First post:: Welcome 2011, the year of curing cancers

I have never blogged, or tweeted, or even kept a simple diary. But I thought I would give it a shot to keep people updated about Kelcy, to wax philosophical, to vent, and ... well, just to give it a try.

I started to think of a name and decided to be profound: Cancer Sux. Cause we didn't all know that, right?

I thought of Cancer in 2010 sux, but really (at least for me), it goes beyond that. This year alone has been a tough one - lost my mother on 1/30/10 to endometrial cancer (she was only 60), our beloved horse of a dog Tahoe was diagnosed a few months later with a splenic hemangioma and we lost her in May (she didn't even make it to 10), and now Kelcy was just diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer on 12/29-ish/10 at the ripe old age of 36. He got to have an orchiectomy (remove the troublesome 'nad', as he says) on new year's eve. Welcome 2011.

We lost my grandmother Mo, aka Dorothy David in 1997 to pancreatic cancer - that was a tough one. Less than two weeks from diagnosis to her being gone. Wow, maybe I should try 'Pancreatic Cancer Sux', but really, all cancers suck.

Even before that, Mo had ovarian cancer, but she made it through that. And before we lost Mo, one of my favorite cousins, Marcy Lasky, was taken too early by breast cancer.

No wonder I became a cancer pharmacologist, right? Really, I think that just means I know too much about the how cancer sux and am working too slowly to do something about it.

Back to Kelcy though, since that is mostly for whom and about whom I am writing this. He has metastatic testicular cancer - sounds scary, and is, but as many of his med team has told us over the last few days: 'If you had to pick a metastatic cancer, you picked the right one'. Good job Kel! And you were just worrying about me getting a cancer with my crappy family history. Forgot to even think that it might be you, eh (sorry, sometimes I like to pretend to be canadian)? Had to beat me to it? Gee ... thanks.

And it all started with vague back pain for months, then bad abdominal pain and back pain for 2 weeks, went to the doc, had a CT scan - saw a mass in his back and 'poof' - lost a testicle. How our world can flip upside down in flash.

So, screw 2010: the year of losing to cancer, and welcome 2011: the year of curing cancer. Both Kel's cancer and for me to make some headway in a new therapy. If I don't have the impetus now, I never will.

Happy New Year.
-Tracy