Kim's take on living with a celebrity

I'm Back Baby, Part II

The next part of my rebirth, if you will, is a trip to San Francisco to do some training.  It sucks trying to train for an endurance sport almost exclusively indoors but in Canada your choices are limited. So every now and then I like to get away to train.

I had a funny moment at the airport as I entered the U.S. Customs area. The dutiful guard asked why I was going to San Francisco and I told him I was swimming from Alcatraz. He thought I was being a smart ass and so he started to grill me. I realized right away that he could really mess up my travel plans so I whipped out my phone and showed him the confirmation email of my crossing time and he half sheepishly told me to have fun and let me go. 

The first leg from Edmonton to Denver was wonderfully uneventful and we landed a little late but with plenty of time to spare so I hustled up to the United lounge and had a glass of red wine and some snackers. I boarded my flight to San Francisco and was to delighted to find that although I had a middle seat my seat mates were both very slender. Boom! Awesome. Or so I thought.

I hadn't noticed right away but the person at the window was actually the rare domesticated bare-footed chick. The main feature of this species is that it's not enough to have bare feet. You have to hook your toes on the pocket of the seat back in front of you. The most prominent feature of the feet is a series of blisters on the top of the toes that make other passengers cringe. 

I got to SFO and found my way to my luggage. FIRST BAG OFF THE PLANE! This reminded me of my time with the Golden Bears. On flights we would all put a dollar in a hat and the first bag off the plane would take it all. Then everyone else would throw your gear around the airport but hey, can't win 'em all.

I woke up Friday with nothing to do. I remember a professor in University saying "the freedom to do anything is great, but the freedom to do nothing is divine." I never really understood what this meant until I was a real grown up. Having absolutely zero responsibilities for a day was incredibly freeing and I felt light. I made my way down the street to a nice little diner on the wharf and had French toast and eggs. As I sat there the light drizzle turn into a full on storm. Fortunately, when you don't have any plans they can't be ruined so I just decided to drive around. If you've never driven in San Francisco you need to do it once. The hills are absolutely hilarious and terrifying at the same time. Some are so steep that when you hit the apex and start to descend you just have to trust there's no one on the other side because you can't see where you're going.

The storm never let up and, in fact, I got an email from the company that was running the Alcatraz crossing that there was a Coast Guard warning for the bay the next morning. Awesome. Basically, they were going to take us out there and then hope it was safe enough to make the swim. Okay, not super excited about that. However, when I woke up Saturday morning I opened the curtains and was delighted to find that the sun was shining and there was no wind. I used google maps to get directions to the meeting point for the swim and started laughing. It said 2 minutes walking. It was essentially right outside of my hotel. I made my way down to the meeting point, signed my waiver and off we went. It was great because there were only 10 of us swimming so there was very little prep time needed. This is unlike the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon where there are a couple thousand participants and it takes over an hour to get going.

We jumped in and the water was just as cold as I remembered. I wanted to complain but as it happens there was a 12 year old girl swimming with us with NO WET SUIT! I found out afterwards this girl speaks 3 languages and just finished climbing a mountain in Chile. Jeepers! An interesting thing I found out was that they only sort of know what the water is going to do. They originally told us to aim for the old fort because they expected a flood tide. This would push us left and so that aiming point would take us safely into the harbour. Well, it turns out we had a slack tide so as we got closer to shore the kayak pilots had to herd us and navigate us further over into the opening to this really cool harbour. They've essentially created an open water swimming pool. Picture a horse shoe of pier that goes out about 100 meters with an opening into the ocean. As I entered this horse shoe I had a "you gotta be kidding me" moment. I was swimming along and BANG, bounced my head off of something. I looked up to see an equally confused 50-something year old man staring back at me. I had managed to swim into another person in the middle of the friggin' ocean. We laughed it off and I made my way to shore.

After getting back to the hotel I showered up and planned out the rest of my day. I decided to do something I've always wanted to do and that was to walk the Golden Gate Bridge. I made my way to the Sausalito end of the bridge, threw in my headphones and just started walking.

1% Man

I'm writing this portion of the blog from the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. I've taken Adam Carolla's advice and put on some headphones and just started walking. This cleared my head and filled me with endorphins. The GGB is 1.7 miles each direction so 3.4 miles in total and its a great chance to do some thinking. 

