June 20^th                                                              Willie Mays Day               

Knocked another one off today….I’m feeling good, but kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop. My brothers in arms, the fellas on the other side of this, have all cautioned that the first 10 days are do-able, you are wondering what the fuss is about. None of them had the Erbitux treatments that I am enduring each Monday, though.

This is a “monoclonal antibody therapy.” It goes in my port, same place as the chemo went. This drug identifies receptors on both cancer cells and normal cells. These receptors stick out from the cells. Erbitux then attaches to these receptors and literally blocks the signaling agents from attaching and starting the cell dividing process, where new cancer cells are generated.

 Wild, huh?         

 I have had 3 infusions of this stuff, 4 to go. Side effects are rash and potential acne, but we are all over this  with medications, creams and steroids that aggressively mitigate that. We shall see, won’t we?

I got real red on Tuesday of this week, but it calmed down.  It has only recently been used on throat and neck cancer, having been introduced on colorectal cancer patients initially. I plan on being different, and in the low percentage of patients that get rocked by this drug.    

Thanks to all who sent in numbers. I am now staring at #23 in my garage by the door, and I’m going with Pistol Pete Maravich from LSU as my choice, ignoring the superb Michael Jordan. I will enter the weekend with 21 remaining, which means I will be almost 40% complete, and that is a GOOD number.

 I’m still eating, working, walking Jammer, and going to Sam’s Tournament of Champions baseball games. The Yankees won the Lafayette Little League title, and have beaten Concord in 108 degree weather on Saturday, and North Oakland yesterday over in Alameda. They play again TH and if they win, will play for the East Bay Division 4 championship on Saturday. He is now raking the ball, and in Sam’s words, “I was only a Home Run away from the cycle” on Saturday.

This is an amazing way to cap off a Little League career, and we are eating it up, every minute. The only bummer is I can’t yell at the umps much, but God works his wonders in small and interesting ways.

 Check back soon. I love you all.

TS

June 15^th                                                                                              Juan Marichal Day

Thanks to everyone, especially Mark Hetterly, Steve Ruegg and Roy Cilia for throwing some amazing choices at me for numbers. Hetterly’s was flawed with the inclusion of so many Damn Yankees, and Rueggs pined for his HS BBall # 10 to be included, but that would have to bump Pele, so sorry Steve.

Yours in spirit…..

 So I enter this weekend with the #26 hanging in my garage, a week away from #31 and Reggie Miller. The best I have for #26 is Wade Boggs, the old BoSox 3^rd baseman who whored out to Tampa and later to the Damn Yankees……he’s a weak link till we get going on Bonds, Mays, Jordan (Maravich?) Will Clark and on and on…..thanks for playing, it does help the time pass.

So, I am 9 sessions into 35 total, just over 25% of the way. I can live with 25%. I am a bit red, and the face is showing some signs of the predicted acne/rash thing, but Kiki has such a handle on face cleansers, and the like, and I am in possession of some scrips, we’ll see. Again, I can’t be fooled by early results, this gets worse, but 25% of it is done and I am honestly NOT suffering. Tired, anxious, anticipatory, moody, but still eating and drinking well.

 False start on the feeding tube last week. They wanted to initially send the tube down my throat and esophagus and into the stomach where they pop it out and it sees the light of day. We nixed that because of the off chance that the tube would grab a loose cell and bring it along for the ride, either to the esophagus or the stomach. The numbers on espohagul cancer are bad, like 80% fail rate, and the stomach is nowhere to have cancer, so I took matters into my hands and said no, come in from the outside.

So, I go to John Muir on Tuesday, everyone is scrubbed, I’ve got IV’s going, and the Doctor says that they are going to send a small catheter down the throat and into the stomach to help blow it up so they can find it to enter from the outside.

My next words? “Unplug me, I am out of here.” I am meeting with my surgeon on Monday to schedule a laprascope where they come in from the outside and avoid the tract. I mean, Come On! After all this effort, to let chance take over is not on the table.

So, I’ve lost a few days, don’t know when the surgery will be, but I am having it done because my brothers out there who have gone through this all did it, and the results “saved them,” to paraphrase.

I may not need it today, but when we get into the low teens and single digit days, something tells me….

 Last weekend, Sam’s Little League Team, ironically, the Yankees, were facing elimination and had to sweep a pair from the dreaded and undefeated Phillies to win the championship, which is EXACTLY what they did over a 4 hour span. Sam played CF like Willie Mays, ranging far in each direction, hauling in catches and firing strikes on line to the plate. No one ran on him. He capped off his day with a triple and he scored on a subsequent base hit.

He also made a full extension dive from 3^rd base, a la Brooks Robinson to make a play to start the first game, better than anything I ever did in Little League.

We move on to a Tournament of Champions this weekend playing teams from all over the East Bay. I am so fortunate to have been able to watch everything, the timing has been great.

