No news, good news?

Is it...."No news is good news" or "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"?

Either way it has been since January 4th since I wrote a blog update.

F@ck Cancer!!!

Clinically Speaking:
On the clinical side there really has been nothing to report until late last week.

I haven't had a CT Scan since December 15th, we have now moved to a 9 week schedule for these scans.  Last Thursday I was scanned and the results were "Stabilized and Minimized", in fact they said there was an incremental reduction in active disease.

No matter how much I try to suppress it there is always some level of anxiety leading up to these scans, I truly think as a human being it is unavoidable, the the unknown makes us anxious especially when there is a lot on the line.

I continue to feel pretty well, after 9+ months it is hard to remember what "normal" felt like, but I am guessing most days I am 80-85% of Jim Brown's baseline.

My chemotherapy will continue indefinitely, and it happens every 21 days, this is my new normal and I work around it.  Typically I get 16/21 days where I am in the 80% range and the other 5/21days I am more like 60-70% because of treatment side effects.

It could be worse, waaaay worse and I never forget that.

2 weeks ago I had a "Power Port" placed, this is a semi-permanent IV access point that can be used for all of my treatments, blood draws, CT Scans.

Thus far I have have somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 sticks for various things, the port will make life much easier as my veins have take quite a beating.

Cancer Advocate:

Recently I was asked to participate in a project put together by a local guy named Bob Haase who happens to also be a cancer survivor.

His project is called "Not what you planned", and the idea is to interview people going through adversity in an attempt to inspire others.

Bob and I conducted the interview in early January and here it is:

I was also recently asked by Lisa Summers from Black Hills high school to speak to her students.  I was to be a "motivational" speaker and I spoke about adversity, perseverance, and resilience among other things.  My talk at BHHS was met with great acceptance, and I really enjoyed it.  I look forward to doing more to spread cancer awareness and inspire others.

Speaking of cancer advocates.....
Check out this video made by fellow lung cancer "Thrivor" Tori.
I have ROS1 mutated cancer and the outlook is pretty good for us.
ROS1 Lung Cancer

Life:
I have been working full time other than on treatment week.
The fire department continues to support me in a big way, recently my co-workers made a significant contribution to me and my family, this support has taken a huge load off of my shoulders.

Lotsa time in the snow over the past 2 months, ripping with the family.
I would venture to say if you tried to follow me on the mountain you would never guess I have Stage 4 Lung Cancer.

At the end of January I got to spend time with my Rad Racing family at the annual team banquet, over 100 people in attendance, it was awesome.

I am gonna keep on trucking and beating cancer every day.

Prayer requests:

Complete healing from metastatic lung cancer.
Peace for my family.
Restful Sleep.

Thank you for checking in.

Jim
#holdfast

A day in the life....