Behind me (if you can see past that giant dome) is the swim I completed just this morning and I got to thinking. When I was first diagnosed we looked up how likely I was to get this stupid disease and I'm a 1%er. That meant to Kim and I that the stats don't apply. I've done things in my life that most people will never come close to in their life so why should I look at other people's cancer stories? How many people do Ironman at 285 pounds? Me. How many people go sub 12 hours at 250 pounds? Sat in a burning building? Taken down by a police K9? Have the best wife in the world? (Boom! Brownie points. Although writing that probably negates them. Damn.) I'm a unique dude and I'll show people there's hope.

COLOSTOMY UPDATE: The bathrooms at the Golden Gate Bridge were out of toilet paper. But I don't need toilet paper. Who wins now world?

Sunday was supposed to be half marathon day. However, on Saturday night I realized that my sock choice the day before was not stellar as I had gotten some nice blisters on the bottom of two toes which were incredibly painful. Also, I started to develop a gnarly cough which left me wheezing and hcking. Beautiful hey? So when my alarm went off Sunday morning and it was once again POURING rain I shut off the button and tucked myself back into bed. I need to be at the Cross Cancer Institute tomorrow afternoon for my blood tests and I don't want to be too sick to my next round of chemo.

I turned on the TV and realized what I had been subjected to for the past three days. US TV news is all about fear. Russia, China and Iran are all conspiring to destroy the world, ISIS and Boka Haram are going to cotinue randomly attacking innocent people, Republicans and Democrats are conspiring against one another to destroy the free world. It had all been subtle but I longed for the Canadian news I was used to. I can assure you that we do, in fact, hear bad stories on the news but it is not the constant barrage of negativity I experienced on the trip. The other really depressing thing about American TV is that they appear to LOVE basketball. I can get down with the occasional game but no less than 5 different channels were showing NCAA basketball. Most of these games were one-sided drubbings which were hardly worth watching. I also can't figure out why people go absolutely bananas over a slam dunk.  Now an alley oop or a guy getting posterized (a guy jumps over you and dunks) are pretty cool, but most often it's a 7'1" tall dude jumping 4.5" off the ground and throwing a ball through the rim. Then this gets put in the top 10 plays for the night. Are you out of your friggin' minds?!? Imagine if Canadian sports highlights conisisted of Sidney Crosby carefully sliding a puck into an empty net while his teammates swung towels around in the air and chest bumped each other. Weirdos.

This would have been bad enough but the absolute worst thing I saw on TV down here was a bowler. This guy, whose last name is Weber, is just absolutely infuriating. He wears dark sunglasses and yells to the crowd after his throws. After the 8th frame he did the "discount double check" thing where he pretended to be wearing a championship wrestling belt. But the coup de gras was after he won the quarter-final match. He held his black-gloved fist in the air, then went to a knee and slammed his fist into the floor and roared. I was pissed. I couldn't believe this guy. I was so mad in fact I actually took my shoes back off, I had planned to go out, and watched the semi-final to see him lose. When he did I actually threw a fist pump in the air. I immediately realized the absurdity of it all but in those moments it was so nice to be normal. Or, as normal as I can be cheering against a weirdo bowling.

I had a few hours to kill before my flight so I headed to Westfield Centre in downtown San Francisco as I had tried to buy the kids some things at the wharf but it was mostly overpriced crap. I knew I would find something better at the mall. I phoned home and asked Cambrey (2 1/2 year old) what I should get her. She told me she wanted a purple present. She is so sweet, all she wanted was something purple. Knowing the next answers I asked her what to get Calliah. She said Calliah needed a pink present and, of course, Kelland needed a blue present. The absolutely heart-melter was when she cautioned me that the baby needed a big present because, "baby can choke on little things." I'm so incredibly proud of how Kim is raising our children. Despite the occasional scrap, the kids love each other beyond belief and are some of the most thoughtful and sweet little people I've ever met. Granted, I'm more than a little biased.

I couldn't find anything for the baby and I knew this would not sit well with the other kids. I would be subjected to a barrage of "why didn't you get baby something? Where's the baby's present?" I did what every other bad father does and hit up the Hudson News at the airport and bought the first thing I saw. 

I did see something in Chinatown that made me chuckle. Is it just me or does this sound like China's greatest Super Spy?

