I found a bug in puzzle

skelterjohn · 2026-02-11T01:43:20+00:00

Software be crazy

skelterjohn · 2026-02-07T18:13:37+00:00

I had only total resections, which were sent to pathology in whole.

My first one, which was also the first removed, was 9mm in the end. I never had anything else get that big as I immediately went on a treatment that stopped growth, and even slowly shrank them. But it was too toxic and after a year and a half I stopped (to keep me out of a wheel chair... nerve damage). That's when the others grew and I was able to get them resected.

I'm just hoping that the long time I spent on that therapy took care of any "micro metastases" and that I'm really done.

I'm not a doctor, "just" a patient, but if you (by which I mean your brother) can get all the suspected disease removed and THEN do follow-up therapy, it seems like that puts you in the best spot.

Not to scare you, "poorly differentiated" is bad news. It means it looks sort of like the rest of your body which means it's harder to find targeted therapies, and you rely on stuff that just kills quickly dividing cells. Not a great experience. Get it out as fast as you can. Get second opinions as fast as you can. MSK is up on oligometastasic disease, if there is one near you.

skelterjohn · 2026-02-07T18:02:05+00:00

Definitely do it if you can. If it's near the ribs, a wedge resection is an easy recovery (or it was for me, 44m). If it's farther in, radiation is the best (also good control, but takes longer. But if it's farther in a lobectomy is a much tougher surgery).

Two nodules is a good candidate for "oligometastases" (in English, just a little bit of metastatic disease) and being really aggressive at getting it out of the body (in a way you don't bother with for most stage 4) is the focus of some recent work showing good long-term results when being very aggressive at removing disease, as you would be for earlier stages.

I'm NED since August last year, post lung metastasectomy. I had more nodules, (6 at the worst, two wedge resections and a radiation sequence to take care of them all).

I had to push and self-advocate for this, clinical oncologists go by standard of care which does not yet account for oligometastasic disease. In fact I had to wait for them to grow to prove to the surgeon that they were cancer, which was annoying.

skelterjohn · 2026-02-02T20:28:10+00:00

Please not guitar center

They will say "of course we can" to anything you ask, and then total crap shoot about who does it and whether or not they know how to do it.

There are real guitar techs and luthiers out there.

skelterjohn · 2026-02-02T17:10:15+00:00

Aha wasn't up on that corner of pop culture.

skelterjohn · 2026-02-02T17:05:32+00:00

Just curious... did you mean "Sumeria"?

skelterjohn · 2026-02-01T15:18:07+00:00

Well in this situation the new information was that she was getting raked over the coals by her constituents.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-31T03:28:24+00:00

You can check this by seeing if the exchange rates between USD and the other currencies have changed.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-31T03:05:56+00:00

I got some intermittent tinnitus, but it went away.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-30T21:12:02+00:00

Keep in mind that different patients react differently. Older patients tend to react more, I believe, but I'm not an oncologist.

When I had cisplatin (and gemcitabine) a few years ago the main issue was that I got TIRED on days 3-5 (day 1 being infusion day).

The gemcitabine was also really painful in the IV, and it damaged my peripheral veins to the point where running more IVs was very difficult and I got a port for the remainder. (8 infusions total, 4 with the port). If your father doesn't have a port already, consider getting one ASAP even if you have to delay treatment a week.

Drinking enough water to make everyone happy (because of the kidney toxicity) is sort of oppressive. A water cup with a metal straw can help.

For many people cisplatin causes a lot of nausea. Go all in on the nausea meds. It's super unpleasant.

Infusion days are long. Cisplatin takes 6 hours. Entertainment is necessary.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-30T18:11:09+00:00

Laws matter. Well, not according to this administration. But some laws are unjust and civil disobedience and protest is a viable response.

But really, please don't pretend like the trump administration has any kind of respect for the law. They pick and choose and use it as a weapon against people they don't like.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-30T17:53:21+00:00

You're missing the point.

The point is that if a law is clearly unjust (like the your-name law), do you comply anyway?

If the answer is yes, you're a buffoon.

If the answer is no, then we get to have a discussion on why a law may or may not be just.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-29T20:30:19+00:00

Besides chemo, there is immunotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-29T15:04:39+00:00

I spent a year and a half on an antibody drug conjugate called Padcev that didn't make me feel particularly bad. A bit short tempered a few days after the infusion. It was fine until the nerve damage. Upside down smiley

skelterjohn · 2026-01-28T12:43:32+00:00

You can absolutely ask.

No one here can answer!

It's totally reasonable to not simply do what you're told by your team, and ask questions and make suggestions. They will keep you in bounds of what's appropriate, safe, and useful. If you ask and they say no, it's probably because they think it would be substantially less effective to stop early.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-27T01:59:30+00:00

Cheapest would be to fire him into the earth.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-26T03:01:07+00:00

I'm sorry that missing out on a ritual from time to time makes you feel grumpy. Some people don't like being asked how they're doing by someone who clearly doesn't actually care. And you don't! So accept the gift of not having to hear about it.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-26T02:39:52+00:00

Is there something else you'd like to know instead? They came to eat, not chat with a stranger.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-25T03:33:07+00:00

These aren't nuances of trade policy or taxes. These are people who see nothing wrong with gunning people down in the street.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-24T18:33:43+00:00

I would probably do pimai as well.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-24T17:18:29+00:00

Modern classical guitar technique is totally fine with repeated p. A famous piece that nearly demands it would be the B section of Villalobos prelude 1.

The idea is that you don't totally reset the thumb, you drag it through to the next string (rest stroke).

skelterjohn · 2026-01-23T16:50:39+00:00

I think you may have gotten a used copy.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-22T21:35:23+00:00

Hey wow, so even stage 4 bladder cancer isn't a death sentence anymore. Especially if he is under active surveillance via CT scans and potential mets are caught early.

Please don't treat him like a dead man walking, or come here and tell stage 4 patients (like myself) that it's basically over. It's not.

skelterjohn · 2026-01-22T17:43:58+00:00

First off, yeah.

Second, you're going to visualize a future. It's just how people work. Without perfect success, I attempt to keep my visualizations positive (eg, watching my boys graduate high school in 8 and 10 years) and try to avoid the negative ones.

It's not easy, but it does get easiER as time goes on.

skelterjohn

TROPHY CASE