Hello all. Well it's Saturday and I just finished up week one of round two of my treatments.

I had my first infusion of chemo on Monday morning, then started daily IMRT radiation later that day. I think I came through the week pretty well considering.

I never got sick from the chemo (ha ha -- one victory at least) but spent Tuesday through Thursday pretty darn queasy and basically turned off by the sights and smells of most foods. I was doing good to get some toast down. I'm sure round two of chemo in a couple of weeks will be tougher since my defenses have been shelled pretty good and probably won't be fully recovered by then. Thank you Zofran!

My chemo nurse (who nicknamed me "Moose" because I travel with an entourage of good-luck stuffed mooses) gave me the best description yet of the impact of chemo on the body. She said it was a lot like a tornado. The drugs only stay in your system for a short time (like a twister is only on the ground a short while) but the trail of destruction it leaves behind is what you have to deal with over the days and weeks ahead. Makes sense.

Of course, the hope is that all the cancer cells that may be in me are buried in the rubble, never to rise again. That's what I kept visualizing.

I actually sailed through the radiation pretty well, considering the length of my treatment. I'm on the table for about 50 minutes total. They let me bring in a radio or CD player every day, and that keeps my mind occupied. One day I listened to sports talk radio and heard all the Arizona sports guys ponder where pitcher Randy Johnson will end up next. Probably nowhere.

My CD player actually had it worse than I did on day one. The CD kept sticking and they had to stop my treatments twice to come in and fix it. Oops.

I even manage to close my eyes for long stretches during the treatments. I never did that during the first round, even though that was only about 12 minutes. For some reason, it spooked me to close my eyes before. I kind of approach my daily treatments like a job -- "time to make the doughnuts" so to speak. Time to put in my hour on the table, ho hum...

The best part of the week, other than having my wonderful wife and parents by my side, was getting some PT appointments for my poor shoulder. I've got a great therapist who is working out a lot of the soreness and kinks in a gentle way. I would recommend it to anyone who has had the radical neck dissection and feels like their affected shoulder and arm is dead weight (like mine has felt like the past few weeks).

Of course, it's been inspiring, too, to watch Lance blow past his competitors in the Tour de France. As a former rec cyclist myself, it makes me want to get back on the bike when all this is over. There is a big ride in NC called the Assault on Mt. Mitchell, which is about 115 miles long and ends on the summit of the state's tallest mountain. I always wanted to do this ride when I was in high school and college but never did. I set a goal this week of training for that ride for either next spring or the spring after, and maybe wearing a jersey to commemorate OCF and all of the inspriational head-and-neck cancer battlers I have met here and other places. That would be cool...

Thanks again to all of you for your support, encouragement and prayers. Thanks for listening to my ramblngs and joining the fight with me! Love and peace to all of you...

Eric