Ugh, How Much More Can A Guy Take?

Hello folks - Merry Christmas!

and a Happy New Year!

Gosh, I wish I could start you off with a HAPPY NOTE, but it has been an interesting set of few weeks since I spoke with you last. Let's catch you up to current: My dad is currently stuck in a massive back up on I-205 going southbound onto I-5 south on his way to get me for Christmas. This is because ODOT, my employer decided to do an "ice clean-up" on the freeway shortly before rush hour. This leads to many questions, to many answers I can provide...

Why is my dad coming to get me? I have been suffering for the past several days with pneumonia. This is the first time in my life I've had it, and the last time I ever want it again. The last few days of my life have been extreme hell -- and I've been through cancer, shingles, surgeries, and many, many other illnesses and hardships in my life. Finally, today I think with the grace of God things started turning around and I started to feel better. This of course, after nearly avoiding spending some time in the hospital after an extended ER visit last night. They hooked me up with some breathing treatments, and shortly after I started breathing better once again. My entire day was spent with doctors... first thinking I had some sort of mass putting pressure on my airways, possibly cancer. I said "I don't think so!" and eventually my body vindicated me of that. With the combination of two different antibiotic treatments, rest, and keeping myself warm, I am happy to say I think I am on the rebound... I couldn't have said that 24 hours ago!

So what's the deal with the shingles? Either they are being covered up by the pneumonia, or I am finally recovering from them as well... or maybe the appropriate medication I've been taking is covering up the pain appropriately?

What's next? I hope to enjoy Christmas with my family, and then it's back to the Willamette Valley and hopefully back to work in good health. Shortly after the new year, I hope to present to you 2008's Top Ten People!

I wish you all the best, a quiet, happy, and restful Christmas and New Years!

-LB

Are You Kidding Me?

Folks, if I hadn't been hit enough lately with diseases and setbacks... I have been diagnosed with a case of Shingles, which apparently has developed further into postherpetic neuralgia. Oddly enough, this type of condition can develop when the immune system has been compromised by things such as chemotherapy. CHEMOTHERAPY??? Really? Are you serious? Lucky me!!!

It all started about two weeks ago... it was just a minor pinch I felt in my left side. Nothing to worry about I thought. Then a week ago this past Sunday I woke up in some serious pain. I couldn't sleep any longer and rushed to my cabinet full of pain killers. I was finally able to catch up with the pain and treat it. Nothing seemed to completely kill it, however, and I was living in pain for yet another day when I decided to visit Salem's ER... after about a four hour wait, x-ray, and examination -- nothing was found. Nothing I thought... sure... right...

I lived with pain yet another night and day when I decided to follow up with my oncologist (thinking this might by Lymphoma related). The visit was productive as I had a CT scan which came up 'inconclusive.' Another thing to be ruled out: Lymphoma and any possibility of kidney stones.

Several blood and urine tests later... nothing could be found. "Huh," I thought... and then I went through the "why me?" phase. Finally, I returned to Wallowa County for Thanksgiving with my folks. I was in pain almost the entire time. Oddly enough, soaking in a warm bath was one thing that seemed to temporarily reprieve me from this massive pain. But even with as much pain killers as a small pharmacy would carry, my patience were wearing thin yet again and I had to do something! My dad took me to the local clinic where they thought I might have an ulcer of sorts, and directed me to take some Prilosec and Tylenol (instead of Ibuprofen--which is what I was taking). Needless to say, it didn't work, and the meds that were working were now out of my system. So I loaded back up on Ibuprofen and some various narcotics from my cancer treatment. So, it's now Saturday after Thanksgiving... I'm still in pain... my dad takes me to the ER in Enterprise. I finally get somewhere... this time there was no kidding around. The doc came in and saw me and I told him what I just told you now... and he followed the pain perfectly with his finger on my stomach to my side and around to my back. He was fairly confident I had a case of neuralgia. So treating it with Gabapentin seemed to start cutting into the pain fairly well. I knew this doc had actually hit pay dirt for the first time.

Stepping forward to today (Monday), I followed up with my primary care physician. I told him yet the same story once again... and he agreed with the doctor in Enterprise, but also added an important diagnosis; specifically, this was a case of shingles. It was a case that showed little or no rash (like most do), and since it has been advancing, it has turned into postherpetic neuralgia. Sounds pretty bad, but there is a good prognosis in all of this... it is likely only to be around for another 3-6 weeks because this stage was caught early and I am dealing with the pain quite well with the proper medications. Though it could last longer in some rare cases, we just aren't going to go there, okay?

So folks, there you have it... another chapter in Levi's quest to have the most unusual and rare combination of medical anomalies for a young man in his twenties.

