Fantasy football!

This will be the last post in some time concerning our beloved Rodent Passion and Monkey Knife Fight. Alas, the fantasy football season came, for all intents and purposes, to an end this past weekend. Monkey Knife Fight, after what was a strong regular season, fell prey to some weak wide receiver play, in addition to the sudden disappearance of Antonio Gates, to fall 125 - 82 at the hands of the Eighteen Grands. The team will be completely dismantled in favor of a newer, stronger, more robust team next year. Likely one with a new name, as is our tradition in the Great Pigskin Experiment.

And where do the passions of the Rodents lie as of today? We find ourselves, despite the sadness of a season of losing, full of hope for the future. Injuries to Deion Branch and Anquan Boldin, which cost us many a victory, seem to have healed. With Roy Williams rounding out a strong regular starting 3 at wide receiver, the venerable Isaac Bruce in reserve, and the prospect of long-time Arizona back-up Bryant Johnson likely securing a starting position elsewhere, wide receiver should again be a position of strength -- though depth should never be taken for granted, a hard lesson learned this past season.

With the late-season trade of WR Andre Johnson for RB Clinton Portis, we find ourselves with a strong "keeper" foursome at RB of Portis and Justin Fargas (assuming he retains the starting position in Oakland) along with the promising Laurence Maroney and DeAngelo Williams. To be added in the draft, as mentioned in previous posts: the electric Darren McFadden from Arkansas. RB should be a position of strength, from which we may hope to deal to improve ourselves elsewhere during the course of next season.

A difficult season for Philip Rivers will hopefully be just a bump in the road on his development into one of the top QBs in the league. Meanwhile, David Garrard proved himself to be a consistent and reliable QB -- solid if unspectacular. Some depth may be needed, but the Rodents should be solid at this position next season.

After some years of struggling to find strong play at the TE position, Rodent Passion feels confident that we at last have 2 to depend upon in Green Bay's Donald Lee and Denver's Tony Scheffler. And at kicker...well, they're kickers. Stefen Gostkowski and Neil Rackers are young and on potent offenses, both worthy of keeping around for some time.

The Rodents and the Monkeys thank you all for your concern and support through the course of another rough and tumble year of fantasy football. See you again in August!

Back to work!

After some late morning debating -- do I or do I not head back in today? -- I sucked it up and re-entered the work-force today. Over the coming weeks, I am allowed to work 2 or 3 days per week, up to 4 hours per day...so much as I can handle, really. Though in practice, this will amount to one full day of work per week, as I will be at the mercy of him from whom I can secure a ride, I should also be able to work in limited doses from home, developing control software for a device we've been constructing over the months since I've been here.

I can say that, though at the moment I am fairly fogged in the head from exhaustion, I am glad that I made the call to return to work. It's been nice to have a full day's distraction from the usual concerns of chemo and cancer. I have to believe that any boost in my mental health can only be a positive when it comes to my physical health as well.

Speaking of...we are now nearly 1 week removed from my second cycle of the carboplatin/taxol combo. And I can say, given the usual caveats about the crudeness of the "measurements", that it certainly appears the treatment continues to work. I have a tumor in my right lung, towards the bottom, which is noticeably smaller to the touch. Further, I have not had to use my "bolus" button to increase my pain medication so frequently today as I had the previous several days.

Next treatment is scheduled for January 2...this may be pushed back a day or three, depending on just how and when I get back to Knoxville after spending Christmas in Chicago with the family. I'll certainly try to get back on time to stay on schedule...but we'll have to see.

Update, 12/14/2007

Yesterday marked the second cycle on the taxol/carboplatin regimen. As much as I hate the week of a treatment, I was very much excited to be allowed to go ahead this week, after last week's delay due to low platelet count. My platelets had risen into the "normal" range (not simply into the "treatable" range)...let's hope they stay that way. In addition to receiving chemo, I got a couple of units of blood, as once again we found my red-cell count to be low. I have no good answer as to why my red-cell counts are so consistently low, other than to appeal to the beating my marrow has taken over the past year plus in treatments of all kinds. If I slip just a bit in my iron and vitamin supplements, it seems my counts can get away from me. Just gotta stay on top of all these things, I guess.

One reason I was especially eager to get back into treatment is that I could feel, seemingly, the tumors beginning to once again get away from me as well. I don't know how accurate this "feeling" is, but I felt my pain increase slightly, and overall my body simply ached more as the past week went along. At the end of the day, it's always best to stay on top of the treatment cycle, so much as possible.

A Happy Advent Season to you all!

Fantasy football!

As one season comes to its merciful end, another season begins anew! After falling this past weekend 89 - 55 to Corporeal Punishment in the first round of the losers bracket of the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Football League, Rodent Passion faces Popeye's Nephews in the Toilet Bowl to determine who provides tasty beverages at next season's opening draft party. Rodent Passion must at this point be considered the "favorite" to lose...and given my taste in beer, it looks like I'll have an expensive day in August facing me.

Meanwhile, Monkey Knife Fight got back on track after a brief losing spell, winning 150 - 105 over Space Family Robinson in Great Pigskin Experiment action. Next weekend, we're all 0 - 0, entering the play-offs! MKF faces the Eighteen Grands in opening week action, and should be considered the favorites to advance to the next round.

