KNEEL BEFORE TED

Greetings and/or Salutations.

Requests for updates on my medical status continue to spelunk their way into the metaphorical cave that is my inbox. I like to imagine these requests equipped with diving gear, wriggling their way through openings bored through solid rock by water and time. These openings would represent the Internet, and are sort of a play on the whole "The Internet is tubes!" thing from several years back.

A quick googling reveals that the name of the fellow who coined that ridiculous imagery was none other than former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens, who famously rejected the idea that the Internet was trucks, in favour of the equally ridiculous characterization of it as tubes. Also, is it really still necessary to capitalize Internet? Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac thinks so.

Here's a brief synopsis of the event in question, and many responses of the tube-dwelling denizens of the Internet: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/series-of-tubes

As of this writing, I am finished with chemotherapy. This has resulted in much jubilation, and I even got to leave the house and go to a pub, which was incredibly entertaining, as I got to interact with many people, often at the same time. It was a sort of conversational orgy for me and quite pleasant, with (I would imagine) significantly fewer bodily fluids exchanged than an actual orgy. I ran into old friends that I had not seen for some time and met several people that I knew tangentially from twitter. We were at The Woods, here in Saskatoon, and I was extremely pleased to discover that they have five types of gluten-free beer on their menu, with more coming soon. They also feature many types of cider, but sadly, they were out of all of them. Regardless of their failing me in regards to cider, I plan to frequent The Woods often in the coming months. I also got to help my newlywed friends move into their newlyacquired domicile, and that was actually extremely nice to be able to do. In short, I am bald, but excellent.

I have digressed more than inteded, and see that I have not only veered conversationally, but also left out an important qualifier: I am done with chemo, for now. 

There will be more, when I get my stem cell transplant. All ambiguity regarding that avenue of treatment has been removed: I will be getting a stem cell transplant. I said as much in my last post, I know, but there have been some specific developments:

- I will not be getting an autologous transplant. The option is still there, but for reasons of potential relapse, this has been discarded as a working plan.

- Neither of my siblings turned out to be an HLA match. This was, as they say, a "big sad."

- My doctors have gone to the international donor list, which I will expound upon shortly, and have a couple of preliminary matches, neither of which is a 10/10 HLA match. The search continues.

Pertaining to that last point, my information regarding any likely donor candidates is almost three weeks old. I will be seeing my primary oncologist in two days' time, at which point I am certain that there will be new and relevant information.

At this point in the proceedings, I would like once again to urge any and all readers of this post to visit www.onematch.ca, where you can sign up to become a stem cell donor. The process is simple: give them your address and they will mail you a cheek swab kit. You swab your cheeks in the manner proscribed within said kit, and then mail it back to them. Congratulations, you are now on the international donor list. Should you be called, you will have to go to a local clinic or hospital and get three vials of blood drawn for further matching. Should you turn out to be a suitable match, you will be flown to whatever city the patient is receiving treatment in, where you will be put up for a week. During this week, you will receive one daily injection of a g-csf for four days, to force your body to hyper-express stem cells. On the fifth day, you do dialysis for about five hours, that the stem-cells may be collected for use. That's it. You probably won't be signed up in time to help me, personally, but that's no excuse to ignore something so easily done, yet so powerfully life-altering for someone else.

Returning to the subject of my treatments, I am actually scheduled for a fifth round of chemo this coming Thursday (side note: how cool is it that one of our weekdays is named for Thor? Take that, modern religion.), which I am fairly certain is a clerical error. My first round was done as an inpatient at RUH, and the nurses at the Cancer Centre have made several comments that have fairly convinced me that in their big book of chemo, I am only marked down for the three treatments that I received under their auspices. That being said, I suppose that it is possible that: a) Mein Doktor has decided that I could use another round, for giggles; or b) that a donor has been found, and this round of chemo is preparatory, in anticipation of the arrival of the one who will grant me their vein juice.

Neither a) nor b) seem likely.

Regarding a), when last I spoke to my doctor, he was very clear that I would be done chemotherapy and that I would be staged again prior to any new treatments - the process for which has already begun. I had a chest x-ray and a CT last week, but have had no subsequent bloodwork or biopsies that would grant him the relevant information to make a decision regarding my continued internal dousing with chemicals. There has been no flow cytometry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_cytometry), and that's heap big deal.

Regarding b), I am quite certain that I would have been contacted by the transplant coordinator, with whom I have a very pleasant working relationship. She would have been jubilant for me, and would have felt compelled to bring me the Good News, like a Mormon trolling for converts. Note: that's trolling, as for fish; not trolling as in baiting people over the tubes we discussed earlier. Further, it takes, on average, three-to-six months to find, confirm, and summon a donor from the list, and my team has only been looking since mid-October. They are proceeding as quickly as possible, but I doubt that they've been so staggeringly efficient that they've circumvented the normal wait times by a complete month.

In summary, I am in a small period of Limbo, at least until Wednesday, two days hence, when I shall see my oncologist.

I'll keep you posted.