The healing is still painfully slow and I still can’t eat solid food, and it’s really starting to get annoying. I’m so sick of protein shakes, baby food and Ensure drinks! It just seems like the healing is moving at a snail’s pace and I know it has to do with whatever’s left of the Erbitux in my body. I can tell it’s still there because of how slow my fingernails and hair are growing. The mucus is still a real drag too. Occasionally I feel like my mouth is more tender than the previous day, but I’m still hopeful for a more speedy healing process soon.
I’m still hoping to return to a day or two at the office sometime next month, but if the healing doesn’t start kicking into high gear soon, that might even be doubtful. I know I sound grumpy, but I’m really not most of the time these days.
I have a business trip to Brussels, Belgium and Paris in mid June that Denise and I are stretching into a mini vacation. I’m really counting on eating (but maybe not tasting) real food by then. We’ll have to wait and see.
What a nice weekend we just had. The weather was simply perfect for doing things outdoors. And we did!
Wyatt in the parade
Saturday morning, the family drove up to Winters, CA to see my son Wyatt in the annual Youth Day Parade. It was perfect weather for the parade and we got a street-side view of Wyatt walking by with the marching band and pounding on the bass drum. He did great and looked even better!
After the parade on Saturday, Grant and I tasked ourselves with performing a front end brake job on his car and doing some final repairs on the backyard pool filtration system. I’m thrilled to say we got both items done. Grant is eager to learn how to work on his car, so the first wheel I pretty much did myself as a demonstration of how all the pieces and parts come apart and back together again. And on the second wheel, Grant did nearly it all by himself. It’s a good feeling doing something like this yourself, especially when you consider how much it would cost if you took the car to have the brakes professionally replaced.
After we finished the brakes, I had run out of energy and had to sit down and recharge my batteries. The amount of calories I’m taking in each day is clearly not enough to cover me when I’m doing alot of moving around or working on cars. So I rested and drank another Ensure. When my energy came back, Grant and took apart the pool filtration tank and replaced a filter module and put it all back together. We’re trying to get the pool in ship shape for Summertime swimming and Grant’s High School Graduation party/bbq.
Sunday was another beautiful day to be outdoors. So I decided to pull two dead juvenile redwood trees from the front yard and replace them with two more Aptos Blue redwoods from Costco. We planted a total of three redwood trees in the front yard last year and two of them simply didn’t make it. Not sure why, but they finally kicked the bucket over the last couple of weeks and had to be replaced. Well I got the boys together and planned on pulling the trees with their help, but again, I simply ran out of gas before we even started. In fact I had to lay down and take a nap as I wasn’t feeling well at all. While I was napping, my boys pulled the dead trees out themselves to my amazement, which only left Denise and I to run over to Costco and buy the two new Aptos Blue trees. I haven’t planted them in the ground yet, but they look beautiful.
The Movie Poster
Sunday night came to a close with our weekly dinner at Sarah’s house. She BBQ’d some burgers for everyone and I had some soup and jello. Yum. 
After the perfect dinner we all retired to the family room and watched The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I had never seen it before, nor had Denise, so it was nice to finally seen this classic. Made in 1954, the underwater shots were amazing, but the acting was pretty campy and we all got a kick out of the high waisted pants for the men and outfits they had for the women. Overall it was a fun and entertaining movie for the family though.
I recently had to migrate from one Mac laptop to a new one for work. While this was a nice thing to have happen, I found I had suddenly lost the ability to seamlessly transition my Time Machine hard drive backup to this new machine. It seems that when the removable hard drive I had been using previously was connected to this new machine, Time Machine thought this was an entirely new drive and wanted to start all over again, backing up the machine with no regard to the existing backups already on the removable drive. This will not do! I need Time Machine to see this removable drive and simply pick up where it left off with my previous laptop.
After some research on the Internet, I found that Time Machine works to identify the target for the backup by the MAC address of the machine that had created the backup in the first place. Sort of like a key that connects the source to the proper target. That’s a pretty cool concept, because it means you could use the same removable drive for several machines, if there was enough space available.
So after trying some command line tools to try and change the ACL‘s of the various backup DB’s already on the drive and connect them to the MAC address of my new laptop, I was not successful in getting Time Machine to recognize the drive and start backing up. But then I found this cool little piece of software that will execute the exact command you need to update the ACL’s on the backup DB’s. The original creator of the software and the article I found that helped is here.
