Wedding :) ...Relapsed BOOP ?

The weather turned on a fantastic day for our wedding on Saturday 18th Dec.
The morning had started with drizzle and overcast, but by midday the sun was out and stayed that way all day until the rain set in at the end of the evening once people were leaving.

We had a catered "After Party" for 65 friends and family, which went off really well.
Sarah and I found it hard to spread ourselves around the many guests and a few we only saw as they were leaving. Those I have spoken to since have all said they had a great time so I'm guessing we didn't offend anyone by not getting to talk with them all. :)

A couple of pics from the day below..   Others here... Picasa web album

 

Healthwise I'm in a real quandary at the moment. I started running a constant low grade fever a week ago and developed an asthmatic cough. In light of the reduced lung function from my last test it was a reasonable assumption that my BOOP/COP had relapsed. I tripled my dose of prednisone and the fever stopped the next day.
Interestingly the asthmatic cough is made worse by taking Seratide which is a combination of a steroid preventative and a bronchodilator designed to treat asthma. I've switched over to Flixotide which has just the steroid preventer and the cough is much better.

I have an appointment with the respiratory doctor, and lung function tests on Wednesday 5th Jan (early next week) so I'll find out then if it's a relapse of the BOOP lung inflammation. If it is, it looks like I'll be on the dreaded prednisone for a lot longer, if not forever.  sigh.

On top of the possible BOOP relapse I've developed the most annoying skin itch (pruritus). It's been getting slowly worse over the last six months until now it's almost unbearable. It's worse at night as the steroids wear off. I used to have a similar itch when my Hodgkins Lymphoma was active. So that's got me worried too. There are no other Hodgkins symptoms, however prednisone could well be masking them. I'm not scheduled to see the haematologist until the middle of march, and I've seen no sign of an appointment for the CT scan, despite emailing the haematologist and reminding him.

So it's somewhat frustrating to start 2011 with possible relapses of both BOOP and Lymphoma hanging over my head. I'll post an update next week after I've had the lung function tests.

Despite everything I'm determined that 2011 will be another awesome year like 2010. After-all I'm still here 6 years after starting treatment, and I'm still managing to live a full and active life. That's gotta be a good thing!

Happy New Year and all the best for 2011  !!    ...Ron

Just a week to go..

It's now only seven days until the wedding. Most people would expect Sarah and I to be getting fairly excited about now.. or anxious, but after being together for such a long time, we aren't expecting a huge change in our actual relationship, just it's status.

We are looking forward to the big day, don't get me wrong. But here we are on a hot Sunday afternoon just seven days out and we both seem more concerned about keeping cool and having a lazy day in the shade than we are concerned about next Saturday's big event. Maybe once things start to wind up later in the week the nerves will kick in :)

It's been a month since I last posted, sorry about that. There's been a lot of new work done around the house. The biggest of which was the construction of a retaining wall and fence to support the steep edge of the driveway and give some measure of safety to people walking along the drive.  Previously anyone that tripped off the edge would have a steep 45 degree tumble of about 50 metres before they stopped.

Here's some before and after pics...

Most of the work was done by a friend of mine who volunteered his time, his digger and his truck for a fraction of what it would have cost to do normally. Thanks JP !!

Healthwise I'm feeling pretty good. Just one worrying symptom that I would like to have an answer for. I have an annoying skin itch, mainly at night. This can be a "B" symptom of Hodgkins Lymphoma. Or it could just be side effect of prednisone (although it's rare). I've been waiting several months now for another CT scan to be performed. So far there's no sign of it being scheduled any time soon. I may just pay to have one done privately so I can put my fears to rest.

I had another lung function test last week and the doctor was concerned that the results were worse than previous (which were really good). I found that a little odd as my breathing these days is excellant when compared to what it was last year. I have no cough or difficulty breathing. However I had stopped taking my steroid inhaler because of the improvement and that may explain the drop in the readings.
My respiratory doctor had not prescribed the inhaler, it was something I'd asked my GP to prescribe last year. So it never occurred to me that it may have been responsible for a large degree of the overall improvement in my lung function. I'm back on it again now. :)

I've stopped reducing my prednisone dosage too. I've leveled it out at 16mg a day and will stick with that until my lung functions have stabilised over several months of testing.

