Scans Looking Good

Sorry about the delay.  Lots of things been happening, but more of that later.

I just had to get on and say that after 3 months without treatment the latest MRI shows Tumour hasn't really changed and the fluid and scar tissue, although it looks a bit different (technical term), is looking OK too. So I get another 3 months reprieve, and can look forward to a treatment free Christmas and new year.

Carol and I are driving to the UK tomorrow (well I'm driving, Carol's riding) for a week of family and shopping. 

One of the reasons we are going back is to visit my dad. He is suffering from late stages Alzheimer's and I feel bad about not visiting him for a while.  He doesn't normally recognise anybody from the family any more and that is quite a painful experience. I hope it is less painful for him, but who knows what goes through his mind nowadays.

I doubt you'll hear from me until I get back but then I'll fill you in on all kinds of stuff.

Playing the waiting game

I can't believe that it is Three months ago that I got my reprieve from Chemo and other poisons, but the start of the check up cycle shows that it is.

Today I went to get the Creatine levels in my blood checked in preparation for the MRI at the end of next week. If you remember (now pay attention) the contrast agent used to get those cool MRI pictures can increase the creatine levels in the blood with consequential danger to the Kidneys, so I need a normal level (of less than 100umol/l) before they can do my MRI. Unfortunately today it was 106umol/l so I had to check with the hospital to see if it would be OK, thankfully it is.

After putting the phone down I wondered if my higher levels of Creatine was due to a couple of days of increased exercise as Creatine is used by the body to supply energy to muscle cells (hence its use by athletes as a performance enhancer). A quick look around the web seems to suggest it might a little but normally after prolonged exercise. I must check with my doctors if it makes sense to hold of the exercise before MRIs in future (any excuse).

So next weeks MRI is on and then a week later I get the results.
Again the waiting game.

Vote for the US President

Want to make your "unofficial" vote for the US president.
Check out www.iftheworldcouldvote.com and look at how the rest of the world think.

Thanks for the link Ruedi
p.s. blogspot has blocked the url for some reason so you will have to cut and paste.

Carol's Birthday

Happy Birthday Carol!
Still not caught me up, weird that.

Had a great meal at home just the way Carol seems to like things, having her family* around her. On second thought, that's pretty much how I like birthdays too.


*and one very good friend.

Danger Mobile!

Over the last year or so I have been reading a lot of literature on Brain Cancer and I can't help bumping into lots of studies going on relating to the use of mobile phones and tumours. What comes out of all this information (in my view) is that all the early studies that showed no correlation (e.g. the Interphone studies) had failures in the statistical methods being used (e.g. looking at too short a usage period, too low a frequency of usage, even EXCLUDING business users).

The more recent studies from Scandinavia (not sponsored by phone companies) that show approximately 5 times the risk of developing tumours have "fixed" these methodology problems. These studies also showed a strong correlation between the side that phones were held and the side of the developed tumours.

A particularly disturbing finding from recent studies is the massively increased effects on children and young adults.

What's more using phones with headsets, although no longer posing a threat to the brain, does not remove the risk to the lower body from carrying the phone in the hip pocket. Studies have already shown lower sperm counts and damage to bone marrow in the presence of mobile phones.

So far we have no conclusive evidence for any of this, but I'm telling my family to use headphones whenever possible and to use a case which keeps the phone a little away from the body. Also I will not to let my grandchildren anywhere near mobile phones when I'm around.

I'll keep you posted while I'm still around to do so.

p.s. I have been using mobiles held against the left hand side of my head for over 10 years, the side of my tumour. Who knows?

Athens

Just got back from 4 Days in Athens doing some work for a small Insurer. As usual with these these trips the only thing I get to see is the is the inside inside of meeting rooms, hotels and restaurants. My favorites are always the restaurants with this time being no exception. Now all I have to do is try and loose the extra Kilos.

Like Moscow we had to do a lot through interpretation and I realized pretty quickly that the issues we had in Russia had more to do with culture than Language.

Thanks for making our stay so pleasant everybody, look forward to coming back to Athens again soon.

Tropic Thunder

Went to the cinema with Amber and Carol yesterday. We saw Tropic Thunder
with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise (in a quite different role for him). It all had Steve Coogan playing an excellent role as a film director.

Plenty of fun ensues when everything goes wrong filming a war film in the Jungle.

Afterward we met up with some old friends of Carol's and mine from our days in Banking IT for a drink and some food. Given the current situation with banks you can guess what we talked about much of the evening.