Day 1

Well, this is really only day one of our blog, its day 60 since the tumor was found. Can't believe its been 60 days already. It feels like this ordeal has just begun, yet in reality, its been going on a long time. An all this shit for one, lousy 1.5 cm tumor that just happened to be Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. RELAPSED NHL. My ticket to a stem cell transplant and learning once again what's at the forefront of modern medicinal technology.

Four years ago, June 4, 2004, I found a lump in my chin while I was shaving. After two months of trying everything to get rid of it, my doctor ordered a CT scan of my neck to see what was going on. There were 6 friends hiding in the tissue of my neck, and a follow up PET scan revealed 8 more hiding in my chest and abdomen. Very fun. Surgery, biopsy, bone marrow punch, and the famous, "That's lymphoma. I don't know if its Hodgkin's Disease or Non-Hodgkin's Disease, but I know you need an oncologist." Uttered to my wife, by my surgeon shortly after removing the offending tumor in my neck.

Six months of CHOP-Rituxan chemotherapy later, and I was alive, and in remission. I wasn't in that great a shape, and I certainly wasn't about to pull a Lance Armstrong and with 7 Tours, but I was kicking.

It took two years to get my life back together. One just to recover my short term memory, and one to learn a new career, real estate. Great timing on that. I got up and running at the height of the boom, and surrendered my license and left the business just 14 days before the new tumors were discovered.

The really sucky thing is not the cancer or the chemotherapy(oh don't get me wrong, they suck. So does the I might die part....), its the fact that Honore and I got our lives back together and earlier this year celebrated the birth of our daughter, Hope Elizabeth! She's the answer to a million prayers, and truly a dream come true. And my R-ICE chemotherapy(which I've done 2 rounds of), has me so weak I can barely hold her for more than 15 minutes. I feel like crap dawn till dusk, and I have this complete angel sitting here with me, yet I can barely play with her. Its horrible.

And talk about feeling like a bad parent. Nothing like a dash up the stairs to send stars floating in my vision, my breath panting and me wondering if I find the crib standing up or if I need to lay down a minute. The doctor says its ok, its just that my blood counts are really low and not to get too much exercise.

Anyway, this is too long already. Here's my intent, I'm going to post here from time to time my updates so people who are interested can keep up with how I'm doing. My stem cell transplant's about three weeks away, and I hope to keep posting throughout.

Love,

Travis