The weekend is upon us!

Found this online and loved it. It seemed so appropriate for Brain Cancer Awareness month and for all of the love, support, and prayers that you have surrounded around my family.

Have a great weekend! Go California Chrome!

Blog 2.0 (3.0? 4.0?)

Greetings, friends! We're back and ready to be better than ever!

http://youtu.be/xZzEzDkeHzI

Quick update on Hill family happenings:

We sold our house in November and moved into our new home mid-March. We stole a page from the Lexington Polloms' play book and moved in with Todd's parents for the time in between. We are working on getting settled in and much to Will, Claire, and Charlie's dismay, we bought furniture.

http://vimeo.com/95290597

Also, our baby turned two. Eek!

In October, Todd started a new job at LG&E (also owns KU, for you Danvillians). He loves it, however should your power ever go out, please don't call him (ahem, Dad..) He is a project manager.  He does not shimmy up electrical poles.

Running update:

Claire and I have been doing a 4 mile run at the park behind our house most days.  She loves it because it always involves a trip to the playground or sprayground at the end.

Todd, the overachiever, ran the Derby mini in April and beat my personal best with a time of 2:08. Punk.

5/9/14 Update

Let's start with a health update. Not much has changed from the last post. I was supposed to start chemo this week but when I had blood drawn on Monday my platelets were at 78,000 and they need to be at least 100,000 before I can resume the chemo therapy. So we will try again next Monday. The 78,000 number in,and of itself, is not disconcerting. But they can't get too low(20,000 - 30,000).

Our weather has finally changed to spring here and it has been fabulous. Yesterday I attempted to play in a golf scramble to benefit the hospital foundation. The event and the weather were great, my golf game not so much. I got really tired and had to quit after 9 holes. My balance is still not great.  I am doing physical therapy twice a week and I need to be more vigilant with my homework. I ran 2 miles this morning and lost 3 more racquetball games this evening. I am getting a little more competitive and maybe by this time next week I will be able to report a win. For those of you who know me well please sit down for this next sentence. 

We planning to have most of the family come in next weekend  That should be a blast.
All in all it has been another good week. I do need to apologize to anyone who listened to me about the Derby. Actually Marti and I hit a lucky streak and walked away with$148. Again thank you so much for caring and hopefully not being too mad about my Derby "tip"

Happy Mother's Day

Derby Post

Once again the blog is back.  So what's up? On again off again?  Definitely on again. Two reasons:
1. In the last couple of weeks I have heard from one friend I was surprised even remembered me. We played little league baseball together. His dad coached our team. Larry Tagert, it was really good to hear from you again.
I also received a very poignant note from a good friend from high school who ran track with me and we played football together. He was a DB and I was a wide receiver wannabe. Suffice it to say he enjoyed practice a lot more than I did. Cliff Staton was a smallish type who would light you up in a minute. But he also learned to write somewhere along the way, as he sent me a note that made Marti and my daughter and at least one daughter -in law cry.  

Since we last visited, on this site a lot has happened. We are no longer in any clinical trial at Duke, so that monthly trip is no longer necessary.

The tumor, true to form, has made a recurrence. Just to make sure, Duke did a brain biopsy and it was positive. The plan now is back to chemo 5 days a month and I have had 5 cyber knife radiation treatments, which are absolutely painless but they wiped me out  and then I had a seizure. When you put the chemo with the cyber knife with the seizure and you end up with a lot of whining , like the last sentence. No more of that. We have also had some really GOOD news as well.  Our youngest son was married to a wonderful young lady on the first of March.

In addition I have a plan to get back to some sort of decent shape. I am attempting to run 2 miles a day, however I  am struggling right now. So if I put this in writing I expect you all to hold me to it. I want to run a 5k around Memorial Day and the Bluegrass 10k on the 4th of July in Lexington. Followed by a half marathon this fall.

More posts to come. Daughter Sarah and son Sam have indicated they will help this time. So please hold them accountable as well.

The second reason for the blog restart is daughter Sarah informed me last night that May is brain cancer awareness month. And I know you think I have the Kentucky Derby winner and you are right. The winner will be Intense Holiday.

 

As always thank you so much for caring enough to slog through this stuff.

The blog is back; again.

OK, I know it has been a while, so grab your favorite beverage and let's get started.

I completed the 1/2 marathon in November, but it wasn't pretty. Actually it was pretty awful. I walked through every water station. On the health front, I have started the vaccination regiment. Some of you may remember when we started this journey there was talk of me getting into a program that used my own white blood cells "amped up: to fight the cancer. We took a slight detour with another clinical trial. But when microscopic cancer cells were found during the second surgery, we are now back to clinical trial #1. The only problem is that it has been all cancer treatments all the time so far. A sampling below:

Three weekends in a row to Duke to start the vaccine program

Still getting an MRI every other month

Receiving an IV of Avastin every other week - No side effects to speak of, just time consuming. Thank God for insurance.

Since the 3 straight weekends to Duke were between Thanksgiving and Christmas, needless to say
the holidays this year were stressful.

I still feel really good and am still running. Very slowly and cautiously.

Enough whining and I haven't even mentioned how awful our weather has been this winter. Pitchers and catchers report in about a month. Hang on.

You better sit down for this...Our youngest son Sam is getting married to Sarah Davis. For those if you keeping track at home that will be one daughter in law named Sarabeth, one daughter named Sarah and a second daughter in law named Sarah. Oldest son John has just decided to call Sarah Davis Rebecca and our granddaughter cannot say Sarah, yet. The best she can do is Aunt Rah. I think that is where this will probably land. March first! Yikes!

No promises but I will try and do a better job of keeping this blog current.

As always thank you for caring and hanging in there with us.

Pre Race Update

I had Avastin treatment #2 Thursday. All went well. The latest schedule is MRI12/13, back to Duke for a doctor's appointment 12/16. New round of vaccines start first of the year. I am anxious to start the vaccinations again, but I am also glad to have the short break from the monthly trips to Raleigh.

Marti has also gotten a well deserved break. She returned from a week in Florida yesterday

I have decided, with some gentle encouragement from a couple of close friends, to participate in the half marathon Sunday. I say participate because I am afraid it would be a misnomer to say I am going to run.

I am also adhering to no shave November. I had a co-worker stop me earlier this week to ask me if I was tired. She later clarified that she realized I had not shaved and thought maybe I had overslept. Let me just add I have not shaved since Monday and today is Friday and I can count on one hand the number of people who have noticed.

As always thank you so much for caring. Your prayers and well wishes help more than you can possibly know.

This Stuff Only HappensTo Me

OK, so today was my first IV of Avastin.  So far I have tolerated it well (of course it has only been about 3 hours since I finished).  They did give me a  prescription for an anti-nausea medicine but so far I feel fine. 

This is where it gets interesting. 

For those of you who do not me well, however if you have been reading this blog for 2 years you actually know everything there is to know. At any rate I have a fairly weak stomach on a good day. I have been known to change a dirty diaper by positioning the child in front of me and a large fan behind me, so the odor would be blown away from me. So with that background I can tell you about my ride home from work tonight. 

I am sitting at a stoplight with a mini van in front of me and I notice the passenger side door open and an elderly lady (about Marti's age) got out and the sliding door was open and then I noticed someone had puked all over the street. 

Thanks again for caring and I promise the rest of these post will be readable at dinner time.

Sent from my iPad