Some of you have wondered about the sparseness of posts for the past year or so.
Well there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is I’ve been undergoing cancer treatment. Right at the start of last summer I went in for a colonoscopy. That regular screening colonoscopy you’re supposed to get when you turn 50 (now 45). They found my rectum was attempting to expand in a way which unfortunately wasn’t conducive to my remaining in the mortal realm for an extended period. (I’m sure there’s some joke about all the crap that’s gone into ATSC 3.0… 😝)
The good news is that from the outset the prognosis was an emphatic “full cure with full function.” (I’ve heard doctors don’t like to use the word “cure” in regards to cancer and to be honest I’m not 100% sure that word was used. But whatever was said it carries the right sentiment.) The protocol I’m on is FOLFOX TNT. It isn’t supposed to involve canines or explosives, though I sometimes wonder if I had a specially crafted version of TNT during radiation. FOLFOX TNT involves systemic chemotherapy (FOLFOX) followed by chemo-radiation followed by a 1st surgery to remove a good chunk of the rectum (where the tumor was) and to do a temporary ileostomy and a second surgery to undo the ileostomy. (TNT = Total Neoadjuvant Therapy, i.e. “we’re going to do the steps backwards”…or we’re going to torture that tumor to non-existence before removing it.)
Right now I’m a few days away from the first surgery, and thanks to chemo and chemo-rad the tumor has shrunk to a level where it’s no longer visible on an MRI. But it only takes a cell for the tumor to come back, so my surgeon and oncologist have convinced me that we’re going forward with surgery. (Actually it’s my friend, who’s program managing my treatment, that has made it known in no uncertain terms that I am to go through the full program and that it will be done on schedule with high quality. She’s an awesome PM who I’ve been lucky to to work with in my professional life. It seemed like a good idea at the time…)
I have a separate blog that covers The Journey, and if you get bored of reading about 3.0 you’re welcome to head over to https://the-mm-show.com (apologies to Jim Carrey).
The outlook is still positive and hopefully we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming at in-koherence without further delay. And if it seems I’m less tolerant of crap in the future – well you know why!