Just An Ordinary Sunday

Weight: 139.6
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

Scan Result Postings

Weight: 139.2
Pain areas: 1.0/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

The following are PET/CT scans of me taken on August 31, 2007. Now I can finally say that I have naked pictures of me on the internet!











I mentioned Randy Pausch a few days ago in my blog, but what I didn't mention is that he had his last lecture on September 18, 2007 at CMU. It was filmed and posted to Google Video and I highly recommend everyone to see it; that guy is amazing. Click here.

Got My PET Scans On CD

Weight: 138.6
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

I went down to UCLA Medical in Santa Monica to pick up my PET/CT scans on CD. WOW! The images I saw were amazing - especially the PET and CT overlaying images (they're in color!). I'll post up an animated GIF when I got the time.

If you would like to know more about PET/CT scans (and to see sample images), click here.

For an example of what EC looks like on that website, click here.

Getting Back To Normal

Weight: 138.2
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0.5/10
General Attitude: 7/10
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

Well it seems the pain that I have isn't going away - been having it for about 2 weeks now. Its a small pain/discomfort around my chest area (around my lungs?) and possibly my back. I think it all started when I started chemo last week on Tuesday. It does help if I take tylenol, however - which is probably a good sign since its probably just muscle that is affected. Another pain that I feel is inside my left ear - and this I know if from the chemo for sure. It feels like there is pressure pushing something from the inside, and its not air pressure (like what happens when you suddenly change elevation). Other than these and the swallowing difficulty, I'm "normal".

Meeting With The Radiation Oncologist

Weight: 139.4
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over; chest/back area)
Nausea: 0.5/10
General Attitude: 7/10
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

I met with my radiation oncologist for the first time today. Her office is actually a couple steps away from my main oncologist (Dr. Wainberg) right over in the next building. It's very convenient and will be even more so once I start with my chemo+radiation in about a month or so.

The meeting was mostly about answering my questions as well as a very short physical exam. There is another appointment scheduled in two weeks for me to get a breathing test as well as putting small tattoo around my chest/abdomen so they'll know exactly where to radiate me. My first tattoo, yay!

New Blog Look

Weight: 139.8
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

I decided to change the look of my blog - the old template was getting too boring. I also added a graph down at the very bottom that contains a daily update on my health status. Right now it contains random data since I'm still learning how it works but in a few days I should be able to figure it out.

I'm even of thinking of creating an online webapp where people could generate their own health graphs, but we'll see if I can time for that.

Another Day At Work

Weight: 140.0
Pain areas: 1.5/10 (little aches all over)
Nausea: 0.5/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing Difficulty: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol
Side-Effects: I've noticed a slight difference in my driving ability - for the worse. Although, it could be the fact that I haven't driven for nearly a week (I had people drive me around).

I decided to go to work today. Nothing much else happened.

I did manage to read an interesting article on digg, however. It's about the possibility of there being Parallel Universes. How cool is that?! I've always been a big fan of scientific insights (and SCI-FI in general), so this has crossed my mind countless times in the past and even more now. I've never told anyone this before but when I was growing up as a little kid (well, I still do it to this day) whenever I'd make mistakes I would send messages to my other "selves" telepathecally (the ones in the parallel universes; are you still with me?) on how to avoid them. But of course, I'd never get any warnings back from them telling me to be careful of this or that. It may sound stupid, but I don't care. =P

But what if it were really true? What if there really are multiple universes out there? There could be another "me" in another universe who doesn't even have cancer. There could also be another "me" who died in a motorcycle accident (which, BTW, I thought might actually happen). If its the latter, I'm glad I'm in this particular reality. This stuff really makes you think, doesn't it? One of the reasons why I love sci-fi so much.


Go ahead and tickle your funny bone by reading some Cancertainment here!

I like this one the best:

Top 10 Responses To Nosy Questions About Scars

10. Never go to Mother's Tattoo Parlor when you're high.
9. You think that's bad, you should see the exit wound.
8. I self-mutilate. Don't you?
7. Those damn flesh-eating bacteria are spreading, slowly but surely.
6. That's where the government put the chip to track my movements.
5. It's the only way to smuggle drugs these days.
4. What scar? What are you talking about? Oh my God! That's HUGE!
3. I had to sell organs to get off the street.
2. I should have listened when Mom said not to scratch that mosquito bite.
1. That's where my Siamese twin was attached.

Some "interesting" things I did today:
1. Signed up with PlanetCancer.com. My username is "josephj"
2. hmmm...

