Real Autumn

As part of my treatment, every six months or so, I see a doctor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.  Dr. Richardson is a renowned myeloma expert who is up to date on all the latest research and treatment options.  We view Dr. Rischardson as our "offensive coordinator" and we work with him to develop the game plan for treatment and then we execute that game plan in Orlando.  Jen and I just got back to Orlando after visiting with Dr. Richardson in Boston on Tuesday.  We talked about some minor tweaks to my current treatment plan and also talked about bigger next steps if/when they are needed. 

The best part about being in Boston was the weather.  Living in Florida, it's easy to forget that there are four seasons in the year.  It's not like the palm trees change color in Autumn.  So, it was a refreshing change to walk around the city in mid-60 degree weather and see the trees in various shades of yellow, orange and red.  We enjoyed our taste of "real Autumn", but also are happy to know we won't have to deal with "real Winter" and the snow, ice and freezing weather that are just around the corner for New England.

In this week's non-medical news:

-  Our house could host Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights.  Jen loves Halloween and, once again, has our house decorated to the hilt.  Aaron and Shannon are scared to venture out on our front porch at night because of all the scary sights and sounds that have been rigged up.  I'm sure we'll scare our fair share of trick or treaters next week.

-  People "up North" love to wear pro football jerseys.  It doesn't matter if your male or female, apparently a football jersey is a fashion statement.  On the flight to Boston, we saw plenty of Tom Brady, Wes Welker, and Rob Gronkowski wannabes.  After we landed, we went to a bar near our hotel to watch the Patriots game and half the patrons were decked out in jerseys.  It was fun, but different, to be in an atmosphere where the NFL is king and nobody pays attention to college football.

-  Speaking of college football, the Gators have their 3rd huge game in a row this weekend...taking on Georgia in "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" in Jacksonville.  We had a bit of luck last weekend when South Carolina decided to turn the ball over multiple times.  That said, our defense looks great and hopefully our offense has enough to beat the Bulldogs.

That's it for now.  Until next time, I hope everyone enjoys some time with family & friends

You Gotta Love Rest Weeks!

It was nice to have a rest week this week.  Nobody jabbing me for chemo, no blood or platelet transfusions, it was almost...normal.  I only had one check-in appointment with my oncologist, an appointment with an ENT doctor, and a bone marrow biopsy.  A very light medical week for me!  During the bone marrow biopsy, they removed a sample of bone marrow from my pelvis and measured the amount of myeloma cells inside.  We can compare the results to my last bone marrow biopsy to see if the myeloma cells are increasing or decreasing (hopefully, it's the latter).  We decided to do this procedure ahead of my visit to Boston the week of Oct 22nd where I'll be checking in with my doctor at Dana Farber hospital.  He is my "offensive coordinator" and Jen and I set up the game plan of my treatment with him and then execute that treatment plan in Orlando.

In a couple of non-medical notes:

- Due to a comment received last week, I updated the photo at the top of the blog.

- It was great to see my cousin Nicole, who was down from Massachussets, and her family at my brother's house yesterday.  They got a bit of a taste of Saturday in the South during college football season as the Gator game was on throughout our visit.

- The Gators played their typical close game against Vanderbilt, but squeaked out another (somewhat ugly) victory.  A fired up South Carolina team will be coming to The Swamp this coming weekend after losing to LSU.  I hope we don't let our new #3 ranking (AP Poll) or the fact that ESPN's Game Day will be broadcasting from Gainesville, get to our heads.  We're definitely over-rated at #3, but we can beat the Gamecocks if we play well.

-  A huge shout out to my friend Craig Powers who completed the legendary Ironman Hawaii triathlon yesterday. Not only did he swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112 miles, and then finish his day off by running a full 26.2 mile marathon...he did it all while battling 30-40 mile winds and heat & humidity on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Not bad for a Buckeye!  While racing, Craig wore the logo of the Multiple Myeloman Research Foundation and raised awareness for the fight to cure myeloma.  CP...you da man!!

-  See photo below for a pretty sweet bike that Craig saw a fellow competitor riding in Hawaii.  In a word...classy!

I hope everyone has a great week with their family and friends...more to come next week.

Another Good Week

Good news...another fairly uneventful medical week passed.  I did have to get a blood transfusion on Friday night (unfortunately, the hospital is not a great place for happy hour), but I made it through the first two weeks of another chemo cycle and am looking forward to a week of rest.  I still feel a little worn down, so I have a sneaking suspicion that I may need to get some additional platelets this week.  We'll see what's to come.