There's nothing happening on the motorsport front. Port road sprint kicks off the 2011 year for me and that's not till late January. I've set myself a goal of entering the Dunlop Targa in either 2011 or 2012 depending on finances. I feel I need to give it another crack with good health and taking in what we learned from last time. When you consider that I was able to run in the top five on several stages, and winning one, even with the car badly damaged, running on low boost (low power) and with me incredibly ill with pneumonia. You can see why I feel I need to give it another go! 

Lots of interesting projects coming through the workshop.. A Galant VR4 RS for exhaust and intercooler work. The owner was so impressed (his grin was a mile wide) with the work I've done so far that he wants me to complete the restoration of the whole car after New Year.
I have an Evo 4 in for the installation of a replacement Evo5 engine, plus a number of other jobs waiting in the wings.. Doesn't look like I'll be having a very long break over the Christmas period!

Have a great Christmas and all the best for 2011 !!   ..Ron

Duncan McKenzie sealed sprint series in the bag!

I'd pretty much written off any chance of reclaiming the Duncan McKenzie trophy this year as I had missed two of the seven rounds due to the Evo being in the panel shop. However as luck would have it my competition also missed a round or two and also fell outside the points table on a couple of events.

The end result is that after spinning and coming second at Shelly Bay, and then winning at both Port road sprint last month and the Admiral road Hillclimb last weekend, I have now clinched the series for the fifth time, I believe to this be the first time in the fifty or so years the series has been running.
I'm very proud of this achievement and the fact that I'm still able to post very fast times despite the passing of time and a pretty worn out body.  ;)

Here's a link to the Admiral road run down from Motorsport Central .
..and here's the Port road article..

Below is video footage of one of my runs at Admiral road. Pretty darn quick if you ask me!

Why I should never forget to take my prednisone...

This morning I forgot to take my pred.

It was about 11am before I realised it and I was out at the time. I wasn't completely sure I'd forgotten but I figured that if I got a couple of aches and pains I'd know for sure and then I'd take it when I got home.Bzzzzztt!!  WRONG!

By 11:30am I was racked in pain and my legs were not working properly due to the pain spasms in my hips. I barely made it home, driving was very difficult.
I fell in the door, grabbed my 10mg dose of prednisone as I passed the kitchen and then downed some paracetamol and nurofen as I collapsed into bed shivering and writhing in agony.

Two hours later I was finally able to crawl out of bed. It's now five hours since the pain started and I'm still feeling nauseous and weak.

I will not do that again. Next time if I think I have forgotten I will just take the them anyway. It's better to double dose than live through that nightmare again.

and I used to say "a little bit of pain never hurt anybody" obviously I'll need to re-think that one.

Right! No time to lull about being sick... I'm off to save Apollo 13 from imminent doom..  ;)    See link below)

http://www.downstage.co.nz/index.php?page=shows&id=105

Mi Goreng, Marriage, Motorsport and medicine.

OK firstly a word to the wise: Don't try and eat 2 minute noodles and write a blog wearing reading glasses at the same time. You only end up trying to type one handed and drip noodles down your clean shirt while struggling to see through steamed up lenses!

A combination of age and steroids has deteriorated my eye sight quite rapidly in the last year. I now have to wear reading glasses to use the computer despite a 19" screen, and I haven't been able to read a menu at a restaurant in quite some time. My long range vision is still OK, but if I wear my glasses there's a definite improvement.



Anyway.. On to more important things!  On October the sixth, while on holiday in Taranaki I (finally) asked Sarah to marry me. It's something I'd been planning for quite some time, but was waiting for my health to improve before taking the plunge. There was little fear that she would say no as she has been making subtle remarks and rumblings for a few years now. However she really didn't expect me to ask and was pleasantly surprised (read stunned) when I asked her as we lay in bed enjoying the Lake view from the little private chalet we were staying at on the shores of Lake Rotorangi, about 20km out of Eltham.

Sarah had spotted a beautiful little diamond ring in an antique store in Eltham the day previous and showed an interest in it but decided she couldn't justify the expense as an item of jewelery.

So for me that made choosing the ring easy :)  We just stopped off on the way home and I purchased it.

We are planning a quiet wedding at home on December 18th attended by close family, followed by a party that evening for extended family and friends in which we shall celebrate the new house, my good health and our new life.

As mentioned in my last post I've gotten back into my motorsport and last weekend I drove the Evo at the second round of the Port Road sealed sprint at Seaview. This is an event that I have done quite well at in the past, but have also done terribly at too! Crashing back in 1995, getting hopelessly lost on several runs a few years back and doing half the track twice... not good if you want to post a low time!