Almost Back To "Normal"

Weight: 139.8
Pain areas: aches and pains here and there
Nausea: 1/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Tylenol

I saw "Resident Evil" (the movie) today. Not bad, although I think it could have been a little better. Besides being all about death and killing - which is not exactly what I need right now, it was somewhat predictable at times. I won't go into it. I enjoyed watching "Jersey Girl" with my family much better - it had a much more meaningful purpose for me: that life is precious and can be very rewarding so cherish it always with your loved ones. (cliqche, I know).

Later that same night I had my weekly chat session with one of my support groups - online chat with people that have or had EC, others were caregivers. But every single one of them were extremely supportive and very understanding. It was a shame that I couldn't connect with someone else around me age that has this disease.

Feeling Somewhat Better

Weight: 138.6
Pain areas: little aches here and there
Nausea: 5/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Compazine, Tylenol

Couldn't really sleep well and I think it was because I was hungry - I guess I didn't eat enough last night.

I found out that the Zofran medication wasn't at all effective for the nausea as Compazine, and even Compazine doesn't provide all whole lot of relief either. What did help was using 1 tablet of Tylenol with Compazine. Using this combo I managed to get some really nice afternoon sleep. After waking up I found myself able to eat without much nausea at all.

Still Feeling It

Weight: 139.8
Pain areas: none, really
Nausea: 7/10
General Attitude: taking it day by day
Swallowing: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Zofran

I couldn't sleep much last night; I don't know if it was the nausea or the nausea medication but I kept on waking up every 2 hours or so. But I wasn't really feeling tired or sleepy so I guess it could've been worse.

The nausea is about the same as yesterday but I ended up vomiting breakfast this morning - not good since I lost weight from yesterday. Food doesn't taste the same so I feel like I'm losing my appetite; I do feel hungry, however. Hungry, but don't feel like eating.

I even tried walking on the treadmill to see if that lessens the side effects I'm feeling but doesn't help much - a short temporary solution at best.

If this is bad, I wonder how I'll manage when I start chemo+radiation...

Well, perhaps I'll feel better tomorrow and for sure next week - I won't have another round of chemo for another two weeks.

Oh, The Nausea!

Weight: 141.8
Pain areas: none, really
Nausea: 7/10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: 5/10
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Zofran

I woke up feeling really nauseated - and the compazine didn't help much. I was even too nauseated to eat some breakfast - but I eventually managed to get some bites in; although it felt like I was going to vomit the whole time. Whats worse than actually vomiting, though, is having the reflex of vomiting but nothing coming out. The way it works for me is that my body tries to expel anything and everything inside my stomach but tries extra hard since nothing is inside. The feeling is not at all pleasant.

Needless to say I took a day off from work. I didn't do much on my day off - just drop off my portable chemo pump and got a full body massage after. Boy, that felt good - the massage wasn't bad either. I also managed to get another prescription for the nausea - zofran.

It seems like cancer is making the big headlines these days. The top digg for tonight was about a CS professor diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He has his own blog here

All Drugged Up ...Again

Weight: 141.4
Pain areas: none, really
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
Nausea: 3 out of 10
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little better than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Prochlorperazine (Compazine), Vitamin
E, Multivitamin, Green tea

Its the day after my first chemo treatment and I feel mostly OK; it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. All of the side affects have so far been minor:
1. slight nausea (which I'm taking compazine for)
2. almost a burning sensation in my cheeks when I start to eat, lasts about 10 seconds.
3. slight sensitivity to anything cold. I guess no more ice cream for a while =(
4. I did notice that when I was showering this morning that about 20 hairs feel out of my head. Maybe the same amount fell out before I started chemo, but I'm just starting to notice it now.
5. slight taste difference in foods; I'd say some foods taste a little more bland than usual. Others taste outright disgusting (try eating grapes with green tea w/ ginger).

The thing I hate the most though, is carrying my portable infusion pump with me - its a hassle of just taking it everywhere with me and the fact that it gets in the way and also the noise it makes every 25 seconds or so. Good thing I get to return it tomorrow!

One of the important things that I have to lookout for now is my white cell count - which is part of the immune system response. Chemo tends to lower these and many other 'good' cells while destroying cancer cells. This just means that I have to be extra careful about getting sick from now on. So don't be offended if I start putting on Purell after we shake hands, ok?

Treatment Begins

Weight: 141.0
Pain areas: pain around port area is getting better
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little worse than yesterday
Medications:
1. Prevacid 30mg x1,
2. Tylenol 500mg x1,
3. Vitamin E 400UI x1,
4. Multivitamin x1
5. Prochlorperazine (Compazine) 10mg x1
6. Fluorouracil 50mg/ml 100ml
7. Leucovorin
8. Oxaliplatin

So today I begin chemotherapy. I went it to UCLA Oncology at around 9:20am and first saw my oncologist. We had a meeting that lasted for about an hour or so - mostly discussing the things that I should expect from the treatment (side effects) and my schedule for the coming months.