The San Francisco to Vancouver leg of the flight was great. I had a window seat and was upgraded to United's Economy Plus so I had more leg room, but even better there was no one seated in the middle seat so I had two arm rests and the middle table tray became my side table. Booyah!

I made my way into the Air Canada lounge at Vancouver International; had some snacks, a glass of red wine and 

watched the planes taxi in and out for a couple of hours. When the time came I made my way to the gate and when they made the first boarding call I jumped on it. I had used my final upgrade credits to get a business class ticket. I got on the plane early and basked in the disapproving looks of the people walking past me. "How did HE get up there?" If they knew I got a free upgrade it would all make sense to them but I won't give them the satisfaction. As we landed in Edmonton I looked out the window and realized there was a LOT more snow than when I left. 

I usually park in the valet area but there was such a good deal in self park I took it. Such a dummy. I got into my frozen van and waited for it to heat up so I could get home and hug my wife, kiss my kids and tell them it was all going to be ok. 

I'm Back Baby Part I

Life is finally getting back to normal and I couldn't be happier. The last 3 months I feel like I have been living someone else's life. Sitting around the house, playing Xbox and staying up until all hours of the night watching Netflix. The boredom almost overwhelming, I have bouts of panic, depression and outright rage. 

But as it happens, on February 4th, World Cancer Day I hit the reset button on my life. I had been put on to an amazing man from my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. Steve Csorba is an amazing local artist and a member of the November Project Tribe. The November Project is a really cool phenomenon that started in Boston with 2 students wanting to workout with groups rather than alone. They starting sending out messages over social media announcing a location and people slowly started growing up in bigger numbers. 

This project has now started to spread and it arrived in Edmonton when Andrew Ference was traded from the Boston Bruins to the Edmonton Oilers. Andrew is a committed member of the tribe and under his leadership it has exploded. One of my good friends, Connor, who regularly attends the workouts told me about this amazing guy in a Fuck Cancer tshirt that had been kicking the shit out of cancer. This guy is Steve. 

I had sent Steve a quick message about my situation on Twitter. He got back to me almost immediately and helped put me at ease. He didn't tell me anything out of this world but getting kind words from a person that has kept cancer at bay for over a decade was really powerful. I occasionally would fire him a note when I felt nervous and he would quell me. Finally, I decided I needed to meet him and I asked him to meet me for lunch. 

He gave me a selection of 5 really hip places, none of which I had ever eaten at, but they all sounded great. We agreed  upon Remedy. A really neat cafe that serves chai tea and eastern food. Kim and I were never really into small cafés and since we've had children, a quick bowl of pasta at Boston Pizza has masqueraded as cuisine so this was a neat experience. 

I arrived and saw Steve already seated at a table. I made my order and sat down to join him. This man is incredibly impressive and I did not want to waste a minute of his time so I had mentally prepared a list of questions I wanted to ask him. We started to chat casually about life in general but then I steered the conversation towards cancer. Steve took it in stride and explained what he had been through in the past decade. I won't get into the details as it's his story but please believe me when I say it's incredibly invasive and scary. 

I looked at him as he happily discussed the worst moments of his life and was in awe. Every time he spoke I was filled with a little more hope. This guy had been to the absolute bottom of the well, and now he was seemingly on top of the mountain. 

The best advice Steve gave me was to not think about beating the cancer. Rather, he told me to control what I can and that is getting my body and mind healthy. This was almost all the cancer talk; I didn't need to hear any more. After this we talked about how he stays healthy and makes the world a better place. I listened intently and realized I'd found someone that has found the keys to happiness. 

We started talking about my #cancercanthackett tour plans and he was all in. He had some thoughts for the Alberta Cancer Foundation about a prevention and screening campaign that aligned very well with my plans. I began getting pumped up and truly excited about what we might be able to do together. After 90 minutes we said our goodbyes and I immediately phoned Kim and told her I was going to change the world with this guy.

That night I got to continue my return to form by refereeing my first hockey game in over 3 months. I picked up my linesmen and we headed off to Vegreville, Alberta. Home of the worst biggest Easter egg.

As we bombed down the highway we listened to old school gangster rap and I lamented the fact that these 2 had just been born when I was listening to Snoop and Dre and acting like a bad ass. We arrived at the arena just in time for warmup and I got right into my routine. Before I knew it I was out taking a coue of warmup laps and dropping the pick at centre ice. 

