take the challenge of being worse that 2016 – but it did.
Anyway, back to the reality and updating.
November started on the bad note with the celebration of life (I have already mentioned that), then I worked on returning home to try to let by body normalize again.
The ups and downs of travel, running amok, and doing many things for 3 weeks had my body pretty tired. Although I am approaching 5 months since treatment, extended exhaustion takes me longer to recover from.
I am happy to state that I have been a good boy and am feeling better overall – sleep…. different story.
I delayed the monthly update post so that I could wait until I completely my cysto on December 4th. I have lost track of how many cystos I have done, but I know that this was my 6th at the new facility.
Overall result was good. My oncologist is very happy. As I have been a “frequent flyer” as the nurse on the computer put it, I am able to get instant feedback about the results and discuss the short term future during the course of the less than 10 minute procedure.
A bunch of it is “cancer small talk” while he moves the camera around the inside of my bladder….. last BCG was… next BCG is…. any blood etc etc etc.
That allows for discussions about how I feel about skipping a cysto. Not moving to 6 months between them, but when discussing the timing of my next 3 BCG, the next cysto would be within 4 weeks. This results in a less than optimum video of the inside of my bladder as it is still impacted from the treatment. As the BCG is being effective in ensuring that there hasn’t been tumour regrowth since May of 2016, we can safely jump to the cysto in May/June of 2018.
This is a good thing.
From my previous life in aviation, risk assessment, management, and mitigation, is all about processing the factors in the decision making process. This makes perfect sense to me to skip one.
So, what does that mean in the big scheme of things? I dunno – find out this time next year I guess… wait and see. I have to.
Other news and concepts,
My blog post about mortality was well received. I have a few more blog posts that are more “opinion” pieces, and “thought provoking”, or “lifestyle”, being drafted, and will start to share them in the new year. I have one that recent events have me thinking that I might finish it right away, but then should it displace another one that I have in draft that I wanted to release before christmas.
So you might actually get 2 more posts from me in the next 2 weeks.
One of the posts that was about to go out was about charity and giving – but I will be delaying it I think.
I have something that I was going to include in it that is time sensitive, so I will produce it here.
Below is a short video that some of you have already seen. A Veterans association that I belong to, supports a Veterans care facility locally – “Kipnes”. A local motorcycle riding community does a calendar fundraiser for them. So, I purchased a calendar, and had all the ladies that posed for the calendar with their motorcycles – autograph it. My purchase of this calendar has 85% of the proceeds going to Kipnes – as it still costs a couple bucks to get the calendar made. Last year, the calendar sales raised several thousand dollars.
With uniquely signed calendar in hand – I made a bit of an attempt at a Facebook auction, on my Cancer Sucks Chronicles Facebook page. (link is the post to make your bid on).
At the time of this writing – the bid is up to $100, so I am working on figuring out my new perks if the bids go up… less than a week to go – I will update this post when the auction is complete.
My goal is to turn one positive – into a second positive…. and it seems to be working as this $100 is pure profit for a charity.
At $100 bucks, the perks include – a pair of Cancer Sucks sunglasses, a custom paracord bracelet, possible tax receipt for a portion of the bid, and the ability to have a voice to where the funds go.
I have also been able to get some glasses and paracord sales in addition to this as well – so one video, a half cocked idea, has given excellent returns.
Auction ends Sunday December 10th, 9pm (2100 hrs) Edmonton Alberta time (Mountain time zone), based on the time stamp in the Facebook post that is linked just above the video.
Thanks for making it this far in the blog post.
If this is the last post you read this year, hope you have a good Christmas – we will, our son and his girlfriend are coming to visit over the Christmas break.
Talk soon, please consider sharing this blog post, or signing up to receive your own email copy of every post via the subscribe option on the bottom of the webpage.
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