The process isn't that bad. The worst part was the initial prick - and it stung for maybe about 3 seconds; I have to say that its on the same pain level as having an IV inserted. But I'm so glad they installed the port - besides saving my veins in my arms, it allows me to do just about anything that requires full use of my arms/hands. The physiological aspect of being connected to a dripper machine making all kinds of sounds is something that I have not yet adjusted to (it's only been 10 minutes!).

Two hours left on the timer and so far I'm OK. I guess I'll have to pass the time watching HBO through my slingbox =).

Treatment doesn't stop after I leave the center; they had me bring home a portable pump to deliver chemo (Fluorouracil, 100mL) that will be kept running for the next 2 days.

As for the side effects of chemo, I'm not feeling all that much - but then again its probably too early to tell. The only things I've noticed so far are:
1. very, very slight nausea (it might be worse tomorrow)
2. strange, unpleasant sensations when eating
3. sensitivity to anything cold (common to oxaliplatin)

I was prescribed Compazine generic drug (for the nausea). I think I'll try it out (even though I don't feel that nauseated); lets see what happens...

Some unique things I did today:
1. have chemotherapy for the first time

Its Back To Work Today

Weight: 140.8
Pain areas: pain around right shoulder has subsided a bit
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: about the same as yesterday
Medications:
1. Prevacid,
2. vicodin (2 tablets),
3. Vitamin E,
4. Multivitamin
5. Docusate

After about a week off from work, I'm finally going back (probably not for too long, though). Its good to be back - any longer than a week and it'll probably be difficult to catch up on all the things my co-workers have been doing at work. While I can technically work remotely (I'm in software development), its great to see all the familiar faces around the office.

I work in El Segundo, CA with a company called Tandberg Television (bought by Ericsson not too long ago), high up in the 16th floor. We've got a great view - you'd be able to see the ocean as well as LAX from up here. Its just a great place to work!

For lunch, me and some of my co-workers went out to Chili's (errr, Chachky's) - one of our usual lunch places. As some of you may know, Chili's is working with the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to find cures for childhood cancer. Guests can go in and decorate their own Chili peppers and they'll post it up around the restaurant (you'll just need to pay a small fee to do so). See my awesome artwork below...


Something unique I did today:
1. have my artwork posted at a restaurant
2. pay to have my artwork posted at a restaurant



Here's the artwork of other people already posted up (notice one of them reads "I kick cancer in the face" =) ):

We're Off To See The Wizard!

I'm writing this in a Borders store waiting for 3pm so we can see the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX (thats about 2 hours from now). Its been a while since I last saw a movie in IMAX (wait, have I ever seen one in IMAX?) so we'll see how things improved.

I'm not a big Harry Potter's fan but I do like the special effects. I have not read the books and don't really care to, although I've had better experiences with books than I have with movies (but they do take a much longer time to finish). I do like magic, however, but apparently not so much as my talented friend Eric. He took me to see the Magic Castle in Hollywood (of which he is a proud member of). I loved the tricks - both the stage and close-up shows. And I always find myself trying to reverse engineer the tricks, mostly to no avail. It sometimes gives me a headache trying to figure out how they did it.

Health wise, I feel sore. And its not just my shoulder area either; my back is hurting a little from the many times I had to bend over every time I have a heartburn attack (which happens maybe 2 an hour). Eating food isn't all that pleasant either. Besides the difficulty swallowing, I get severe hiccups when I eat too fast for attempt to swallow something not well chewed. This is probably what's causing some discomfort around my midsection - which isn't all that bad, but something noteworthy. All of these discomforts should go away if I took a Vicodin pill, but I forgot to bring it. But its OK because I have to force myself to ration the pills I have left - they only gave me a dozen or so (without any refills!). I gotta save them for important things - like when I go back to work tomorrow (just kiddin').

Just to give some people a heads up on what the future entails for me:
1. Chemo starting Tuesday which goes on for 6 weeks, every other week, 1 day a week.
2. Chemo+Radiation soon after; I can't wait!
3. Esophagegtomy (surgery in about 3 months)

At least I'll be in good hands at UCLA, they even have a website for my disease!