I got into the game right away as there was an easy tripping call 22 seconds in and a power play goal 30 seconds after that. This was a perfect game to return to as it was one sided on the score board and really rough so I had to manage the game very carefully. When it was all said and done I had tossed a half dozen players and called around 100 penalty minutes. 

I had known the Vegreville coach for a long time as he was originally from Edmonton so before the game when he had asked why it had been so long since 

he had seen me I told him about my situation. After the game every member of the Vegreville Rangers came by and shook my hand and wished me well. This was very touching.

After the game we quickly showered and hustled down the road to 7-11 to get chicken. This might sound awful but Vegreville 7-11 chicken is delicious and a tradition of the road trip. BUT, you have to beat the visiting team there or sow times it's all gone and you drive home sad and hungry. Luckily we made it and had our pick. 

We cruise home blasting Uptown Funk and just chatting. This was the best night I'd had in months because for 4 hours I wasn't a Cancer patient or an out of work teacher. I was just one of the guys doing our thing. 

Stay tuned for Part II, San Fran Training Trip

Every Time a Door Closes a New One Opens

This has been a tough week for me. I thought I would be returning to work with the exception of every 2nd Monday and Tuesday. In my heart of hearts I didn't think this plan would get rejected but I was shocked to find out this morning that my school and schoold district could not support my return to work plan.

I'm not sure everyone completely understands teachers. It is not your usual job. It is a  job that is a part of what your are. The connections and differences you make in the lives of young people are powerful. I think that's why I'm taking this rejection so hard.
Leaving that meeting I've never felt more like a person with cancer. Alone, tired and seemingly useless. I walked in the front door of my house and just crashed into my recliner.
Then the phone rang. You may or may not have read about my plan to go to races across Canada and speak to people about screening and prevention of cancer in younger athletic populations. I'm calling it the #cancercanthackett tour and it's quite a passion of mine. The phone call was from clothing supplier Sugoi. They are impressed by my venture and have agreed to do custom clothing for my tour. Additionally, they are going to use their race sponsor status to get me in to Ironman Arizona. The race I was supposed to do in November that sold out before it even went online for registration.
After hanging up the phone I went onto Twitter and the first story that popped up was the tale of Teri Griege. Her book Powered by Hope is exactly what I needed to be reminded of. She's a stage IV cancer survivor since 2009 and competed at Kona. She overcame my exact diagnosis and is still spreading hope.

I'm not a religious person but I am spiritual and the fact that this phone call and tweet came when I've been at my absolute lowest speak to me that this is certainly not the end. Rather, it's a new beginning. It's going to mean a disruption to our family situation but not one that we can't deal with. I'll get to spend more time with my children and Kim will be given a push to get an Ed degree and take steps toward going back to work.

My Dad was the absolute best example of what can be accomplished if you just roll with the punches and I'm so glad I was shown how to deal with these situations by him. Like Dad always said, "life's not fair" and  "there is no sense getting upset over that which you have no control." I could throw a fit (I did a little bit in the van) and be bummed out but it won't get me anywhere. Instead, I'm going to focus on my other positive outlets and go from there.
Animo!

That's Chemo?

So I've successfully completed two round of chemotherapy and I'm happy to report it's not that bad. As I'd mentioned before, I go in every second Monday for lab work. They check my blood and urine to make sure my levels are safe for me to get chemo the next day. An hour after my blood draw I meet with my oncologist and he discusses how things are going. I told my doctor that he's never had a "me" before and now I think I'm right.

At my first "check up" the doc asked how I felt after my first round. I explained that I felt almost perfect with the exception of a couple of mouth sores and a sore esophagus that basically felt like heart burn. He said that was good because they weren't totally sure how much of the chemo to give me. Based on my weight it was a LOT of chemo but they gave me the full dose and were going to judge it from there. He was happy with how I took it and decided to continue giving me the full dose. The only little hiccup was that my blood pressure was 190 over 110. This is VERY high. He gave me a funny look and I said, "well I'm sitting here with my oncologist. What's my blood pressure supposed to be." He laughed and said we were going to take the Avastin out of the cocktail for one round as it's a vasoconstrictor and can cause high blood pressure. I wasn't thrilled with this as Avastin has shown to be amazingly effective at shrinking and choking off tumors. He agreed to let me calm down for a bit and see if I could get my blood pressure down to a reasonable level.

