Round 2 - Day @%$#

So first off let me aplologize for the spotty communication at best, since this took a turn for the worst. I'll be honest with you, the last thing on my mind is jumping on a computer and opening myself up, so please don't expect that here. Although this probably won't hit your epxectations, I will commit to you that it will get better going forward.

So for the facts, Costa Rica for 10 days for my bachelor party starting March 17th returning on March 27th with my best freinds in the world plus or minus a few. Stopped and had lunch at a place I ususally go to once I get into the country. From that point on the misery set in and my trip was over. Although I was able to get out a few more day and night trips here and there and muscle up a few good times, most of the time was spent writhing around in pain and misery on the bed underneath the fan.

As things progressiveily got worse with my condition, the conversation moved from calling an ambulence, to driving me straight to the airport, to have a helicopter come pick me up with a doctor on board, to having an ambulence pick me up and take me to the hospital myself. As I said, it all worked out when we bypassed all of it and drove straight to the airport.

At this point the CR part of the trip was over and we were scheduded to fly out the following morning. The expereience in the hospital was a story in and of itself with highlights of me yelling at the top of my lungs to quiet the F up and let the patients sleep. It all turned out fine when it came time for the bill and they had no mechanism to get that handled so they told us not to pay.

I felt fine the next morning and we were out of there. Well, in feeling bad for my friends about how the trip had gone, I brought up the idea to stay for a couple of days in Miami (our layover)and it was well recieved so I guess we decided stay. All of theses stories will come out in passiing but I'll leave it up to your imaginzation. We had one of the most incredible dinners ever on Sunday night. Absolutely amamzing.

So, here I sit back in the hospital with the news that nobody wants to ever hear. "I'm really sorry to be the one who had to tell you this, but your cancer is no longer in remission and has now relapsed".

The next steps are prettty simple. I just finished 5 days of chemo which supposedly has a very good and successfull response rate to cancer. In the middle of next week, they will run another bone marrow extraction (assuming my counts start to go up again) and see if I am in remission again. If I'm in remission, we go for a match and move on to next steps, if I am still in relapse, we mix up the cocktail mix of chemo again and go from there. That's the nitty gritty guys, take care everyone and thank you so much for the unreal support I'm keeping you all close to my heart. Thanks for everything again and we'll get through this together.

Round 2 - Day - %@&

Hi Everyone and again let me apologize for waiting so long between these messages. So, as far as this one goes, it started in Costa Rica at my bachelor party which consisted of seven of my closest friends. A half an hour into the trip, I ate something which immediately didn't sit right with me and I spent the rest of the trip fighting it off. It turned out to be ecoli. After a worthy attempt of planes, trains, and automobiles to get to a nearby hospital, we settled on a car. I spent the night in a Costa Rican hospital. As it turns out, Costa Rica had nothing to do with the ecoli or my current state. I flew home and went to the hospital in San Diego on Friday, March 19th due to high fevers, stomach pain, and head pain. They did test after test after test and found bacteria in my blood and appendicitis. I spent the weekend in the hospital and got another bone marrow test on Monday to test for Cancer. We got the terrible news the next morning that my Cancer had returned. Due to the Cancer and the need to start chemo right away, they opted not to remove my appendix. I started chemo Wednesday for 5 days and ended yesterday. I am still having sporadic stomach and head pain but they are giving me dilaudid which helps. Now that chemo is done, my white counts are zero (which means I have no immune system) so we wait for my counts to go back up again and do more chemo and when I go into remission, they will do another bone marrow transplant. I did get great news this morning that my original donor is willing to donate again so the doctors are getting that lined up so they are ready when I am. This guy is seriouisly a saint a of manitidues I have never even had visibility to. Any time I think I'm a good dude, I just have to lie there and get a glimpse into this guys heart. Pretty amazing...
Thanks for reading...