-LB

Staying On Top Of The Pain

Today was a difficult day, but a lot easier than yesterday. Fortunately, my oncologist was able to get me in almost right away. Unfortunately he wasn't able to make anything of last night's CT scan because there was no IV contrast. So today, I had to repeat the process and I am currently awaiting the results. I asked my oncologist today point-blank "you think this Lymphoma" and he responded "not likely -- it would be very unusual for it to come on this fast and to hurt you as much as it is. What I'm seeing isn't symptomatic of Lymphoma at all. Now I'm saying it's unusual, that doesn't mean it's impossible either."

It appears NOT to be anything resembling a kidney stone. It's tissue that is pressing against something and hurting me an awful lot -- that's about all I can report right now. Fortunately I got a lot more done today than I did yesterday.

The biggest battle of them all is staying on top of this horrific pain. I've never had such an interesting battle... if I don't time things just right -- I pay for it. Last night I woke up about 3am and took pain medication, it was a wise thing to do because I didn't wake up in stabbing pain. I'd rather wake myself up via alarm rather than to have the pain wake me up at 5am stabbing me in the side.

I'm staying optimistic at this point. Hopefully it's just benign tissue and there is an easy way to make it go away -- that's the optimal route I am hoping for.

-LB

I Wish I Had Good News - 200th POST!

I wish I had better news on my 200th post, but I don't. I do have more excitement, however! Monday had plenty of madness involved, so it lived up to it's name in that respect.

The last couple of weeks I've had this small nagging pain in my left side. It was a dull pain that would kind of come and go... and with some more recent swelling -- I attributed it to just that. Figured it was just some swelling pressing up against something. Unfortunately, I was right but as with anything in my life this wasn't going to be easy. Early Monday morning I woke up almost crying from the pain it was shooting in my side so bad. I immediately got out of bed and took a variety of pain medications I had (within safe reason)... after about two hours of agonizing pain I finally felt some relief and started to snooze again. This had me missing the first half of the day at work and letting my boss know I wouldn't be coming in at least for a while. I called the doc in the morning and his scheduled turned out to be packed, and the receptionist suggested I go to the ER based on my symptoms. So that I did, and that turned out to be almost as painful as the pain itself (well, not really--but darn close!). I went into Salem's ER and it was packed as well. They were rather quick, doing a variety of tests right away with blood, urine, xray, blood pressure, etc. About four hours later I got a room and after another hour of waiting in the room the doctor arrived and told me what I had suspected all along--I had tissue of some sort folding under in my chest pressing up against my diaphragm which was causing all this pain. As the doctor was about ready to leave, he asked how long this had been going on... etc... etc... and said I had better have a CT to make sure it wasn't kidney stones as he was starting to think that could be a possible reason as well. I thought "oh no!" But I kept thinking to myself that it wasn't kidney stones... and after another hour, I found out I was right. The doc came in again and told me that news and also told me that the tissue is some sort of fatty tissue build-up in the same "tissue family" as what I had just gone through--but probably not cancer this time by the way it looked. I am hopeful that it is not, because after the chemo I had just weeks ago I doubt I would feel pain this quickly. That is my one good alibi out of all of this!

Later today (Tuesday) I will be going into work like normal, and then visiting my oncologist to find out where we will go from here--keeping my fingers crossed that this is not another 'cancer saga' I am faced with yet again.

So, I wanted this 200th post to be about reminicing about the previous 200 posts. About how I've taken this little blog a long ways in the past six years. It first started off as a small "side project" to my once huge website to turning into a "huge project" in my now small website. The little news blurp and top ten were always popular features of my website dovoted to cancer survivors. As my life moved along several different avenues (not forgetting my past), the blog took over the site discussing the other things going as well as the cancer scares along the years. Since cancer returned last year, the blog has been an enormously useful tool in communicating with my friends and family. It's useful interface has allowed me to communicate from almost anywhere -- not requiring any special software like my original website once did.

200 posts... I've come along way. 300, 400, 500... 1000 I am sure will come and go. Cancer scares or not, I plan on being with you through the long haul! Take care.... :-)

-LB

Another Week In The Clear

I wouldn't have ever thought that I would have two consecutive weeks of good health if you would have asked me a month ago. Sure enough, I remain in the clear. Another week back at work finds me on the receiving end of more and more projects from my manager at ODOT. This is a good thing as he is gaining more and more confidence in me that I am in it for the long haul. People often ask what I "do" at ODOT. Well let me tell you briefly: My title is 'Project Manager and Web Developer.' Primarily, I am the front-end webmaster for a site you may have heard of: ODOT's Trip Check website. Located at www.tripcheck.com, the site receives nearly 3,000 visits a day on average, and reaches a peak of 12,000 in the winter months when a storm hits. I am in charge of the look and feel of the site itself, while I have a team of programmers who work in the background to ensure the servers and scripts are in order 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2009, I will be responsible for a completly new graphic interface -- which is in the planning stages right now. Lately, I have been working on a traffic congestion map for the Portland/Vancouver area. Previously, the map only covered Portland, but I have been working on the expansion into Vancouver. The Trip Check website is the largest, most heavily visited site I've ever had the opportunity to be a part of. However, in my own private business (LB Productions - d.b.a. LBSITES) we have an organization's site who we manage which comes fairly close.

