Drew Wohl

Not a bad brick        All the craziness of my friends running in the cold rubbed off on me a bit today Tomorrow I start my third #cancer drug trial at @memorialsloangettering. I figure I may take it easy for a day or two, depending on what the doctor's say and how I react to the drugs. This will be the 6th different cocktail in the last 7 years. Each one is different, and each affects me in different ways. And over time each one builds up to kick my rear end more. I had taken a few days off because my back has been acting up the last couple of weeks. It may be time for another round of steroids. Last night I took an extra painkiller, muscle relaxer and slept on the heating pad most of the night. So this morning it was not so bad. I popped a couple of motrin just in case. I figured I was going to do a bit of biking and running while the football games were on. I wanted to get about 8 miles in on the bike to get over 150 miles for the month and run at least ...

People look for patterns and meanings all the time. It does not take much to make a "connection" via numbers or dates on a calendar. It happens all the time. One such connection was that my Great Grandfather and my Dad both shared the same birthday and date of death. Of course I did not put that together until after my Dad died, not sure why I did not figure it out sooner. (Yes. Yes. I know. But I am pretty sure my Dad would find that funny. He may have been mad if I let the joke go.) One of those "I didn't figure this out until just now," just a few hours ago. January 28. Took 7 years to see the connection. 13 years ago today I was in Dharamshala as part of a trip through India. Truly a remarkable trip. During the week in Dharamshala we had a wide range of experiences, from hiking the foot hills of the Himalayas to meeting a wide range of incredible people. 13 years ago today was also the day we had a chance to have an audience with the Dalai...

  I sort of kind of knew I was close to be punted from my current drug study. And clearly I forgot how compounding works, so much for my M.B.A. 😉 Just got a call from @Yale. The total growth is about 19.7% since start of study. 20% is an automatic out. There may have been a way to squeeze another round in, but one of the other issues is that there were many tumors that were not measurable in my lungs which are now measurable. I may try to go back to FOLFOX, may be able to squeeze a few treatments out before the neuropathy comes back. And it will come back rather quickly. Or I can go on Stivarga, which is a pretty nasty drug. It seems FOLFOX may be the move. Normally at this point people are not in the shape I am in. It is tougher to handle drug combinations, as compared to one drug, the worse shape you are in. But if it slows things down a bit, it may buy me the time I need. It is a lot of fun. Cold sensitivity - touch the handles on the fridge and you want to scream, wea...

Got the none drug-trial read on today's scan.  The report pointed out 10 of the tumors in my lungs (usually not that many are reported.) This is a partial list of the extensive #cancer lung tumors (and I had part of left lung removed in 2015).  It does not include lymph nodes or spine.  It is when I look at things at this and just shake my head.  No other way to figure out how I am not on a couch on oxygen other than the exercise #triathlontraining There will be an official read of the tumors for the study to see if I break the 20% mark.  Since the conclusion is lesions "slightly" increased in size,  I am guessing I  will be able to remain in the study for now, subject to seeing what happens with the blood work next week, or if genetic testing comes back before hand with a clear path to the next drug. As an aside, a couple of reasons that I may be slowing down a bit is the chronic Grade 1 anemia.  And a hernia, which can happen from abdominal surg...

Pinhead.  Kind of. Two weeks ago I went to @Yale for my 8th round of the drug trial I am in.  But my blood work was borderline.  So a wasted hotel night and round trip. One week ago I went to @Yale for my 8th round of the drug trial I am in.  But my blood work was below borderline.  So a wasted hotel night and round trip. I was feeling under the weather yesterday, I think maybe a bit of food poisoning, so was not 100%.  But we had scheduled a blood test locally at MSK to see if my blood work was okay in order to avoid another trip for no reason for the third week in a row.  Results came back within an hour and they were fine (kind of amazing how much medicine you learn with 7 years of cancer ;) ) They came back fine. Sent them to my doctor at Yale and he confirmed my findings.   I did not get a hotel yesterday, whatever I had going on was beating me up too much to drive at that point, so did the whole trip today.  Got my blood drawn....