A special shout out to Barbara Barati who provided one of the units of blood that I received in my transfusion.  Even though I have a feeling it was Garnet-colored Seminole blood, it still helped a ton.  If anyone else in the Orlando area wants to donate blood directly for my benefit, you can contact Jennifer at 407.361.9288 or jbeaird@cfl.rr.com and she can give you the details.

In this week's non-medical news:

-  My cousin Nicole and her family will be in town from Massachusetts and I'm looking forward to spending some time with them this weekend.

-  The Gators notched their first big win in a few years as they took down LSU at The Swamp on Saturday.  Great to see them off to an undefeated start although I fear they're now over-rated at #4 in the AP poll.

-  Even though I don't root against FSU until the play UF...I wasn't sad to see them go down to The Wolfpack.

-  I wonder how many more people would watch the baseball playoffs if they happened before football season started.  Do we really want to watch baseball in the snow in Detroit?

-  Happy early birthday to Nana (aka Sue Brown) who celebrates another year on Tue the 9th.

-  Shannon made her debut in the St. James children's choir at 9:00 Mass this morning.  She had a great time...see photo.


That's it for this week.  Have a great week and thanks for all the continued prayers and support.

Weekly Update

It definitely feels good to keep typing "Weekly Update" as the header for each blog post.  Although boring, I much prefer it to "Back in the Hospital" or "Oh Sh*t".

Last week was the first week of a new chemo cycle.  Week one is the tougher of the two weeks of each cycle's treatment because day 4 falls in week one (not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I get chemo on Day 1, Day 4, Day 8 and Day 11 of each 21-day cycle).  Day 4 is the one day each cycle that I get my heaviest chemo drug, Doxil (aka Doxorubicin).  I'm usually pretty wiped out the day I get Doxil and the following day.  Kinda funny that the medicine itself is a non-threatening pink color and seems relatively harmless as it flows out of the IV bag.  Perhaps they tint it pink on purpose because its original purpose was to fight ovarian cancer and it was only later discovered to be effective against multiple myeloma.  These are the kinds of things you think about when you're bored in the chemo room.  ANYWAY...I'm looking forward to knocking out my last 2 treatments of the cycle this week and getting to a rest week next week.

Meanwhile, in more entertaining news:

-  The Beaird family had a great time at Universal last week. Harry Potter World was a lot of fun...we drank butter beer (I like to call it cream soda on steroids...and that's a good thing) and bought magic wands.  We also really enjoyed Jurassic Park...especially Shannon who attempted to set a record for most rides in one day on the Pteranodon Flyers.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and that allowed us to get into the park an hour ahead of the regular crowd...a strategy that worked very well for us.  It also worked well for Universal as we decided to upgrade to annual passes.  How do the theme parks continue to make us spend money?!?!  I'm convinced they pump medium-grade narcotics into the air to disorient us while making us happy and freeing us of our inhibitions.  Pixie dust my rump...it's a gaseous form of cocaine!

-  Speaking of the Hard Rock hotel, it just so happened that there was a concert held in the hotel lobby on Thursday night while we were there.  Wait for it....Bret Michaels (former lead singer of Poison).  Yes, ladies, he's still flashig those dreamy blue eyes (or contact lenses).  We popped in for some of the sound check and even a small bit of the concert...it was pretty cool.  However, it was unbelievable how many 50+ year old women AND MEN!! there were with huge teased hair and tight 80's jeans.  Who are these people?  Where are they when the sun is shining?  Do they have jobs?  Who told them it was acceptable to be seen in public that way?  It was bad enough in the 80's when my high school peers all dressed that way...I certainly don't need to see people with wrinkles looking like that.

-  Kona, our new puppy, continues to provide us with much joy.  That said, if anyone has access to a pill that magically housebreaks puppies, I'm willing to pay a large sum of money.  Name your price.

-  Big day in Gainesville this coming Saturday...LSU comes to town at 3:30.  I think all reasonable Gator fans (some would say that there are no reasonable Gator fans...I'm looking at you Barati family) are more optimistic about this year's team than last year's team.  Count me in that group and count me as someone who thinks we have a good chance to beat LSU this year.  It will come down to the trenches though.  Our offensive line needs to let our running game succeed and give our young QB time to throw.  Our defensive line needs to make sure LSU's offense gets neither of those things.