Though Trip Check is the largest part of my position, it's not all I do for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) section of ODOT. I manage the internet and intranet ITS websites, publish a quarterly newsletter, work with the 511 telephone system, and work on other various duties within ODOT's ITS section.

For those of you who didn't know, I use to work for the Transportation Development Division (TDD) of ODOT as their Technology Coordinator. It was a position I very much loved, but this new position as Project Manager with ITS came about, and it was something I couldn't refuse. It turned out to be a very smart promotion for me and though I miss the folks at TDD everyday, I am enjoying the new work at ITS.

I am happy I can finally start telling you about other things going on in my life besides my health. Though, I will continue to keep you posted on that as well. Like for instance this week I was in pretty good shape, but I'm still dealing with some swelling on and off -- so far it's just a small annoyance.

Last weekend Thane *aka Sven* and I helped my friend Jonathan move to Eugene. It was a major bummer to see him leave Salem -- thankfully, though, he still works for ODOT here in Salem and I see him almost daily still. I have been trying to talk him into staying up here at my place every once in a while -- especially when the weather is bad.

Again, I am happy to speak with you all on somewhat good terms this week. I am still healing and it will take several months to return to "normal," I know with all the love, prayers, and support I've received from family and friends -- this is a goal that is within sight.

-LB

Communications Crisis!

This weekend went well. I feel like my body is trying to start healing itself. I am still noticing shortness of breath on a frequent basis, but that could be from being laid up for two and a half months. But all and all the weekend wasn't bad... until that is... MY CELL PHONE WAS STOLEN! My friend /slash/ roommate Thane *aka 'Sven'* was with me and we were at the mall. We were just looking around in a store, I sat my phone down for a brief moment, and BAM! it was gone. It appears whoever took it immediately shut it off because it was going to voicemail right away. I had just charged it, and where it was left there was more than adequate signal. Thane and I spent an hour retracing our steps and looking around and found nothing. I even let the clerks know at the store and nothing turned up. So, long and the short of it -- I will be without a phone for at least two days. Thankfully I had insurance on it, but there was still a deductable... oh and the big thing -- all my numbers! So, friends, I am asking you... if I communicate with you regularly and you think I might not already know your number by heart... will you send it to me? Those of you who I talk to at least once in a while, please send your numbers. DO NOT leave them in the comments of this blog, but e-mail them to me at: levi@lbsites.com ... Even if you don't send me your number, chances are I will be able to figure it out from my call logs, etc.

Yes, it made for a terrible evening, but it is just a phone and right now I could be stressed out over it -- but I'm not going to be. My health is trying to return, and the last thing I need to do is stress out over trivial things and risk a setback. So, for now, I shall keep all my energy for healing and forget the small things.

-LB

The News Is In

This past Wednesday was a long one for me. It was the day I would learn my fate for the weeks and months to come. I suffered through yet another CT scan in the morning and drank enough of that nasty iodine liquid to make a guy sick. Then, I was injected with the glowing liquid while my body was scanned. Normally it makes me nauseated, but thankfully the techs listened to me and things went fine.

I met my oncologist later that afternoon to find out the results, but they were not in yet. He did a physical to check for any lumps, he said things looked good. He told me that even though the results hadn't come in, he could tell me the three scenarios. First, if my lymph nodes had gone down, no more treatment would be required. Second, even if they were the same size, we would likely stop treatment and just keep an eye on things. Third, (and the most upsetting) -- if the nodes had gotten larger, more aggressive treatment would be required along with a possible bone marrow transplant.

After I left the doctor's office, I thought about that third option for the next few hours. I thought about how much I had already been through, and how I didn't want to deal with anymore major operations or treatments. But then again, some people are much worse off -- maybe it would be something I could handle... maybe I would be fine?

Later that evening I was hanging out with my friends Zeke and Thane at a brew pub in downtown Portland, when my phone flashed that I had a new voicemail. It was the news I had been waiting for. The doc reported that my lymph nodes had gone completely back to normal! I was THRILLED! No more treatment! I am very happy to hear that my life just might be going back to normal after two years of this! We can all hope right? Zeke and Thane were happy for me as well and even bought me dinner that night. It was a good way to end an otherwise nervous day.

