As I sit down to start writing this I'm reminded of where I left off and why I stopped writing. Life had gotten hard and I found myself getting more and more angry at cancer. It wasn't really that healthy because there wasn't much I could do about it. I needed a break to concentrate on the important things in life and work on my training for the Seagull Century.
So let me get you caught up...
The Seagull Century was AWESOME! Thank you very much to all of you that helped donate to such a wonderful cause as the fight against cancer. I made it through the 100 miles without a problem. The last 37 miles of which we had a 25mph headwind with gusts up to 60mph. That was pretty brutal but I just kept plodding along.
Ashley had surgery to remove the cancer. A total thyroidectomy which is a pretty scary operation if you ask me because if they get it wrong it can leave you with nerve damage or the ability to talk.
Ashley underwent radiation therapy and then spent a week down in NC. Once she was back up here she spent about a month living in the basement so that she would expose the kids to minimal radiation.
The importance of Ashley limiting her exposure to the kids was really brought to light when we were going to the dump to throw stuff away. Ashley set off the radiation detectors at the dump. After dealing with annoying bureaucracy they finally used a hand scanner to test her and I noticed that Ashley was still putting off 230 rads even 2 months after her therapy. To put this into perspective, an xray is roughly 450 rads so being near ashley was like having an xray every 2 hours. I'm still not sure exactly what sort of terrorist they're thinking would blow up the dump but at least they're protecting all the rest of the garbage from stuff like airplane gauges, fire alarms, and 50's science kits.
MARK HAS CANCER.
That's right. Incredibly now my own brother has cancer too. He was diagnose with nodular melanoma on his foot. What.The.Fuck. Seriously, how the hell is it that everyone in my family gets cancer? We're not even related by blood so this is obviously some way for the cosmos to really screw with my family. I feel for my mom the most because she's having to go through this again only a few years after going through it with my dad. Mark's prognosis seems to look pretty good so far so hopefully he'll manage to beat it. He'd better or I'll never talk to him again. (Okay, okay, bad--and very dark--joke..)
So Mark has had the cancer removed from his foot and several lymph nodes that the cancer had metastasized to. He's now undergoing Interferon treatment. Thus far it seems like his chemotherapy is perhaps 3-4 times worth than mine was. I really feel for him and yet I also admire him for being strong and making it through such an incredibly difficult first month.
I have some other big news regarding what's going to happen in my life and plans for the future. I'll mention them in my next posting...