If you managed to stay awake long enough to make it this far, thanks for reading.  Thanks also for the continued prayers and support...it is very much felt and appreciated.  Let's hope next week's blog post has the same boring title.

Weekly Update

It was a good week away from chemo.  My counts held up pretty well and I didn't need any transfusions of whole blood.  I only had to get 1 bag of platelets (down from 2 bags last week).  All in all, I can't complain.  Chemo starts up again this wek with infusions on Tuesday and Friday.

In non-medical news, there were a few highlights:

-  Our dog search has ended successfully.  See photo below of Kona, our two-and-a-half-month old golden retriever mix that we adopted from a local rescue organization.  She is a sweetie and we're not sure what else besides golden she has in her to make her a "mix".  I guess time will tell.  We'll be glad when she's housebroken.

-  Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes for my stepmother, Kathy.  She is now back home after her knee surgery and doing well.

-  The Gators are 4-0 with a bye week before taking on LSU at The Swamp.  We'll see what the Gators are made of on Oct 6.  Meanwhile, FSU looks like they might be the real deal this year.

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.  A special thanks to everyone who brought us food.  There are some amazing cooks in our circle of friends and we really enjoyed all the variety of great meals.

I'll have more to report next week including a recap of our visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Pottter at Universal Studios.

Weekly Update

Another week and another week outside of the hospital...yippee!!  I finished up my chemo cyle yesterday and am looking forward to an upcoming rest week with no chemo.  I had to get a couple of bags of platelets during the week, but didn't need to get any blood transfused.  My counts are still pretty low, so I may need to get some more blood during the off week...we'll see how things progress.  All in all...good news on the medical front.

In this week's other headlines:

-  A big shout out to my relatives in Massachussetts who participated in the Race for Research in support of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.  See the photo of the members of the Fortney, Tambascio, Duplessis, Walker and Burns clans who braved rainy weather and raised over $1,600 for Myeloma reseach.  Thanks to you all!!

-  My Dad's household is attempting to set a knee surgery world record.  My Dad had both his knees replaced this summer and his wife, Kathy, went under the knife on Thursday.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Kathy as she begins recovery and rehab.

-  Speaking of world records, I'm writing this at halftime of the Florida vs Tennessee football game as the Gators attempt to set a new record for pass interference penalties.

-  The Beairds are officially in the market for a dog.  We've spent a lot of time searching Orlando-area rescue organizations, SPCA, etc for a nice lab mix or retriever mix (or something similar), but have come up empty so far.  If you know of a nice dog looking for a good home...let us know.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support and prayers.  Enjoy your time with family and friends.

A Couple of Updates

It has been a week since I last posted, and although there are no monumental events to share, I thought I would give everyone a recap of some things that have happened over the last 7 days.

On the medical front, on Tuesday, I started another cycle of chemo.  This means that I'll visit the docotor's office four times over 14 days for infusions of several different drugs.  I'll then go for 7 days with no treatment and that will conclude the 21-day cycle of treatment.  The next 21-day cycle will start at the end of my 7-day rest period.  My blood counts are still pretty low, so I got a blood transfusion yesterday (2 bags of whole blood and 1 bag of platelets) to boost those levels back up (don't forget to donate blood and platelets if you can...people actually use them!).  This pattern of chemo followed by transfusion might continue for awhile until the chemo takes hold and knocks back the myeloma far enough to allow my counts to rise.  The photo below shows me at the end of a bag of blood...you can see that the bag on the rack  looks pink instead of red as it gets to the end.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, here are some other things that happened this past week:

My smart, beautiful and all-around awesome wife celebrated a birthday.  You'll have to ask her how old she is...I'm not dumb enough to spill that information.

The Gators (once again) looked shaky in their season opener against Bowling Green.  This Saturday they travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M.  They'll have to play a lot better to win this week.

I shaved off my beard.  It seems like a shame since it took 3 weeks to grow it out, but the novelty had worn off.  No way was I going to take the time and effort to keep it trimmed.  Plus, it was getting harder and harder to get any kisses from Jen and Shannon.  For the record, Aaron was the only who noticed that I had shaved.

That's it for now.  As always, thanks to everyone for your prayers, your visits, your gifts, your food and all of your support (thanks Uncle Jim for helping out during the transfusion).  I can't tell you how much easier it is to deal with all of this with such a great group of family and friends.  I feel extremely blessed to be so lucky.