I first won it in 2006 and have won it a couple of times since including last weekend's event.
However my times, like at Shelly Bay were down on what I've been capable of in previous years. I put this down to a heightened sense of self-preservation and a little bit of rustiness (if there is such a word).

Back in 2008 when I was doing a lot of competing around the country I was right at home with the 320kw that the car produces on high boost and I set a number of records behind the wheel.

Last weekend the sheer brutish power of the car scared the pants off me and I never really felt comfortable. Perhaps with more time behind the wheel I'll get back my confidence. I hope so.

On the health front I'm pretty good. Well today I feel great. I have a couple of small niggles that remind me that there's a small lymph node in my left side pelvis that is sitting possibly dormant but ready to burst into life should it choose to. I get a few aches from that region every now and then and that unsettles me. My skin feels prickly/itchy all the time, but it's not a deep seated itch like typically occurs with Hodgkins. It's just annoying enough to remind you that something might not be right. However I feel nothing like as bad as when I definitely have active disease, so I just remind myself of that and go about life as normal.

The weening down from the dreaded prednisone however continues. I'm now down to 17mg a day. I should be off it in 18 months at this rate. The horrible thing about weening off is that my body aches constantly and some days the pain is quite severe. I seem to live on a diet of paracetamol and Ibuprofen. Today the aches and pains are quite tolerable. I shall enjoy the normality while it lasts.

Here's something vaguely interesting.. Take a look at these images of me taken over the last five years at various stages of my treatment and recovery. I can hardly reconcile some of them as being of me, the difference in my perceived self image and reality is that great.

November 2006 feeling OK



December 2006 stem cell harvesting



December 2006 realatively well






May 2007 chemo







Sept 2007 end of chemo



















December 2007 hair regrowing (again)



March 2008 prior to radiation treatment

















April 2008 Ravaged by Radiation Treatment





May 2008 post radiation







 





July 2008 recovered from failed radiation treatment.







August 2008 about to leave for treatment in Germany









 





Feb 2009 just prior to stem cell transplant







July 2009 weight loss due to BOOP (un-diagnosed)









May 2010 recovering from BOOP steroid induced weight gain.









 











 





































Back into life... Ooh and motorsport too :)

You really don't realise how much you are affected by the stress of being told you may have only a short time to live until the person that told you that changes their mind and tells you that possibly everything is fine. It's like night and day. Every aspect of my life is changed by it. I can once again make plans and relax.

I'd even put off building the new garage to store the race car because of fears that I might not be around to have one to store. I'd carefully reduced the size of my stock orders from overseas because I didn't know if I'd be alive to sell the items if I got in too much stock.  The uncertainty taints every aspect of your life.

Anyway, I have decided that I'm well and that's that. The doctor may have said things could go either way, but to me I'm in remission and those couple of nodes that he was concerned about are just odd looking nodes. End of story.

So what have I changed since the last post ? Sarah and I are off on a few days holiday, our first in a long while. We are staying at a Lodge in Taranaki that offers accommodation in private chalets situated along the shores of Lake Rotorangi. Will be ultra relaxing!

The race car is back together and just needs to be sign written to be complete.
I raced it last weekend at Shelly Bay. I'd told Sarah that I was going to ease myself back into motorsport and take it easy as I haven't raced in nearly a year.
The road was in terrible shape, the worst I've seen it in the fifteen years since I first competed there. Loose gravel on the corners was making for a very scary course and three cars were completely written off as a result. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. 

Here's video of the worst of the crashes. Victor Yuen, my co-driver from last year's Targa, spun out on the loose surface and careered off the road onto the rocks and into the sea upside down.




I took it easy for the practice and first timed runs. For the second run I used high boost and tried to come to grips with the road. Because of all the loose stones on the road a lot of people were taking a low racing line through some of the corners which resulted in the stones being swept up high onto the racing line that I would usually take. It was very scary to find myself committed at 160kph to a high racing line only to find it covered in gravel.. the resulting slides certainly made for a scary drive!

I managed to post a time that put me in front, however it was a full six seconds slower than I've done in the past. For my third run I took a passenger and that proved to be my downfall.
As I sat on the line I asked him how much he weighed, "just over 90kg" was his reply. "Hmm.. the last time I had a passenger that heavy I kept spinning out!" I told him.

