Clean Scan

We met with my oncologist today and the scan looked good! The tumor is unchanged, and there is nothing new.

That is as good as it gets in my world... I feel relief and will stay the course till the next scan in another 3 months. My doctor wants me scanned every 3 months for the first year, then every 6 months after that for another year or so.

Apart from diet, exercise and naturoapathic supplements, I am trying to stay focussed on my mental game... it's difficult to embrace a "normal" life when I know that I am living very close to a precipice. This first clean scan, makes it easier to believe that I might just get through this... That's the plan.

The rest of the summer will be full of travel, picture making and family...

Taking the plunge...

I'll be getting my first scan early next week, and will get the results from my oncologist on Wednesday the 28th.

This will be my first contact with the world of MGH and my cancer team since the operation in March. I've enjoyed being in a sort of limbo, quietly enjoying the summer while having no contact or interactions with the medical world. I knew this first scan would be coming, but was able to keep direct thought of it somewhere off in the ether...

So here's my situation:

A. If the IORT operation was successful in killing all the malignant cells in my tumor AND I didn't have any metastatic cells floating around my body, then I'll have a clean scan and can rest easy for another six months till the next scan.

B. If I had metastatic cells and they have begun to grow in other organs they may show up in the scan. If so, I'll have few treatment options beyond more chemo, and I'll be in big trouble.

I'm hoping that all the work I've been doing with conventional and naturapathic treatments as well as diet and mind/body work will have kept the cancer isolated in my shrinking tumor, that it was killed by the IORT and the scans will bear that out.

They tell me that after 2 years of clean scans I can start to rest easy, and after 5 years they stop looking, since nobody with active pancreatic cancer lives for 5 years...

So this is scan #1...

Summer

The hectic last few weeks of school are over and the summer is here...

My plans are to hang with Monika and the kids as much as possible, to relax, and then make pictures as often as I can. We'll go camping at our favorite spot, take a road trip to NC for a week and a half, and otherwise walk the dog and hang in the garden.

I feel pretty good apart from some issues I'm having with back pain (a 10 yr condition that pre-dates the cancer), so things are pretty stable on the health front.

All eyes look ahead toward a September scan as I continue this process...

Until then I'll keep doing what I've been doing, trying to keep a balance between elements of my old life, and the rigors and self awareness of my "new" life.

Hopefully I won't have much to report as the summer unfolds, I know it's boring from a blog reading point of view, but I must say I cherish the fact that I've had almost nothing going on medically for so long...

Have a great summer!

One year down...

Today I turned 49. Birthdays generally haven't meant very much to me as I've never been bothered about getting older...

But as this is a birthday that I was not predicted to see, I'm happy to report that I'm still here, with no plans to leave. Now I can't take birthdays for granted so this one feels pretty good.

Soon school will be out for the year, and I'm grateful that I can spend the summer hanging with my family, making pictures, and taking a couple of road trips.....

Art making

My energy has pretty much returned to normal levels, and my digestive system, thankfully, is now working pretty well. A recent visit to my Naturopathic doctor reveled that the blood levels which he's been treating with diet and supplements have stayed at desired levels even when I was off supplements and diet during the operation and recovery. He was able to cut my supplements roughly in half, and I am on a maintenance program to keep my levels strong. I was recently sent this link for a TED Talk. It deals with some of the basic approaches that some of my treatments address, it's worth a look:

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html

As the school year is starting to wind down, I decided to bring my wet plate equipment back to school for demonstrations to my advanced classes and to see if making portraits of students was still something that appealed to me. My method of art making is to follow the flow of the work, taking my cues from what I am excited (driven) to explore. Throughout the winter and during treatments and recovery I often thought about what I might do if was able to work again, wondering if the portrait project I had been working on was still relevant. I'm a very different person than I was a year ago, so to test myself, I set up my equipment and started making pictures this week to see if it would click. On the first day, I made a picture a young man named Randolph who had a great afro parted down the middle. I like the picture a lot, and have realized that there is still a lot of work for me to do at school, and a lot more for me to learn, so I'm excited to keep at it.

Back in the game...

Sorry for the delay in new posts... It is a side effect of getting back to most of my old schedule...

I've been back at school teaching for the past 3 weeks, feeling stronger everyday. It feels great to be back at it! At first I rushed home for a 2 hour nap after teaching my classes, but by this week the naps have largely ended and I'm able to spend more time at school working... the timing is good, as this is one of our busiest seasons with large exhibitions, student projects and end of the year tasks fast approaching.

Hopefully I'll be able to bring my wet plate darkroom back to school next week for classroom demos and student portraits... this time last year I made two tintypes of my kids with their prom dates, and was pretty sure those would be the last pictures I would ever make. That was when I was looking at 10-12 months to live... it seems so long ago now, and clearly that's not how this is turning out - so far...

We've been working on getting back to our normal routines, visiting family and friends, cooking: we've suspended the wonderful Monday and Wednesday meals that this magical community has been bringing us all year; I lack the words to express how much the support and love that those meals brought us has helped... THANK YOU.

Since my conventional treatment has largely ended, the only proactive work I can continue is through diet, exercise and work with my naturapathic doctor. The goal is to keep my body's climate hostile to the spread of cancer while boosting my immune system to attack whatever may be left in me... From the beginning my naturapath has had me on a very healthy diet and on LOTS of supplements to boost my immune response while also affecting numerous blood factors that play a role in the spread and growth of cancer cells. ALL of my blood numbers have been improving steadily over the months from unhealthy levels to well below the desired levels, so while it's impossible to quantify what aspects of each of the various the treatments I've done has suppressed the cancer... I feel strongly that this is working... and it also feels good to have more work that I can focus on rather than just sit and wait for a scan in four months.

The hardest part of this phase of my condition is the mental game... I don't know if I have metastatic cancer that is slowly growing in my liver or lungs, OR if my treatments have worked and then the intraoperative radiation killed what was left of my growth and I am already cancer free. I need to get on with my life with the belief (hope) that I will survive, all the while knowing that at least statistically, I am still very likely to die within the next couple of years.

So right now, I'm happily moving forward looking forward to summer family time and projects, pleased to be treatment free, hoping and believing that the statistics have been defied and that I am free, but always with a little shadow of fear and doubt residing in the recesses of my resting mind...

Tenacity...

This this past week was April vacation. I've been starting to pick up my activities more, in the garden, running errands and preparing photography materials. This comes from a combination of feeling stronger and my desire to test my stamina to see if I'm ready to return to teaching... I'm bored being home without the ability to do a lot.

I'm planning to return to teaching tomorrow. Today, we went to a six hour photography conference at Simmons College, which was a good test of my readiness. My classes have been in very good hands, so I know I can return on my terms... and I think it's time. Monika was also acting as a gatekeeper, and she wouldn't ALLOW me to return until she's sure I'm ready.

A couple of days ago, I brought my wet plate set up on the road to try to photograph a magnificent tree in southern NH. With the help of a former student (as Sherpa), I hoped to photograph this tree before the foliage emerges. I've pursued this tree several times with mixed results, but recently I've been feeling the need to revisit it. The tree is about 50 yards into the woods, requiring us to haul the 8x10 camera, darkroom box/cart, gear, chemicals, trays and 10 gallons of water down a slope to the tree. The light turned out to be brighter than the weatherman predicted, so I didn't get the picture I had hoped for... that will have to wait for another day, but it felt good being out working for those 6 hours.

The tree is the very essence of tenacity, brazenly clinging to a cliff with many arm-like roots, seemingly defying gravity. I thought is was the perfect subject for my re-emergence into the world of the "doing".