put yourself in a positive healing place with your music, go totally right brain, zen......

Fighting cancer is a lifetime deal. All of my doctors have been great in the Boston area and I'm planning on keeping them on my team throughout the five year+ follow ups.

Yeah, it's great to be "free" from the port and chemo, but CT scans, CEA blood tests, exams and scope checks will continue for the rest of my life.

BUT...I am happy to be alive and if anyone wants to jam, come to the Jury Room (a blues club in Quincy) on any given Tuesday night and let it rip.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Mike
I will continue to send you Major MOJO and keep you in my prayers.
You my friend continue to play guitar and enjoy life!

_________________
Chet Feathers

Authorized TonePros Dealer
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http://www.facebook.com/cafeathers


I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

Life without chemo is a big beautiful step. At least it was for me. Sure, the annoying residuals are lifetime deal, but you have to do what you have to do.

It's great to realize the current set of problems is better than the former. Even with that knowledge, it is still good to complain.

Cancer seemingly will affect very many of us. The fact that you and I were fortunate to have good Drs. alone makes you one up on the deal. I'm very fortunate found mass in my Thyroid about the size of a baseball and eventhough I had to retire, I've been cancerfree for 9 yrs.. Thank God you had good healthcare everyone does not. We're very fortunate. God Bless and Keep On Rockin...

Mike, you are a hero and inspiration and Standard to look up to. The best.

Many, many more decades of huge, vigorous health and fun.

"What are you going to do with your one, precious, wild and crazy life...today?!" (Mrs. Dr. Carl Sagan)

And Chet said the rest. +1

Thanks again and major mojo to you other guys that have "been there-done that"...you know what the winding journey is like!

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Well, I've been away for a few days and now getting ready for the next step in the fight that never ends.

Even after six months of chemo, there is a 10% minimal chance of re-occurence.

With September comes more scans, CEA bloodtests and the next scope check. I saw this and thought I'd share it with any of you who are at the point to be checked :

ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

Colonoscopy Journal:

"I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.
A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.
Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.
I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.
Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.
Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug.. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.'
This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but, have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.
The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked..
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep.

At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.
When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist.

I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.
Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.
There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.
'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me.
'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.


I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.
Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors.. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Ha! Yep Mike there is really nothing to taking that particular test. I've done it several times. The Meds are nice. Getting a passing test result is the best. If you are close to 50 you really need to have it done. Survival rates are high when caught early. Thanks for posting Mike and I am as always hoping you are doing fine!!

Thanks Hop! I'm doing okay, a little anxiety after the "discovery" during last year's procedure.

I'm old enough to know that it ain't worth worrying about anything, because it won't change what's gonna happen anyway.

Hope all is well with you and family too and thanks for helping get the message out there to others who may be due to be checked.

I was always one of these guys that thought things like this happen to other people, than I became other people.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

[quote="fhopkins"]Ha! The Meds are nice.

The current anesthetic of choice these days for that procedure is propofol. Having experienced it will give you some insight into the stupidity of the entire Jackson issue. Despite it's excellent post-anesthetic effect it is not a somnolent, but rather an agent which is given a high level of respect by competent anesthesiologist, and recently was met with a great deal of controversy within the gastroenterology community as to whether or not an anesthesiologist was necessary to the administration of this agent during a colonoscopy or should the examiner do both, as well as whether or not more traditional agents such as Valium and Demerol, were as efficacious as profol

A matter of 'dollars and nonsense' as opposed to best medicine of course.

Doc.

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"Another day in paradise!"

I was given Demerol both times Doc. Can't wait until the next one!

Not a bad ride either, but propofol has a great emergence. Feels like you've slept for hours with no hangover.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

I hear you Doc. We need more like you.

After the 3 bottles of chilled citrus nitrate and the reaction from that, I don't care what they give me as long as it works.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!