Archive for December, 2009

Why I am making the switch…again

Monday, December 28th, 2009

I am a HUGE snowboarder.  I have been since I started shredding at the age of 12-13.  I started off my life on the mountain as a skier (GASPS!) and did it for almost 10 years.  I was a good skier but I was alive and at the ripe age when snowboarding was making it’s giant rush for the hills.

I was at an after school ski/snowboard program in 7th grade when I first made my move to “the dark side”.  My best friend Brooks had a board and he let me try it out one night when we were up there with our school program.  He was a skier also who had turned and he didn’t mind letting me try.  I have to say that the first couple runs did suck and I was on my ass a lot but for some reason I fell in love.  I went to Rogue Ski Shop the next day and purchased a board with my hard earned money that I had saved up and from that moment on my skis stayed hung up on the wall of my garage.

I love snowboarding but I haven’t been up to the mountain since my last accident.  It was 2006 and I caught an edge wrong while landing and SNAP…I was done for the season.  I had  torn my ACL and that was going to require surgery.  I had hurt myself before but this was the worst.  This was the first time I was ever going to have to have surgery.  Here is list of what I have injured since I began snowboarding:

*Left clavicle (collar bone)
*Both ankles sprained
*Left elbow broken and dislocated
*Left ACL torn

Here is a list of what I broke when I skied:

*Nothing

Yup, nothing.   After realizing this I think I am making the switch.  Just like I did when I switched from PC to Mac.  I am gonna go BACK to skiing.  I am going to probably be heading to the mountain in March with some buddies and heading to Mt. Bachelor.  I am going to rent some skis and take back my roots and see how it goes.  With any luck it will just be like riding a bike and I am gonna pick it right up.  We shall see.

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That time I had ball cancer – Part V

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

Chemotherapy. That was what we decided on as the form of treatment that I would do. We didn’t want to chance the radiation with the possibility of hurting what sperm I had left.

My treatment would be as follows:

*Blood Test
*Infusion (45 minutes)
*One week of feeling blah
*One week of feeling like shit
*One week of getting better and then
*Infusion again and repeat.

First day of treatment went fine. I showed up and did the blood tests and so forth. Then Denise and I watched a movie about “Chemotherapy and You” and it was made in Canadia. I didn’t think the acting was good. But turns out they weren’t actors. Then we had a meeting with a Infusion Nurse that spoke to us about the chemotherapy. It was an okay lecture but she was British so that made the meeting quite interesting.

Next it was time to go to the infusion room. I was in this room with all these other patients and it’s very cold in the infusion room. Why you might ask? It’s due to the fact that bacteria and germs need warmth to grow and seeing that chemo patients are at a point where they are RIPE for infection they keep the temperature down so we won’t get sick. Got it? Good.

So they inject me with an anti-nausea medicine and mix that with a steroid that is suppose to make the anti-nausea medicine last a longer time. Then it’s down to business, the chemo bag. They bring your chemo out in a IV bag and hook it up to this “robot” that makes sure to send my chemo into my bloodstream every 2-3 seconds. I just sat back and let the robot do it’s job. I didn’t feel any of the affects or anything like that right there. I chatted with my wife and mom, tried to nap a bit and then I went home. That’s when it hit me….you need sleep.

After my first infusion I came home at like 1:30 and went to sleep. I slept until about 5 or 6 that night. If this was the extent of the side affects then I think I was going to be fine. Well, I spoke to soon.

I started to have foods taste bad from the metal in my body. Nothing sucks more than wanting to bite into a Granny smith apple and having it taste like a foot, that has the texture of a bite of apple. I got tired really easily and also I started to get nauseous. I had meds for that but the nausea woke me up in the middle of the night, that sucked ball (GET IT?!). But the weirdest thing was at the tail end of the first week I started to get…well…edgy. I actually would call it anxious or nervous but it was just that my body was fidgety and was never in a comfortable position. I just never felt like where I was sitting, standing or anything was comfortable. I always had to be moving. It was like having an anxiety attack but minus the heavy breathing and so forth. That was the worst of it. Then I started to get better and then on December 22nd they blasted my body with chemo again!

I am now at the point where I am very anxious and so forth. Fun shit. But, I know that this is all for the best.

Posted in About Me, Ball Cancer, Family | 2 Comments »