A preliminary thought on hope

I was hoping to start today with some reflections on Benedict XVI's encyclical On Christian Hope. I have finished reading it through once, and figure to begin re-reading soon, offering thoughts and room for discussion as we go. But before we get started there, I wanted to share a funny thought from Charles Peguy's The Portal of the Mystery of Hope (thanks, John), an extended free-verse theological poem:

And you say: This little Hope has tricked me again.
I never should've trusted her. It's the twentieth time that she's tricked me.
(Earthly) wisdom is not her strong point.
I will never believe her again. (You will believe her again, you will always believe her).
I'll never get taken in again. -- Fools that you are.

Peguy presents Hope as a little girl, the younger sister to the mature and serene Faith and Charity. Hope is impetuous, running backwards and forwards and in circles, getting us to chase her all over, running seemingly the same paths again and again. Paths that appear, at least to us, always (or often) to end in human/earthly disappointment. I know that I have felt this way about hope often of late. I find myself second guessing my decisions -- why did I go to Germany? Why did I come to Knoxville? If I'd given any consideration to what was prudent, I'd have stayed near my friends and family in Chicago or in Washington, DC, so that, in times such as these, where I'm feeling a bit scared and unsure of my future, I could have their support and comfort. But each decision made was the hopeful decision -- I wanted to believe I was cured of my cancer when I went to Germany. I wanted to believe we had a few years of fighting before we might have to worry about running out of treatment options, making Knoxville a good move rather than staying in DC with a temporary position. But in each case, I find myself struggling...more alone than I'd like to be (though thankfully, never fully alone). I find myself making the same promises, to never believe that "little Hope" again...though I know, if given the opportunity, I would. It's who I am. I want to hope...to believe for the best. One day, I am convinced, the true Hope will prove worthwhile...the eternal Hope that Benedict XVI writes about in his encyclical. But until then, I will be disappointed, as often as not, in moves in the here and now, which can never satisfy as we long to be satisfied.

"It's smaller, I'm sorry to say..."

"You're 'sorry to say'?" I thinks to myself.

"You were right, and I was wrong."

We had what was both an encouraging and discouraging moment this morning with my local oncologist. He found himself admitting to being disappointed that the tumor on my right side, by what was admittedly a very crude measurement, appeared to be smaller. Obviously an encouraging moment, as our hope remains that a return to the Carboplatin/Taxol combo will control my cancer outside of the liver, allowing us to treat the liver by other means. But what do we make of his open disappointment in being wrong? He'd resisted this return, only reluctantly going back to it on my insistence. When his ego allows him to verbalize such disappointment while our mutual goal should be my improved health, what am I to do? In the end, I choose to make little of it. He has a necessary part to play in my ongoing treatment, though for important decisions, I will lean more on Dr. Mulcahy at Northwestern. I am glad that I have come to know enough about my body and what has worked and what has not, so that I could insist on a treatment over my doctor's "better judgment". I worry for those who either do not pay enough attention to their care, trusting their doctors to be driven by the well-being of the patient, or for those who may know well enough, but fear to speak up in opposition to one with the word "doctor" before their name. The lesson remains for all -- as a patient, you have more responsibility for your health than your doctor. It's a difficult burden to bear when sick, when all you want to do is to put yourself completely into the hands of an expert who will make all the right decisions in order to make you well. Unfortunately, our doctors are human, with limitations in knowledge and/or in character, limitations that we must be ready to overcome as well as we are able.

As said, though, very preliminary results from this return to carbo/taxol look good. My pain is modestly reduced, and the near-surface tumors appear (by the 'aforementioned crude measurement) smaller. We remain hopeful that our current course may yet lead us to stable disease soon. I was initially to begin my second treatment cycle today, but a measurement of my platelets showed them low, so we postpone till next week.

I am hopeful that I may begin working again soon. I am feeling better mentally as I can reduce my pain killers. I don't know that I have strength to put in a full week at the lab, but I am talking to my colleagues about perhaps working some from home on computer control of some of our apparatus, while perhaps putting in a day or two during the week on-site. Perhaps in time, that "day or two" can be extended.

Fantasy football!

Sadness among squirrels everywhere, as Rodent Passion, after a blistering 4 - 0 start, ends an injury plagued season at 5 - 7 and out of the play-offs. The final game, a 97 - 84 loss to Man Boobs, featured a strong run game, with both starters and three back-ups producing double digit efforts, but the wide receiver corps that carried us early failed to produce a touchdown. There is optimism in the land of the ground hog, as RP will be receiving the first pick in our rookie/free-agent draft next year (welcome to the team, Darren McFadden!), and the running back depth might be used to re-load at WR. Hope, even in the seemingly trivial such as fantasy football, is a good thing.

In Great Pigskin Experiment action, Monkey Knife Fight found themselves on the losing end for a third straight week, after a 149 - 67 shellacking at the hands of the SlopChoppy Express. A better mood prevails here, however, as the play-offs remain attainable. In spite of our 6 - 7 record, a win next week against the hapless Space Family Robinson puts us in the play-offs. Go Monkeys!