With the “non-improvement” diagnosis of last November I have had a real hard time finding joy in the life I have.

Mostly I am a happy guy, going about my business… but the thought of whatever might be growing inside me, turning cell against cell, is scaring the hell out of me.

This is a New Year, new challenges, new obligations, new directions.

I want to thank all of you that have emailed me with letters of support, of sharing your stories with me.

I will not fade quietly, I promise you that.

This six month checkup has come and gone… with no clear answer as to the state of the cancer that hides behind my eye.

Has the tumor shrunk? Gotten larger?

Are the blood vessels that fed the tumor still working even after the proton radiation treatment?

From this trip there are no answers… nothing positive, nothing negative.

Once again I find my life, my future, in limbo.

There has been pain in my eye, in my head and there is a distinct redness, broken blood vessels, in my eye. If I can I will post a picture…

I am using eye drops as my doctor believes, at this checkup, that the tear ducts in my eye are no longer functioning.

Eye drops, every 2 to 4 hours, is a chore, but it does ease the eye pain I have been feeling lately, over the last few months. Is this the deterioration of my eye that will lead me to losing it? These thoughts race through my head regularly, But enough already.

I will wait, for the, whatever it is, to develop. I have no other choice, do I?

Right now it’s a normal night, but yet it’s full of tension, as far as I am feeling.

My wife and I are packing our suitcase (a large, shared one) in preparation of our traveling to Vancouver tomorrow, for my 6 month checkup on Monday.

It’s hard for me to be prepared for anything these days… my thoughts are askew… it’s hard to maintain a straight mental focus on the job at hand… excluding my jobs, of course.

Any distraction from the reality of having an unknowable cancer within my body is a distraction I will gladly accept.

And Monday will let me know what my future holds… or it won’t.

It is now October.

I can’t believe that it’s been so long since my last post.

I have had a period of great improvements in my health, great stabilization in the pain management and headache issues that have plagued me over the years.

But I feel that I am now in a downward spiral.

The pain that has struck my hands and feet is now moving permanently into my shins and wrists. I notice the pain more often when I have not been taking my Gabapentin on time. A couple of hours late and it takes days to get my body back to the pain-free state it was in weeks ago.

The stress of maintaining a level head, of being able to think clearly, of moving my fingers on the keyboard accurately has all but left me. (Thank goodness for spell check!)

The days are shorter, getting shorter every day, we have snow today which involves a whole new skill-set of house maintenance that I am not sure I will be able to accomplish anymore. My head often feels like an empty balloon, unable to process a string of thoughts, easily distracted by nothing, just an empty thought not tied to anything directly I am doing. What level of transformation am I now in?

The interview that I started with Talib Qizilbasb in June 2008 has been published in this month’s edition of “Optical Prism” the optician’s professional magazine for Canada.

My hope is that at least one person, whether doctor or soon-to-be-patient, has the opportunity to learn from my experiences and not have to go through which has so significantly changed life.

It is now October, the 11th and it’s snowing, hard enough to say, and if it continues we’ll be shovelling the driveway tomorrow.
My energy levels, are no longer what they were. My thoughts are frazzled and strained. While I appreciate outside involvement in my life (I have restarted a part time job I had to give up years ago) I find that the after affects are overwhelming. Hopefully this is simply an adjustment period.

Please continue joining this blog and adding your comments, without them I don’t know what I can count on next.

November is my latest checkup date. After so many months from April what will I have to report?

The left eye although there is very limited periferal vision, even that is diminishing. The wide eye straight ahead vision area (central vision) is getting worse by far. It used to be a waterfall effect that just obscured how my central vision was being blocked from seeing, now it’s dark spots that are the vision eliminators.

I am scared about this change in my sight. I can live with the obscrure bright areas but now with those vision areas being darker, much darker… I am worried. This type of change cannot be good.

In a month I will find out what the next step is…. And I will not worry until then.
My friends, stay in touch, I look forward to your support.
RL