Wed, Oct 14 - Morning

I'm still waiting for the biopsy results which will determine my treatment. I had an EKG done this morning - the heart looks good!

So many of you have asked about the events leading to this. I want to provide you a timeline. It's been a miraculous ride. I'm so fortunate to have supportive friends, family, and a wonderful wife.

Enjoy

- Ran (some would call a fast walk) 10 miles in July in preparation for a half marathon. Declared that I was in the best shape of my life.
- In July, I felt more fatigued and had a tougher time completing my runs. I also starting getting congestionand felt fatigued
- August - I went to the doctor thinking I had a sinus headache. He gave me a antibiotic. We also thought allergies may be part of the problem since they are so bad here. I figured I needed to train harder if I was going to make that marathon.
- September - I continued feeling fatigued and more winded. Congrestion still bad. My eyes were puffy in the morning and I noticed my neck swelled in the morning as well. Doctor gave me another anti-biotic and a steriod to alleviate my breathing difficulty. Both had near term positive effects.
- Last Tuesday - I started feeling worse so I went back to the doctor. He sent me in for a chest x-ray and a CT scan. Since last Tuesday, I've not left a hosptial. I found out that I have a very large tumor over my heart and lungs. The tumorwas so large that it was compressing one of my main aorta valves. I was in a very dangerous situration so they immediately gave me two radiation treatments last Wed and Thursday. I also had 1.1 litre of fluid drained from my right chest cavity.
- A CT scan on Friday showed that while the radiation treatment had some positive effects, the treatment caused my lung tissuesto swell. Combined with the tissue swelling and the pressure from the tumor, my trachea was less than half it's normal size and that I was in grave danger of it collapsing and me dying. The odd thing was that I felt great, better than I had in two months. My hospital in Dayton didn't feel comfortable opening my trachea, so they arranged for me to get a mediflight to the Cleveland Clinic. We discussed this for a couple of hours while waiting for the plane whether they should put me on a respirator and fly me or just let me continue breating on my own. Either way, if there were complications on the flight, I'd be a goner. Because I felt good and was breathing normal, I chose to breathe on my own for the flight. Despite the situation, the flight was awesome. I was on a business jet that got me there in 45 minutes (normally a 3 hour drive). I was literally taken from the plane to an ambulance to surgery here in Cleveland. At the Clinic, they inserted a plastic stint in my trachea that will protect it from the tumor pressure for two weeks. In that time, we hope that the tumor shrings enough to alleviate the trachea pressure, allowing them to remove the stint.

That was Friday night. Saturday and Sunday were spent here in the hospital recovering from surgery and getting more CT scans, PET scans, and XRAYs.