The run was going well, I'd managed to find some good racing lines and grip didn't seem to be a problem. Then as I approached the Lighthouse at around 180kph I lost concentration, I braked too late and the added weight of the passenger had made slowing for the tight second gear corner all that much harder. The wheels locked, unlocked, locked again...  I turned in and hoped like hell we wouldn't go off the road and into the sea. The Evo spun 90 degrees to the road and slid around the corner in a wide drift (but was really just an out-of-control screw-up) before coming to a complete stop. Luckily unscathed.

We then drove to the finish line, the run wasted. I'd blown it by over-driving the car.

The end result was that I finished in second place behind Tony Burrows who had managed to better my second run time and not make any mistakes. I'll never know what my time would have been had I not spun-out, stopped and toured to the finish, but the total elapsed time was just 4 seconds off the winning time. Still.. not bad for a very Rusty-Racer.

Next event is Port Road on Oct 24th, then it's Admiral Road Hillclimb on November 7th.

Work has been busy as usual. Lots of little jobs and a couple of big ones..

This little Alfa GTV race car has been one of the more interesting jobs. I fabricated a new exhaust system, upgraded the fuel lines and installed a hydraulic hand-brake. Ultimately the car is being prepared for Road, Race and Targa use.

..and finally no blog post would be complete without a mention of the dreaded Prednisone steroids. I'm weening off them slowly, now down to 18mg a day. Some of the side effects are diminishing, such as the back pain which is now of no real concern. ..Just another 18 months and I'll be free of the dreaded drug!!   ;)

Results ...

Well after a long three month wait on a knife edge the scan results are finally in.
There's been no change in the 15mm lymph node in my pelvis and some of the other smaller nodes that showed on the previous scan are no longer visible. One in particular near my heart has disappeared.

Compared to his tone of three months ago Dr D'Souza was a lot more positive, I would say cautiously optimistic. He said there's around a 50% chance that the treatment has been successful, which is a lot better than last visit when he was certain I had relapsed and that there were no longer any curative treatment options for me.

This time round there seems to be doors opening up for me in light of the fact that my lungs have improved back to normal and I'm weening off the prednisone. The fact that the 15mm node in my pelvis would have had to have grown at a time when my prednisone dose was at it's highest, but now seems to be being kept in check is another good sign that it's probably not lymphoma.

So the bottom line is it's still a bit of a lottery, but there is no conclusive evidence of relapse.
I do have a problem with a severe back pain, but that may well be muscle weakness due to the steroids and the result being that it allows an old back injury to flare up as it's not being supported by the muscles anymore. The reason for concern by me was because I have always associated my back pain with active lymphoma.  I'm going to start doing exercises to strengthen them. This, if it is successful will give me both peace of mind and fix the pain.

OK.. time for a cautious celebration, Only no wine cause I'm on antibiotics for a chest infection! Bugger!

Big "Thank you" to all of you who have contacted me to wish me well. So pleased we got the result we had been hoping for.

Cheers!  ...Ron

Waiting, pain, mental health, God and Guns.

It's now just eight days to my next CT scan. Then a couple of weeks till I get the word on whether I've relapsed. Some days I am convinced I have, others I'm not so sure. I guess if I work on a totally logical level and remove the denial aspect, then I probably have. However it must be at a very low level because some of the little signs that point to relapse have been with me for over a year.

I think it's best to just live in ignorant bliss and get on with life. I got a big fright last week when I developed an excruciating pain in my lower back and left pelvic area after a glass of wine. A classic Lymphoma B-symptom. However I have had the back pain on and off in the past and can't 100% link it to HL and it could just as easily be steroid related as it seems to occur at a point when the steroid is at it's lowest level in my body, twelve hours after taking it.

However I've found that I am having a lot more episodes of the dreaded pulsing back pain these days. Sometimes reaching an 8 on the pain scale. So painful that you are unable to focus on anything but the pain and if it wasn't for the fact that it's a known thing.. you'd be tempted to call an ambulance. (On my pain scale 9 is akin to torture and 10 you pass out). Last Thursday night I took paracetamol, Ibuprofen and then Morphine before the pain faded over a period of three hours. I was unable to walk as each "pulse" completely removed muscle function from my legs. Not fun!

What I do now is take paracetamol as a prophylactic, in the morning and at night. If I time it right the pain never gets a chance to build and all is well. With each 1mg reduction in steroid dosage I can expect even more body aches and pain as my system goes into adrenal withdrawal.

I've finally gotten over the last of the dreaded cold that I had, it almost feels weird not to be coughing all the time. I've probably only had a couple of weeks since April last year where by I was not coughing constantly. I'm now at a point with my BOOP that I will be weening off the prednisone over the next 18 months or so. That's assuming I haven't relapsed of course.