I put on Enya's Sail Away and closed my eyes and just focused on my breath. Why do I have Sail Away on my ipod? I don't know but I'll thank you not to judge me. When they re-checked my blood pressure it was still high but it was at a reasonable level and he agreed to give me the Avastin as long as I went on blood pressure medication. I agreed and he wrote me up a prescription. I sort of tried to find out if they knew how I was responding through some vague questions and everything just asked when we would know if it's working.  They said I would get a CT every 3 months and that would be the only time we really get any info. I just have to trust that science will take care of me.


When I went for my second round of chemo the nurse took my blood pressure and after only 1 pill it was down to 110 over 69. Much lower than I was used to but if it keeps them giving me the good drugs I'll do anything.

Round 1 of Chemo Dec 31, 2014

This also seems like a good time for a Kim update. She's been doing quite a bit of driving lately and is actually turning into quite a good little driver. She did have one tough stretch, however, that I couldn't help but document. We stopped at the local Tim Horton's drive through and it was like she forgot she was the one driving. She managed to bounce of the curbs on both sides of the drive through in a span of about 20 feet. I was quick enough to get my phone out and document this occasion. We didn't get a chance to go to Disneyland this year but she was good enough to simulate the Autopia cars.

One of my mantras (I have many) has been that if I don't bother to live my life then any extra they can get me is worthless. We are lucky enough to have some amazing people that can babysit and give Kim and me a chance to get out and have some fun. Our annual Cops for Cancer triathlon team party was one of these great nights. To encourage creativity the rule was that you had to dress as a noun that started with the 3rd letter of your first name. I got "L". It was a quick decision for me to go as Lance Armstrong. First, regardless of what you think of him and dopin, he is an incredible athlete that beat almost impossible odds against cancer and I hold him in very high esteem. Additionally, I have a jersey from Team Radio Shack which is the last team he rode for. In fact, I was in Paris for his very last Tour de France and becaue my sister and I paid a huge sum of money for a paddock pass I actually patted him on the back after he rode in the TdF for the final time. Pretty cool.

Took this picture at Tour de France 2010

For laughs I tweeted to Lance Armstrong that I was going as him to a party:

      TWEET: "Going to a party & have to dress as a noun that starts w/L Going as @Lancearmstrong so committed to it I even have cancer"

      I was thrilled to see a response a few minutes later from Lance Armstrong:
                      "dirty. Love it.

This absolutely made my night; a guy with 3.8 million Twitter followers has got to get bombarded by Twitter mentions so for him to take the time to respond is just too cool.

I hope you can all tell I'm in exceptionally good spirits and ready to continue this fight. I also am working on getting a really exciting project off the ground and hope to have more details later this week.

Train hard everyone. Animo!

Why are we whispering?

Cancer. There I said it. This seems to be one of the most powerful words in the English language. It can bring a person to their knees and makes others quake around them. It's this power that makes people not want to talk about it but that's the entire problem. We need to be able to openly talk about one of the biggest problems facing our society.

When I received my diagnosis I felt like the only person in the entire world facing this battle. But the more I talked to people and the more I got them to open up I found out just how many people I knew that had fought this awful disease and won. This was hugely important for me, it gave me hope. 

I implore you. If you know someone that is facing cancer please talk to them. I'm still shocked every time I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone close to me and they feel the need to whisper every time they say "cancer." I'm not contagious, you can't activate it by saying its name three times, it's just something I'm dealing with. 

The best thing that's happened to me was a local policeman that faced stage 3 colon cancer last year reached out to me. He had a couple of phone conversations with me and then had me over to his home to talk about what I can expect and what I should do to stay sane and rested. It's one thing to have your friends lend you their support, but it's an entirely different thing for someone who had actually gone through treatment to sit with you and talk. I left Dean's house feeling empowered and even excited to start chemotherapy.

Please, all of you, take away the power of the word cancer by talking openly about it and not using hushed voices. And survivors, please share your story of hope and reach out to someone else that will benefit endlessly from your kindness. 