You have to do this as root, so make you’ve set up your machine to use “sudo”. You’ll also need to know your new MAC address. You can get this from System Profiler or at the Terminal prompt using “ifconfig -a”.
Here’s what I did to fix this problem.
- Download the backupswitcher software here and unzip it.
- Connected the removable drive to laptop.
- At a Terminal prompt:
cd to the directory where you unzipped backupswitch
Then type:
“sudo ./backupswitch /Volumes/<YOURDRIVENAME>/Backups.backupdb/<YOURBACKUP> YOURMACADDRESS”
- The program should end by telling you the old MAC address.
- Disconnect and reconnect your removable hard drive.
That should be all you need to do and Time Machine will recognize the drive as the proper target for backups and do its thing. Thanks to Devin Lane at Shiftedbits.org.
Hey, I’m feeling pretty good about the healing now. The past three days I’ve felt much better overall, since I have more energy and I’m tempted to eat something other than soups and drinks. My face is clearing up slowly, but enough for me to have confidence to go out in public and do some shopping at a nearby hardware store with my son Grant on Sunday. I’ve got to protect my neck from the sun, so I’ll either wear my nifty new sun hat sent to me by my wonderful mom last week (happy birthday!), or simply avoid the sun as much as possible while I’m out and about. Getting out on my own to take care of my own errands felt great too.
Then we had our weekly Sunday night dinner at my sister Sarah’s house and I felt brave enough to try eating a small (think quarter sized) piece of bread. Yeah, I know. Amazing. But if I just take a drink before I eat it, I can do it! Yippee for small victories. And as if that wasn’t enough, my lovely Denise made me some scrambled eggs today and they were so good! I just have to be very gentle when eating them, since my mouth is still quite tender. But to me this is great progress.
I’m still having issues with the mucus build up while I sleep or throughout the day. Just the thought of it makes me want to gag, which I still frequently do each morning when I wake up unfortunately. However with the progress I feel I’ve made over the last three days, I’m quite happy that the healing has really started in earnest.
Weight when I started: 225 lbs.
Weight today: 195 lbs (amazingly, my clothes still fit)
It’s been a while since I posted and overall things are getting better. Slowly better, but any progress is still progress. The skin on my neck has dramatically improved and feels almost supple these days. It’s still reddish with some minor scarring, but that will all fade over time. My face is getting better every day. It’s still red and patchy but I can see small improvements each day. I might actually start going out in public if the mood strikes me. (Wow, a home body no more!) These days, getting out of the house is something to look forward to. I spend so much time here each day, I’m starting to feel like a crazy hermit.
My mouth hasn’t changed much at all and that’s my biggest complaint currently. I’m still stuck with my daily diet of Ensure and protein drinks, jello and soups. I was beside myself with envy over Easter with all that great chocolate, candy and jelly beans around; none of which I could even begin to put in my mouth. Even if I could eat it, it wouldn’t taste any good. Rats.
So yesterday I had a checkup appointment with Dr. Vikstrom at Northbay. He was delighted to see my skin improving and that I was there by myself! Hey, I’m slowly re-establishing my ability to get around on my own. Anyway, all my vitals were good and my weight is holding steady at just under 200 lbs. My caloric intake is not terribly high, but I don’t do much strenous activity anyway, so I’m probably burning just a bit more calories than I take in everyday. He looked at my ear and said he could see my eardrum again, but I should keep taking the ear drops more consistently for good measure to clear it up for good.
Dr. Vikstrom also said the levels of Erbitux in my body most likely have dropped by half since the last infusion on the 16th of March. He also told me that with radiation related hair loss (like my beard and the lower back of my head), it will take much longer to regrow than if I had been given true chemo. Erbitux is not considered as chemotherapy. Chemo patients start growing hair within a few months, but mine may take until the Fall or even Winter. UGH, that was not good news. So I’ll have to come up with a clever new hair style for a while.
So, I’m getting closer and closer to spending more time out of the house and away from my little cockpit in the home office. And I’m hoping to start eating real food sometime soon, although my taste will be “off” for a while longer. And the lack of saliva will keep me and bread separated too. I’m nearly crying as I type that. 
Today is Easter Sunday, so Happy Easter everyone! Such a beautiful day outside. Sunny and warm with clear skies. The kids found their Easter baskets this morning and now we’re getting ready to have our annual Easter egg hunt for the kids, and me too! Our lovely front piazza make for a great place to hide eggs and if the weather holds, we’ll try and have a fire in the fire pit out there tonight. That would be of course after the Easter dinner Denise is preparing. I’ll try and get some pictures from today up here soon.