I've had plenty of work lately, mainly suspension upgrades and wheel alignments. Today and tomorrow I've declared "Mental Health Days" and have booked no work. I'm thinking about making a low-key start on the Evo once I've posted this blog update. Maybe put some door panels on or something.. just enough to fire me up to do the bigger things later on. Perhaps once it's all back together I'll get excited about entering some events again.

Sarah and I finished work on the courtyard last weekend, it looks great! We have just a couple of metres of pathway to complete and the whole job will be done. We are so glad we broke the job down into bite sized sections. Looking at the job as a whole it was quite daunting.

Exciting things on the horizon.. Rally Wairarapa on Sept 10-12. This will be the sixth year we have "Swept" the rally and it's something we both look forward to! More so me than her she tells me. Probably because she does all the paperwork and I just drive flat out like a loony on the closed gravel roads :o) Here's a link back to my post of last year which describes what the job of the "Sweeper" is.

My brother Mark and I have gotten right into our shooting and have been buying all sorts of gizmos and addons for our rifles so we can more effectively shoot rabbits on a couple of local farms. I know not everyone likes the idea of killing small animals but they are a pest on farms and they eat almost as much grass as a sheep. We both find it a good way to get exercise and wind down.
We are having some new silencers custom made for our rifles to avoid scaring away the prey. The guy that makes them is a Reverend who is also a gun fanatic, an engineer and an amateur science nut. A strange mix of God, Guns, killing and creation.

OK.. off to see what I can get done on the race car...   :o)

UPDATE: Got a lot done on the Evo in just a short time: Door trims fitted, rear bumper mounts started, engine running. Engine will need to come out for a freshen up though. Tomorrow I'll do some more now that I'm motivated.

Hmm

Ever coughed so hard you broke a rib? I think I did last Saturday.
I believe I'd already cracked it the week before during a severe coughing fit and I'd been in a fair bit of discomfort since.
Saturday morning I was laying on my side when I coughed particularly hard. As I did something went "pop" in my right side and the pain was excruciating! I was unable to move from the couch all day. Any sort of movement and I was in agony.
However after only a couple of days the pain is now quite bearable and so I'm not sure I actually broke a rib.. maybe I just tore some cartilage. Would be most unusual for the pain to subside so quickly.

Last weekend my brother Mark and I went up to Waikanae to do some pest extermination for a woman who owns a farm in PekaPeka that is over-run with rabbits and Pukeko.
We obtained a permit from "Fish and Game" to shoot the Pukeko out of season as they were destroying the farmer's grain feed and causing a general nuisance. In one night they had pecked open the bags of over a thousand dollars worth of feed leaving it wet and unable to be stored.

The paddocks were over-run with the birds and I figured we would have no problem bringing the numbers down. However no matter how many shots I fired I just couldn't hit a single one.
After a couple of hours of traipsing through boggy paddocks and having frightened off all of the birds into the neighbours paddocks we gave up and went home feeling somewhat embarrassed at our poor shooting skills.

Today I set my rifle up in a jig and checked the sites over a distance of 50 meters. I fired a shot at a board that was 900mm high and 600mm wide and the bullet missed it completely! Somehow in the 12 months since I last sited in my rifle it must have been knocked out of alignment.
I tightened the scope, fired another round at the board and then adjusted the cross-hairs to align with the bullet hole. A rapid succession of shots all into the same spot confirmed that it's now correctly sited and I won't be firing two feet over their heads next time!

I went for walk to the top of the hill today. I wanted to test out my lungs now that my cough is gone.

It's a real grunt to the top but I managed to better my last time up and made it to the top gate in 33 minutes, returning in a total of 59 minutes. I'm fairly sure most people would struggle to to keep up, so I'm pretty happy about my over-all fitness considering what my body's been through in the last five years.

Oh and the view from the track is fantastic making the walk well worth the effort.

It's still another couple of weeks before my next CT scan and then two weeks after that before I find out if I have relapsed. In the meantime I live on tender-hooks.

I've still no major signs or B-symptoms. Fingers crossed the nodes have shrunk and I can start planning for the future again.

It's been a while..

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I'd better put fingers to keyboard.
Most of my time has been spent in the workshop and around the house and section.

I've had a huge amount of work come through the workshop in the last month. Everything from a Porsche 911 Carrera (964) for a Bilstein shock absorber upgrade to a Nissan "People Mover" Van for a suspension handling package, the latter I had to spec up myself as no one listed springs or shocks for it. There's also been the usual mix of Mustangs, Camaros and Corollas for wheel Alignments and tweaks.