This blog was heavy but I think it's important for everyone to hear this. But here's a joke to lighten the mood:

A man walks into a psychologist's office wearing shorts made of nothing but Saran Wrap. The psychologist looked up from his desk and said, "well, I can clearly see your nuts!" Wocka wocka.

And it begins

So I have begun chemo and with it the true fight against cancer. On December 19th I had a port put in. This was actually a very quick procedure but when the nurse started to describe it to me I told her she could just skip to the part where I sign off on permission.

This port means that I don't have to get poked constantly to get my chemo drugs put in and makes it a very simple procedure. The surgery itself was only about 8 minutes and the doctor was very good and actually quite hilarious. I was tented off so that only my neck and right chest were exposed and they let me wear my headphones with my music on low so that they could still talk to me. 

A small (about 1 1/2 inch) incision is made and a triangular bubble was inserted above my nipple. Then a catheter (tube) was fed up to my neck where another incision was made and it was inserted into my jugular vein. Then I'm closed up and sent to recovery for a couple of hours. This was all done just with local freezing. The nurse asked if I wanted some numbing and I said yes so she leaned down to my ear and went "num num num num." (not really but that would have been awesome). The nurses were just awesome and after my surgery took some pictures for me.

After looking at the photos I noted a major mistake in my photo prep. When wearing yoga pants I need to hike them up and not slouch because the resulting muffin top is just too much.

The nurses were also smart and told me to take a sympathy photo just in case I needed it later. 

This needed to heal before anything else could be done but in that time I received a package that meant a great deal to me. It was from Fireman Rob (@teamfiremanrob). Rob is a firefighter and USAF vet from Wisconsin that competes in Ironman triathlons. However, to raise money for ailing firefighters Rob does the marathon portion of Ironmam in full bunker gear with helmet and Airpac. Seeing Rob out on the course in all that gear is truly inspiring and I've lived chatting with him a little the few times we've shared a course. After my diagnosis I messaged Rob on Twitter and told him how inspiring I found him. He responded by sending me a running hat from his charity. But the other item in the package brought Kim and I to tears. It was Rob's race bib from Kona (Ironman World Championship 2012) with a note on the back telling me to stay strong and that I'd earn my own. Triathletes will understand that this is a treasured item and so to give it to someone is really an incredible gesture. I framed it and went to Michael's craft store and put ánimo on the front. Thank you so much Rob.

On December 30th we got to meet with Dr. Michael Sawyer. He's an incredibly nice man but what was most impressive was his astounding knowledge. He sat with Kim and I for an hour and a half and although the prognosis is not much different he gave us some hope. He said no one can predict when any of us will go and that I shouldn't discount my physical fitness. He wants me to continue training as much as I can as, in his words, "we have no idea why Lance Armstrong is still alive." We asked about me planning to complete an Ironman in August. His response? "Go for it!" Awesome. Additionally, he also mentioned that there are drugs in the works that may be incredibly successful in the future. So although I was hoping he would sit us down and apologize because they were wrong and, in fact, I didn't have cancer I am very happy in his care. As we left he told me I would be starting chemo the next morning at 8:15am. This was great as I didn't have much time to fret, although I didn't sleep well.

They warned us to not arrive early as the doors don't open until 8:15 and they weren't kidding. A group of us huddled in the entry way to the room and at exactly 8:15 the doors opened up and we shuffled in. I was escorted to my chair and my nurse Paige asked if I had a port. I told her I did and this made her very happy as it is very easy to hook me up, and she was right. Rather than a standard needle the drugs are given through a device that can best be described as a power plug with a single pointy prong. This prong is pushed through the skin and into the bubble. That's it. 

The nurse was awesome and made me very comfortable. She explained all of the possible side effects and what to watch out for and fortunately I only experienced one of the very minor ones. My head and hands began to sweat excessively so I was given a shot of Atropine and it fixed itself up. As the nurse promised chemo was actually quite underwhelming. You sit in a chair for 3 hours and then you leave. That's it. 

Well, that's not totally it. For the next 46 hours I get to wear a very functional yet stylish fanny pack with a bottle of chemotherapy that pumps into me at a slow rate for the next 2 days. It's a bit of a hassle, but you know what REALLY sucks? Dying sooner.

I truly hope everyone has an amazing 2015 filled with incredible experiences and wonderful memories. You only get one shot and none of us know how long it will be. Ánimo