So here’s wishing you and your family have a wonderful Easter Sunday!
 Easter Egg Hunting |
 Wyatt enjoying his eggs |
 Lauren looking for eggs |
 My sister Sarah |
 Grant supervising the hunt |
 The always lovely Denise |
 Owen hunting for eggs |
 Elizabeth scouting an egg |
 Grant and Denise |
Not too much to report since the last post unfortunately. My ear infection is gradually getting better, and I’m sure the Erbitux is slowing this down as well. My face is ever so slowly clearing up, and my neck is in a bit better shape. My mouth feels the same as it has for weeks. Mucus buildup is still a real problem, most likely because not much has changed in my mouth. It’s still very raw. Keeping my caloric intake where it should be is a challenge, because frankly eating is a major drag and I have to work myself up to it each time.
I’m in good spirits, although still a bit bummed that the healing is so slow. Still able to work every day very easily and don’t run out of gas as much any more.
It rained like crazy last night, but today the sun has finally come up. I really love this time of year around Vacaville because the hills turn a lush green. Beautiful.
I scored a quick appt today with Dr. Vikstrom about my right ear problems. He confirmed I’ve got a pretty good infection going on. He wasn’t able to even see my eardrum due to the inflammation. Bummer. So I’ve got yet another thing to do several times a day: put drops of neomycin in my ear 4 times a day. If it helps, I’m all for it!
We also talked about how long Erbitux stays in your body. Not good news. He said that because it’s an antibody it won’t drop to half the amount in my body for 2-3 weeks after my last infusion. So this stuff really hangs around. And until it starts really leaving me, my healing will be slower than I’d like. Double ugh.
Well I seriously owe you an update since the 30th of March. Not much has changed to be quite honest. My mouth feels pretty much the same as it has for weeks, and my skin is improving slightly. The dead skin on my neck is almost gone and healthy skin is on the way and the rash on my face has also improved a bit. I still wake up in the morning and look into the mirror hoping to see my old face and not this red beat up mug I have now. Oh well.
I’m still stuck eating a daily regimen of cream of wheat in the morning with a protein shake, and another protein shake for lunch. For dinner I usually have some apple or pear sauce, some jello, a yogurt and an Ensure. This diet has very long ago become very boring, but I really don’t have a lot of options. So we trudge onward. At this point I’m down to 200 lbs, so I’ve lost about 25 lbs overall. Not too bad and I still fit in my clothes.
Over the past week I’ve lost a great deal of hearing in my right ear due to some liquid pressure build up I attribute to mucus or an infection brought on by the Erbitux affect. I’m going to try and get to the doctor today to have him take a look at my ear so I can hear normally once again. I’m a week and a day past treatment and I can still feel this Erbitux is in my body. I know the Erbitux is slowing the healing because that’s what it does, so I’m hoping to get this stuff out of me soon.
My spirits are good and going out in the sun doesn’t feel like being under a heat lamp any more. I’m able to work at home just fine, but I’m still entitled to a nap every now and then. 
Today is Sunday and I am now three days past the last treatment I received. Not much has changed actually. My mouth feels pretty much the same as it has for a week or two now, and the mucus is still a real problem. The taste of sour milk is always with me because of the mucus. The rash on my face, chest and back seems the same too. I get tired very often throughout the day and I love to take naps. Naps are like a mini vacation from all of this.
I was able to mount and hang some new curtains Denise bought for the family room. I had some help from my son Grant too. They look pretty nice, but we’ll have to fill them in with some more panels for the proper look we’re both envisioning.
Also yesterday was the first time Grant was able to drive both he and Wyatt over to our house for the weekend. His mom had an older car they weren’t using much and have allowed him to use it get back and forth to Vacaville. Grant being able to drive now changes a lot of things. Last night Denise and Sarah went to a formal awards ceremony (where Sarah had won a very nice design award) and they asked Grant to be their driver to and from the event. How cool is that?
And since today is Sunday, we’ll be going to my parents house for dinner tonight. This will be the last time we do this for a while, since my parents are leaving back to Seattle for the summer around the 1st of April. I’m thankful they were able to change their plans and stay until my treatments were completed. That meant a lot to me.
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