I'm not totally out of the woods yet, but as long as things remain clear over the coming weeks and months my odds will continue to improve as far as remission and recovery goes.

So there you have it, I might actually be okay... at least for now. And that's all that counts. When you're me, you take things day by day and hope for the best. Now I can give my body the next few weeks to heal up from the damage that was done as a result of what has been done to it... then maybe after that I can start going to the gym again. Life as I know it might return to normal -- whatever that means.

-LB

P.S. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's Time For An Update

Lots and lots of you have been asking why I haven't updated the blog in a while. Well, I apologize for that, and so I'll be sure and fill you in. The last two weeks have been hell as I've been swollen up like a balloon. It's the main reason I haven't updated. I've been confined to my recliner almost the entire time. What is the cause? We'll between my oncologist and I, we've pretty much figured out it is the oxycodone pain medication and the type of chemotherapy I've been on. It comes as no surprise that I fell into that small minority that have this side effect to this type of chemo... lucky me :-)

The swelling went from head to toe on my body, and with this obvious handicap, I was not able to work, let alone barely walk. Breathing has even been a chore. Luckily, I've switched pain medication and taken a break from chemo -- and the swelling has been coming down. Really what it is -- is water weight, and it has been coming off slowly but surely. Tomorrow I plan to return to work, at least part time.

Wednesday will be the big day for me -- I go to OHSU in Portland to have a CT scan which will reveal if any of this chemo has helped wipe out this cancer. I am keeping my fingers crossed. If it could all be gone, I would be most grateful.

Also, on a positive note, I've had my long time friend Thane who has been living here while he goes to school. So he has definitely helped pick up the slack when I am unable.

To all of you, I thank you for your prayers and well wishes, without you, I wouldn't get through this.

-LB

Thoughts and Prayers To My Sis

I write on another sad note this evening. If the Bobbitt family has caught bad times, it seems that this year has been one of the worst. As the saying goes... "when it rains, it pours." With my recent diagnosis of cancer, medical complications that followed, and as a result, heavily strained financial times due to staggering medical bills -- the last thing my family needed was something to strike my poor sister. My family had the great fortune of hearing the news that she would be expecting a baby in May. Today (Wednesday), we learned that may not happen due to a complication in the pregnancy. It is likely that my sister will lose her baby -- as it has stopped growing. Next week she may have to make the difficult decision if it hasn't been made for her already. My thoughts and prayers are with her, and I only tear up when hearing the thought of losing my niece or nephew. If I've ever made a request in the past, this would be it, please put your thoughts and prayers with her... will you, please? Such generosity would make me appreciative to the bottom of my heart. As always, thanks for reading, and God Bless (I don't say that enough, and will start saying it more).

-LB

The Post-Chemo Lag

What am I talking about? It seems I don't feel all cruddy from chemo treatments, until the Monday after a Thursday treatment. Well not exactly, but here's how it has been going: I have chemo on Thursday, then the very next day (on Friday), I feel a bit tired, but not too cruddy. Saturday and Sunday, I (again) feel about the same, just a bit off my game, tired and just a tad cruddy... then comes Monday... I wake up feeling like I have been hit real hard in the stomach, legs swollen, and very, very tired. But don't get the wrong idea -- I feel crappy overall, all the time. I just feel the worst on the Monday following a treatment.

This past treatment went a little better than the last. The previous treatment I had two weeks ago gave me severe 'sunburn-like' burns and made life miserable! My Salem oncologist decided with my OHSU Portland oncologist to lower the dose of my chemotherapy by 20% to prevent the burns. It seems to have worked. I did get a hint of a burn this time, but NOTHING like last time. I am very grateful!

HATS OFF, to my friend Malinda Hoke for visiting me in the hospital while I was receiving treatment. She is the first and only so far to visit me while I have had treatment. I hope that's a hint to some of my other friends ;-). I told her though, "don't take any work off!" and she told me she wasn't, but still showed up -- I still have no idea if she took time off or not. She's still a very classy GAL for visiting me. THANK YOU MALINDA!

In other news... I am having a good time living with my friend Thane here in Salem. He's been a good guy to be roommates with. Especially going through what I have, it's been nice to have a familiar face around to talk to and hang out with.

Another shout-out to my fellow ODOT employees for donating their vacation time on my behalf. It is generosity such as that, which has enabled me to keep my medical insurance and keep some of a paycheck! I nearly could have lost my insurance, but thankfully did not, because I work with some very dedicated and generous folks.

-LB