Finally, and most importantly, I turned 55 yesterday, and the outpouring of calls, Facebook hits, emails, texts, and cards was humbling beyond expression. I feel so much love from out there, so much attention. Never have I had a day where so much energy came my way. I can’t get back to all of you individually, impossible, but it was so great. I am the luckiest guy in the world to have folks like y’all in my corner. I don’t take it for granted, I just appreciate it so much.  

Keep praying, its’ working, I am going to heal, and I am going to help the next guy who runs into this beast. I’m a full 3 mos into treatment and I am getting better. Maybe worse before totally better, but I am going to make it…..keep chiming in, I feed off of it.

And, a toast to Matthew Cain, he will be #18 without a doubt, sorry Peyton Manning!

June 9^th, 2012 

 I love numerology…..I have added, multiplied and divided the numbers on license plates since I was in 4^th grade. I make words using the letters, ideally in the order of the letters…..then the car goes by and I try it again. Imagine my excitement when personalized plates came out……got to figure out words like they do on Wheel of Fortune…..I think it goes without saying my ability to track dates of various Grateful Dead shows and recant the nuances of the show, the town, the drive in or out, the camping scene is legendary, by many other’s admission…… but mostly it’s the numbers. ….well, Thursday, after mentioning Larry Bird and Kareem as # 33’s, I throw out Jim Brown (no slouch, to be sure) as my pick for #32…….well, I blew it, and as the world works, my “shoulda’  been choice for #32” Bill Walton calls me……on Day 32! You can’t make this stuff up. By the by, Bill and I share a love of numbers and their infinite twists. He can’t recall dates of shows like me, or maybe even where, but I chalk that up to years of NCAA and NBA traveling, dates, arenas, hotels…..and for those not in the know, NO ONE will ever wear #32 at UCLA again, ever!

Since he didn’t know the error of my ways, I didn’t have to apologize for naming Jim Brown, but I am switching over to Bill Walton for Friday’s tag.

Which brings up a cool idea…..a sports figure for every number as we descend to victory. Pat Alongi, SCU ’79 told me to look forward to Willie Mays, Joe Montana, Steve Young and even the non-illustrious Dorrell Wright of the Warriors, who wears #1. We can do better than that for number one, but the others sound great to me.

Next on the list, #31 (Monday’s target) and I am going to throw out the name Reggie Miller. I invite my sports fiends to offer up other names for other numbers, everyone has to have an identity. The above #’s 24, 16, 8 are now assigned. More points for Bay Area legends! I will have Sam track this, and as we walk in the garage door from yet another treatment, we tear it away, revealing the next one.

Listen, there is pretty much zero fun in this whole process, so play along, would ya’?!??!

On another note, the lasers shooting down from directly above align to the circled X’s on my mask, insuring they don’t radiate my eyeball instead of my throat……so they can stay, I’m good with them.

At the conclusion of Friday’s treatment, I stand at Reggie Miller….I don’t suspect he is going to call me over the weekend, but stranger things have happened.

I’ll check back soon. Y’all’s feedback has been great, inspiring me to continue and be more frequent, which I will do.

TS

The number 33 hangs on a hook in the garage. Larry Bird's #, Kareem's #......for 24 more hours, my number......then we will be down to Jim Brown......wait till you see my mask. My friend Mark Karan, who went through the EXACT same cancer, brought his home at the end of treatments and made a freaking Pinata out of it. For now, think Hannibal Lector.
I took it all in today, did it with eyes wide open. The machines move in a counter-clockwise direction, stationing themselves in different positions and then you hear a whirring sound......a break, then more, and more, and more. There are two red lights directly above my head in the ceiling, lasers I suppose. This thing is hitting me like the lasers in the movie The Matrix. Coming from every conceivable angle, I imagine. I got an itch today, had to seriously work through that. Don't want to fidget by any means! All in all, about 20 minutes on the table, just long enough to  be annoying.
I'm building up a cache of creams, steriod topicals, mouth wash mixtures, this sucker is going to be fended off in any way possible. I am generating a daily sheet to keep me on track. After a mere two days I see a little bit of red on the face....so hit it with more Aloe.
I have two buyers in full ready to pull the plug on a house mode, so that could be great. Like to get them in before I look like a stranded man in the desert.....send the juju out my way folks, gotta pay for this shit. I wanna be in the Coldwell Banker Top 20 (or 10) again this year.....
Thanks to my drivers......y'all's emails have been super. Stay with me....
TS

Monday June 4th

Hi Ho…..Second Half Tip Off begins today…..I like that it is raining, sets a good tone for me. Going to get a  2 hour drop of Erbitux. It is an antibody treatment, not a chemo. Radiation then begins on Tuesday. I am making a 35 day notepad, one page per day, and we will tear off a page as we arrive home from treatments each day, knocking one more day off the meter. Nervous, but understanding that I got through a real hard chemo and now I am going to go through a real hard radiation. Others have done it, I can too.

Thanks for the love, it feels like I am cliff diving today, and the cool clear water is far below…….everyone says I make a big splash!