Today (23 Aug) marked my first treatment on the back half of the treatment period; 16 of 30 zaps and 22 of 42 drug treatments.

I’m three weeks in and the side effects are, in effect:

I’ve lost all the hair where they are zapping me (I look like a Skekses from the movie “The Dark Crystal” for you other “Children of the ’80s).

Daily headaches from the brain swelling if I don’t stay on schedule with my morphine.

Steroids to stem brain swelling make me irritated all the time and are also helping me put on weight in my torso and face…oncologists aren’t concerned…they’d rather I gain than lose weight.

I look sunburned all the time and am peeling. BTW, pure aloe from Whole Foods that I have to smear on my skin smells like poop…I didn’t know that…the other stuff you buy at the drug store for a real sunburn has nice fragrances added.

So I’m a heavy, irritable, hairless vulture looking dude that smells like doo-doo most of the time.

I still have weakness in my left side, but am doing normal and aquatic physical therapy 4 times per week. The pool is great since with the weakness my balance isn’t what it was; I can only stand on my left foot for about 15 seconds until I fall over. It is frustrating because I always had great balance, hence being a running back and the old nickname “WeebleWobble” because no matter how loaded or even after getting hit by a New Orleans cab, I wouldn’t fall down.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining… The fact that I am getting a chance to get treatment is amazing and wonderful in and of itself, when it could have gone so far before diagnosis that I was past the point of treatment. I met a gentlemen in the elevator two days ago, and he had the same scar as I have; I jokingly said, “Looks like Neurosurgery got their hands on you, too.” He said, “Yeah, twice.” I asked him what he had. He replied “Glioblastoma Multifome” (known as GBM) and asked about mine, to which I meekishly replied “Inflitrative Astrocytoma,” and felt like I’d put both of my size 11s in my cakehole. See, my tumor is the “Scream” of horror movies; there are some scary parts, but there is still some fun and laughs in there. A GBM is “The Exorcist.”

Which leads me to the silver linings, which is really just another term for blessings, but sometimes you have to look hard to find them…don’t ever stop looking:

I am getting solid treatment; two years ago this drug treatment regimen wasn’t being used. The regimen has been shown to work for Grade 4 tumors, so should be very effective.

They took just enough brain so that I can still walk, talk, hug, play with my boys.

I’ve got fantastic family and friends that have been providing so much support I’ve been able to be in D.C. by myself to allow my family to return to normalcy…and have reconnected with many friends with whom I’d lost touch.

While I may not get to go back to flying, for awhile there I was “that guy” where my job was doing what I love to do.

We found this tumor before it gave me a Grand Mal seizure that left me completely incapacitated.

This could have happened while I was at the controls, in a descent below 500′, on night vision goggles, not leaving enough time for a copilot to notice before I augered in with 30 or 40 of our nations finest on board…that one gives me bad dreams sometimes…I kid you not.

I’ve got a wife that loves me even though I’m a heavy, irritable, hairless vulture that smells like doo-doo.

After all those deployments to the sandbox, I’ve been able to catch up on my “Gilmore Girls” episodes (I’m so worried about Rory being off at college!)

I truly believe in a greater power for all the silver linings.

One thing I want to remind y’all of is that I’m here daily with all these 18, 19 and 20 year old kids that are coming back from the desert sans limbs …when the news reports “wounded” soldiers after a bombing, they don’t usually mean bruises and scratches…explosions do awful things to our soldiers. It is getting so bad that, despite the BRAC that will close the Walter Reed Army Medical Center ‘installation’ by 2011, they are currently building a 30,000 square foot Army Amputee Patient Care Center. I’ve never been much of a chauvinist, but one of the strange and unsettling things is that I’m seeing more and more young women with their arms and legs blown off. Please, no matter your politics, when you see one of our Army or Marine soldiers, remember that they have volunteered to serve all of us, and that they typically leave their families for a year or more when they go to the desert, and have a VERY good chance of not coming back at all or of not coming back whole…when you see them, don’t be afraid to praise them…they deserve it.

All my love and respect…