Around the house.. Sarah and I have almost finished the courtyard. It's been a huge job, taking up the last four weekends and we still have about two days worth of paving to complete.
The Spa pool is now in place and running. Last night after spending all day laying pavers we got into the pool and soaked away the body aches while the wind and rain pelted down outside. The covered courtyard provides complete protection from the elements. Very cool!  :o)

I've done nothing on the Evo race car. I just can't seem to find the time with the current work load and jobs around the section. Having said that, I'm having a mental health day today because I over did things yesterday and am paying dearly for it. Last night I suffered a severe back-ache and today I am feeling quite "off" as well. One good thing is that the cold that I developed nearly four weeks ago seems to be waning and I'm coughing a lot less. (As is Sarah who caught it a week earlier than I did).
I've managed to re-crack the rib I injured in last year's Targa crash too... a side effect of the prednisone making my bones brittle combined with a couple of fairly decent coughs from this cold. It hurts a bit but not so much as it did last time.

I still have no idea whether I have relapsed or not. I finally got to read the report from the last CT scan and it does indeed look on paper like I have. However I'm still in better shape now than I was a year ago so it's anyone's guess. I have another CT scheduled for late this month and then two weeks after that I have the follow up with DR D'Souza to discuss the results. I live in hope that the nodes they are concerned about have either shrunk, disappeared or remained indolent.

I did have a night sweat last night, but I think that was because I took two paracetamol tablets for the back-ache. Paracetamol causes you to sweat which is how it breaks a fever if you have one.
I used to think that the pulsing lower back ache which can get up to about a "7" on the pain threshold was one of my "B' symptoms that indicated I had active Lymphoma. However I have had the pain when there was no decernable lymphoma on CT nearly a year ago. So perhaps it's not.
The mild skin itch I've also suffered from seems to come and go, so who knows.. I'll be glad to get the next CT over and done with so I will know either way.

I had a lung function test last week along with an appointment with the respiratory doctor. My lungs are now in the best shape they have been in since 2008 and that's with this darn cold which leaves me coughing and breathless. I put the improvement down to the little bit of exercise I have managed to get in. I can walk at a brisk pace to the top of the regional walking track above our land in 36 minutes. It's a steep up-hill grunt the whole way. It's amazing just how good I feel afterwards though. Exercise really does affect your whole sense of well-being.

I start weening off the prednisone next month. One milligram a month. It will take a year and a half to get back to zero and start feeling normal again, and that's assuming I haven't relapsed. It get's too scary and complicated to comprehend if I have, so I won't even go there!

Till next time....   Ron

Busy around the house..

Last week I got Kurt in with his digger to remove a section of the bank at the rear of the house to make room for more parking and the planned storage garage. Sarah and I then spent most of last weekend compacting the gravel and leveling parts of the courtyard ready to start the paving around the spa pool.
Sarah shoveled and then barrowed over a tonne of gravel! How many 45 y/o women can lay claim to doing that?

The pictures below show just how much of an improvement in space we gained from just a couple of meters of soil being removed.

I've been living on a knife-edge since getting the word on my last CT scan from the Doctor.

However I don't seem to be exhibiting any major symptoms of relapse other than a mild skin itch.

All the other aches and pains I've had for over a year now and I had them at a time when I'd had several clear CT's. So I don't think they are relevant. Just wish I didn't have the odd prickly itch because then I'd be convinced that it's all a false alarm. (skin itch is a B symptom of Hodgkins Lymphoma, among other things)

I'm booked for another CT in late August, with a follow-up appointment in late September.

If the nodes in my pelvis are bigger I'm sure Dr D' Souza will be in touch. Hopefully he'll be in touch as soon as he see's the results good or bad! Would be nice to at least know where I stand.

Motorsport is pretty much on hold right now. I don't have any real desire to compete at this stage and I just don't seem to be able to find the time to work on the race-car and get it back together.

There is a hill-climb in early August that I originally thought was this July, I can't see me being at that however I will be ready for Shelly Bay on 26th September as it's one of my favorite events. Plus I'd love to lower my record winning time even further!  :o)  (At that point It will have been nearly a year since last driving the Evo in anger so I may be a bit rusty)

Tomorrow Sarah and I start work on laying the pavers in the courtyard.. Now that's a big job! I can feel a back ache coming on already!  ;o)

Later  ...Ron