Weight: 140.6
Pain areas: right shoulder (and I didn't bring my Vicodin pills with me, ug!)
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: about the same as yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, vicodin (2 tablets), Vitamin E, Multivitamin

Unique things I did today:
1. See a movie in IMAX (its been a while)
2. Write a blog entry in a bookstore

I'm On The GO

This is a test of mobile blogger - this was sent using my phone.

I've been taking it real easy today - mostly stayed in the apartment and sleeping or having long walks outside. My right side is pretty sore so I can't really do much of anything else right now.

Weight: 140.0
Pain areas: shoulder area - site of portacath (vicodin helps a lot with this)
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little better than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vicodin (2 tablets), Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Something unique I did today:
1. walk on treadmill for a half-mile barefoot.
2. haven't showered since Thursday morning (nearly 3 days!) - its all because I can't get my incision site wet (I usually shower everyday, otherwise). My natural aroma ain't that bad, actually - quite soothing to the senses. Hey, I had no complaints so far...

Resistence Is Futile

My very first implant device. I'm now one step closer to realizing my dream of being part of the Borg collective. Well, not really. Today I had a "port-a-cath" installed in my upper-right chest area which will be used to deliver "healing drugs" (a.k.a Chemotheray) to my body. They'll also be able to use that port to draw blood in case I'm in need of a blood test. No more IVs through my veins! Yay!

The appointment was incredibly early in the morning - 6:30am. I couldn't believe it! And I couldn't believe that Eric actually drove down from the Valley to see me that early in the morning. Thanks Bro!

When I was all settled on the hospital bed with my very awkward hospital gown (how do those people expect me to tie them when the opening is in the back?! And no, I don't want the opening in the front), one of the nurses started an IV drip on my left arm. I was very impressed with her skills - I didn't feel ANYTHING. She used a local anesthetic that no one else used on me before. Why do people needlessly make me suffer?! Anyways, that would end up being my last IV for quite a while since I now have my port.

Post-op was ok - not too much pain if I didn't move my right arm so much. I was given two tablets of percocet and that went really well - it took effect in about 20 minutes. When it takes effect, you'll immediately know it. It was an 'oooh-ahhh, I feel kinda sleepy' feeling.

Can you see the little bump on my chest??

As I'm writing this the meds I took this morning are wearing off and I feel pretty sore around shoulder, but good thing I got Vicodin! Yippie! Dr. Cameron (my surgeon) says that I should be able to remove my bandage this Monday - I'm hoping that the pain wouldn't be so bad at that point cuz I got work. I kinda miss work..... we'll see how I feel after I start Chemo on Tuesday.

(I'm using the camera on my phone to take my pix)

Weight: 140.0
Pain areas: heartburn, chest area,
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little better than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Percocet (2 tablets), Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

I Finally Fixed The Little Sucker!

Weight: 139.6
Pain areas: heartburn, chest area,
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little better than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

This post isn't really related to my health, but I just had to write it down because it was such an accomplishment for me - I've been struggling with this for months!

A little background: I host my own servers at home using MS Windows Servers. I have a Domain Controller and an Exchange 2003 server that I have under a VM (thats short for Virtual Machine). Both VM are running under my host machine which is also a Windows 2003 server. The problem that I've been for a while was that the clock in the VMs were about twice as fast as real-time.

At first I thought that it was the CPU speed throttling on the AMD processor (their 'Cool n' Quiet' feature) but it still had problems even though I disabled it. I kind of gave up on fixing the clock problem and instead worked around it by having my Domain Controller sync up its time using pool.ntp.org every 20 seconds or so. Under normal circumstances, a server would only need to sync up every couple hours or so - but the clock in my VM was going fast-forward. So I got that to work but not for my Exchange Server. Since the Exchange server is part of the domain, it should automatically sync up its time with the Domain Controller. But that didn't work, and in fact it might have made it even worse as the clock in that VM was going 3 seconds for every "real" second.

After about 4 or 5 hours mucking with the registries and several commands, I changed my tactic back to exploring the options in VMware itself.

It turned out that I had to set these options in the config.ini file:

host.cpukHz = 3000000
host.noTSC = TRUE
pstc.noTSC = TRUE
host.TSC.noForceSync = TRUE
processor0.use = TRUE
processor1.use = FALSE

I think the main problem was that VMware was using the 2 cores of the processor and that somehow caused the timing inconsistencies. Setting it use only the first core works perfectly now.

At last! Now I can finally have my very own reliable email!

New Spam Filter For My Server

Weight: 140.8
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: about the same from yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

I've been getting waayyyy too much spam lately - and even though most of them automatically go to my "Junk Email Folder", its still a pain to go through it just to make sure there was no false positives. I'm also using GFI MailEssentials to help filter spam.

