Where's Russ?

Good Afternoon All:

Sorry for the long delay in posts. I am thoroughly enjoying life without the every-other-day trips to Hopkins. I have returned to work pretty much full time and am coaching baseball with reckless abandon. Everyone is asking me if I'm tired. I can pretty much keep a busy schedule during the day. I do fade in the evenings and am compelled to go to bed a little earlier than I had been. But that is a mere incovenience, a small price to pay for leading an active and productive life again.

I happen to be writing this from Hopkins. Today I came up here for an early morning appointment to get a PET Scan done and also a bone marrow biopsy. These are the tests that I have been waiting for--the final 'did it work' sort of tests. In true Russ at Hopkins fashion I did get a little bit of a surprise. They did routine blood work and found that I need some red blood cells--so I'll be here a while. Guess this isn't a switch that gets thrown and all of the sudden I'm healthy and without effects from the chemotherapy.

In any event, several new milestones are on the horizon. The test results should be back this week. Assuming those go well the next major step is to get the catheter taken out of my chest. This is a HUGE deal as I'll go back to living life without the physical restrictions that I've had for over half a year: no getting wet, no swimming, no physical activity that involves intense use of the chest muscles or repetitive motion.

Finally, in a couple of weeks I'll meet with my physician here at Hopkins and presumably will transition from active treatment to maintenance therapy. That will mark the major change from frequent monitoring to quarterly appointments.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with me. I would assume that my busier life-style will cause my posts to be fewer and further between but I do hope to keep the blogs going for a while longer. I have yet to figure out when and how they should stop.

--Russ.