Election Day 08

Wow what a fantastic day it is outside today! It's car cleaning weather!
So far I've managed to clean both the Evo race-car and STi Impreza. I'm not sure I have enough energy left to do the van, I think it can wait till next time.

Tomorrow we are travelling over to the Wairarapa to enter a hillclimb event there.
The event is at Admiral road, near Gladstone. It's a very short hillclimb, only about 40 seconds to the top, but very tight and twisty.
Last year I entered and broke the record that had stood for nearly 25 years by 2 seconds. This time round I'm just in it for the points. I may not be able to make one or two of the next rounds of the 'Duncan McKenzie' series so it's important I build a lead now so I can hopefully win the series again this year.

Health-wise I feel completely normal except this darn cough and persistent asthma.
I have no idea if it's because of the lung involvement, I guess it's got to be, But I have suffered from it in the past when scans showed no involvement. So who knows.
If I wasn't coughing all the time I'd be convinced there was nothing wrong with me.
It's easy to see how some people only find out at the last minute that they have cancer and that it has been with them for years.
I fired an email off yesterday to the haematologist at Wellington hospital. I figure he's had two day's already to schedule me an appointment, so it was time for a hurray along from me. None of this waiting 18 months for a referral! The squeaky wheel gets the oil.!

Well I'd better continue packing the van full of race gear, then load the car onto Murray's truck for the trip over the hill early tomorrow. Then it's off to cast my vote.

I'll post an update on my race results tomorrow.

Response from Germany.

I've just received word from Germany on what they suggest. I've pasted it below.
Interesting that they have come to the same conclusion that I have.

Dear Ron,
thank you for your e-mail. Dr. Kopic and Dr. Draczynski have reviewed your PET results and would suggest: high-dosage chemotherapy plus stem-cell support - this is the sole option that you have.
Due to the fact that you are young, Dr. Kopic would not recommend conventional therapy, but the above-mentioned high-dosage chemotherapy.
Please let us know what you plan to do. Dr. Kopic would suggest that you have that done at your home address, it will probably be cheaper for you.
If you want to come here, you would have to plan a 4-weeks stay.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.
Kind regards

Bad News.

Yesterday I got a really weird email from my GP saying that he could refer me to Dr Alwyn D'Souza the haematologist at Wellington Hospital if I wanted him to. He also said that Dr Dady had no interest in seeing me.

That came as a huge shock as I had not seen the PET scan results yet but it could only mean one thing. That the scan was positive for Hodgkins.
I quickly fired off emails to both my GP and the Dr at Pacific Radiology saying "please explain". Only Trevor Fitzjohn from Pacific replied.
He said that the results had been confirmed that day and were in the post to me and my GP. That he had contacted Wellington hospital to find out who to send the results to there, and that Dr D'Souza was keen to see me.

The result was a very upsetting and stressful night for Sarah as she worried over what the report would contain. I'd resolved myself to the fact it was not going to be good news.
Sure enough today I got two copies of the written report in the post along with a CD of the scan images.
The scan shows that I have new areas of involvement in my chest and some lung involvement as well. That would explain the cough. There are no other significant areas of involvement. The liver, spleen and bones are still clear.

I have sent the results to Germany for their opinion and I've asked if Dr D'Souza, the haematologist at the Wgtn Blood and cancer centre can see me as soon as possible.
Treatment-wise it looks like I'm back where I was three months ago; High dose chemo with stem cell recovery (transplant). It's way too early to even start planning anything but my thoughts are to have the Autologous stem cell transplant here in NZ.
The reason for this would be that if it failed we could then still investigate other treatments overseas. Doing it the other way round may not be affordable.

So there you have it.. really, really bad news. I'm sorry to have to share that with you. I was so looking forward to finally knocking it on the head once and for all. Those night sweats I had a few weeks ago were the bad news I had suspected they were. As to why they have not returned I have no idea. I'm certainly not complaining.

Mentally I'm as up-beat as ever, I'm sure in the end I'll beat this. It's Sarah that I worry about. As you can imagine she really takes it hard.

I'll update once I've spoken to the haematologist or had word from Germany on their thoughts.

..Ron

The PET Scan..

I had my PET scan done yesterday. It went really well.
I guess after four scans I must be getting used to it, as I was very relaxed right through-out. I now hold the record for having recieved the most number of PET scans in NZ.

Basically a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan is very similar to a CT scan. It just takes a little longer. An hour before the scan I am injected with a radioactive sugar isotope. Then I'm left on a bed for an hour to lay perfectly still and relax.
Cancer cells are very sugar hungry, so they soak up the isotope. This makes it very easy to identify them on a scan. The reason for laying perfectly still is so that your muscles don't soak up too much of the sugar and give false positives or cloud the results.
This time round I was also given a barium solution to drink as well. This helps highlight your intestines and bowel.

The scan itself takes about 30 minutes. It's a lot quicker these days than when I had one of the first PET scans done in NZ back in 2006, which was over an hour. It's just a case of laying on a table and being fed into a huge donut shaped scanner. It takes thousands of pictures in slices that are then assembled in such a way that the Doctors can virtually fly through the images of my body and look for any hot-spots.

I also got one piece of good news yesterday. My insurance company has agreed to pay for the scan. I wasn't sure if they would and the amount of paper work they want is a little daunting. However I figured it was worth the effort and I quickly rushed around last week putting a claim together. They phoned yesterday morning and said it was approved. The good thing is that now I'm on record with them and any future claims will be a lot simpler.

Next post will be mid next week when I get the PET scan results.. Fingers crossed for a clean bill of health!.

First race since returning home.

I've just got home from a full day's worth of motorsport and I'm worn out!.
I had a few concerns about whether I would be fit enough to man-handle my 550 horse power Mitsubishi Evolution around the streets of Seaview in my first outing in over six months. I needn't have worried.

The very first run in the car, a warm-up run, was fast enough to win the event out-right. I then did another faster run later in the day that consolidated the win. So all my fears about loosing my edge and not being up to the level of competition I'd previously been at before treatment have been laid to rest.

I only had one "moment" during the day. I had decided to not do my 4th and final run of the day as it was raining and it would be impossible to go faster in the wet than my earlier runs in the dry.
But then I bumped into my friend Alf and his son Daniel, and Daniel asked if I would take him with me on my final run of the day.
So we strapped him into the passengers seat and proceeded to do what I had promised to be a fairly sedate run around the tight street circuit on a very wet road. Amazingly the car had heaps more grip than I expected so I drove faster and faster as I found the limits of adhesion. Then as we completed the last tricky turn on what was now becoming a blindingly fast run, the engine threw off it's power-steering belt.
This left me mid corner with incredibly heavy steering and me facing a concrete kerb.

There is no way I could return the steering to where it needed to be in time to avoid colliding with the kerb, so I took my foot off the brake as we went up it, and re-applied it once we were on the footpath. There we were, parked perfectly on the footpath directly in front of a crowd of spectators. None of whom would have had any idea why I suddenly decided mid race to leave the road and park my car in such a bizarre place for no apparent reason. No damage was done, we drove very slowly back to the pits, fitted a replacement belt, packed up and went back the clubrooms to pick up my trophies.

A great day! (If you want to get an idea of what it is like to do a run of the Port Rd Street Sprint in my car. Check out this footage from a previous year.) >>Click here<<

PS: Still no night sweats now for three nights in a row.