I decided to try "Greylisting" a try. The technique is pretty simple, actually. It works on the basis that spammers only attempt to send mail once (if the mail bounces, they don't bother resending it). The downside of greylisting is that I no longer get instantaneous emails. Oh well, its a small price to pay.

The software that I use is made by Proxmea and its free!! It works great on my Exchange 2003 server.

Another Normal Day

Weight: 139.4
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: none, really
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little more difficulty than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Another Normal Day

Weight: 139.0
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: about the same as yesterday
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little more difficulty than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Another Normal Day

Weight: 140.0
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: about the same as yesterday
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little more difficulty than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Another Normal Day

Weight: 138.8
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: increase is significant in left hand when waking up
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little less difficulty than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Driving Around Town

Weight: 138.4
Pain areas: just the reflux
Numbness: increase is significant in left hand when waking up
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive
Swallowing: little more difficulty than yesterday
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

Didn’t go to work today – instead I went around town picking up my medical records from different places for Dr. Cameron. I’m most likely also going to be out next week from work. I’m not exactly sure of my plans but I’ll think of something.

One of my records were actually on CD - it was my CT scan - chest, abdomen, neck - almost a full body scan.

Bombarded With Emails of Support

Weight: 138.6
Pain areas: Throat poareas feel substantially less painful than yesterday. Its almost completely cleared up
Numbness: less than yesterday
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive, but reading more material is causing slight distress
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea

I’ve been replying back to a lot of emails that were send to me after my posting to the EC grouip listserv. Lots of people want to help and offers of support.

I ended up going to work but I don’t feel like working – I’d rather be doing something someplace else. Maybe I can take next week off.

Time To Hit The Gym....again

Weight: 138.4
Pain areas: Throat areas feel substantially less painful than yesterday
Numbness: woke up with little numbness on left hand
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive, but worried about lymph nodes
Medications: Prevacid, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea, Tylenol tablet.

I’m going to my regular gym today – I’ll see how that goes. My focus for going will be to build some muscle and to work out a little cardio – but not to lose weight. That’ll be the last thing I want to do.

Date With My Oncologist

Weight: 137.8
Pain areas: Throat areas feel substantially less painful – even without medications. =)
Numbness: n/a
Nightsweat: none, really
General Attitude: Positive, but worried about the appointment for today
Medications: Prevacid, Chloraseptic spray+lozanges, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass tea, Tylenol tablet.

I went in for my appointment with my Oncologist at UCLA. I met Brian and Eric over there – I’m glad they came to lend some support. The first doctor (a resident) who came to see me was awesome! Same with Dr. Wainberg; really nice people working there...

As for the report from my oncologist (Dr. Wainberg): I was stage 3 with some lymph node infected tissue but no metastasis. At least I was not at stage 4, which I thought I was at. Whew! The problem is that it went to my lymph nodes – and that is not good, I was not expecting that at all.

Another Normal Day

Weight: 137.2
Pain areas: Throat areas, esp. when swallowing – about the same from yesterday. Tylenol helps. Heartburn is slightly less frequent than yesterday.
Numbness: n/a
Nightsweat: a little less then yesterday
General Attitude: Positive
Medications: Prevacid, Chloraseptic spray+lozanges, Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Lemon grass

Lance, You Are My Idol

I went to church today – and my mom had the priest bless me personally (without telling me first! I don’t like it when she does that.) Afterwards, we ate at an Indian restaurant then went back to Sarah’s apartment. I spent about 1 hour at the gym and then went swimming afterwards. I bought 2 new cancer related books online to read on my Sony Reader.
One of those books, “Live Strong”, from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, is extremely enlightening and puts a positive spin on my overall view of having cancer. I’m already on page 58 and I’m sure it’ll be a good reading – I’ve learned quite a bit already! The more I know about my enemy, the more chances I have for my success.

The 9-Hour ER Wait

What a night! I went to the UCLA ER to have my throat checked out - I was there from 6pm and didn’t get out until about 3am the next morning! That’s a very bad first impression of the ER for me, although it would really be interesting to work in one – a lot of drama and the days are never the same.
I spent some of my day fixing my exhchange server – it turned out that the problem was GFI and all I had to do was to reinstall it.
I’ve been taking lots of throat lozenges because of the pain in my throat – Chloraseptic lozanges and the spray helps a lot. I’ve also been taking vitamin E supplements and a multi-vitamin and lemongrass tea everyday – so says my sister. I guess its not that bad. What I don’t like is the effervescent tablets. That doesn’t taste so good.