Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Today I'm Celebrating "Cancer Clear" of Melanoma 5 Year Mark

So pleased to report today's oncology report that I continue cancer clear after 5 years from diagnosis of melanoma. Hooray!

My oncologist told me today that he hopes never to have to see me again. No more semi-annual chest x-rays or blood draws and labs. He's very pleased for me. So am I.

How grateful I am that I recognized my increased risk factors for melanoma, and asked my personal physician at an annual physical about a suspicious mole inside my left knee area, starting a very quick process from diagnosis to surgery to keep the melanoma from developing into deadly consequences.

But, because I've once been diagnosed with melanoma, I continue to be 10x more at risk of another melanoma than if I'd never been diagnosed.

So, while continuing to be careful of excessive sun exposure, monitoring signs of skin mole changes, seeing my dermatologist annually, I proceed hopeful of staying cancer clear for years to come.

Melanoma risk management reduction has meant a few changes in my habits in recent years that increase my hope to keep dancing happily for years to come, including:
1. eliminating alcohol
2. increasing and varying my aerobic exercises and training
3. resulting in reduced adiposity - down 20 lbs
4. resulting in significant reduction of blood pressure to healthful levels
5. taken together improving my mental health and hopes for more successful aging
Year-by-year I do look forward to maintaining good health/fitness and happiness.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Today - January 23, 2017 - I'm Three Years Melanoma Cancer Clear

Today, January 23, 2017 is the third anniversary of my surgery that left me "Cancer Clear" of melanoma.
Melanoma ignored, or untreated in a timely way, is deadly. Untreated melanoma most often becomes deadly lung cancer or brain cancer.

I'm very pleased that:
1. I suspected that a tiny mole inside my left knee area might be melanoma
2. I asked my physician's opinion who proceeded promptly performed a biopsy of the mole and surrounding tissues
3. Within a week heard the report, "Bad news is, you have melanoma; good news, you/we got it early at stage 1A, requiring surgery, but no chemo or radiation.
4. Receiving a referral for wide-excision surgery to assure removal of all cancer cells in the area inside my left knee area.
5. I've been seeing my oncologist for blood tests and chest x-rays, and my dermatologist, every six months to monitor my increased risk of melanoma or other cancers recurrence.
6. No signs of melanoma or other cancer recurrence have been found.
7. My every six months of check-ups and tests will continue for two more years, at which time I'll get those check-ups less frequently.

I'm so thankful for my cancer risks awareness, prompt medical attention that I sought and received, and continued good reports for the first three years of being cancer-clear.

Whew!

I'm quite aware that my experience with melanoma was a deadly close call, and I have happy "…miles to go before I sleep".

My continuing health/fitness message to all:
A. Fit does not mean healthy.
B. May we learn our individual health risks for serious, deadly diseases.
C. May we monitor those health risks, i.e. blood pressure, etc.
D. May we promptly seek medical intervention whenever we suspect a significant health problem.
E. Proceed daily to maintain optimal fitness, and thank all our medical caregivers at every turn.
F. "Dance whenever we have the chance."


Tuesday, January 28, 2014

“I am cancer clear”! A Melanoma Clear Report for Coach Gary Westlund

I may have canceled my travels to Maui in January 2014, but with lots of help I sent Melanoma packing from here in Minnesota. (I will return to Hawaii soon enough…who wants to join me? Go Hawaii…whenever you can!)
Yesterday, January 27, I celebrated my 11th anniversary of my first Total Hip Replacement. Today I'm celebrating being cancer clear.
This morning, Tuesday January 28, I heard “clear margins – cancer clear”. Whew!
Because:
1. I’ve been aware of my genetic and sunburns-as-a-youth history increased risks for melanoma.
2. Been monitoring subtle changes in a mole on my left thigh in recent months.
3. Scheduled a physical where I asked my physician/friend to look closely at the mole.
4. Followed his advice to get a biopsy of the mole.
5. Acted quickly following the melanoma diagnosis in seeing other specialists to set up a plan for treating this cancer.
6. Promptly scheduled a surgery to clear all cancer cells form the area.
7. Invited friends to actively encourage me in all of the above...
I am within three weeks of my annual physical gone from having cancer to having no sign of that cancer.
Thanks to all my many highly professional and kind caregivers, encouraging and prayerful friends, and my surgery day driver, Sara Rapp.
I can say, “I am cancer clear”!
It is a relief to know this round of therapies is complete. I will be having semi-annual oncology and dermatology check-ups of my blood, lungs and skin.
Now my mind may return to focusing on other matters, other challenges, and other people needing my services.
For example: Two days ago I received a call from my former wife, and good friend, Laura.
She fell and broke her right wrist, the same wrist that Laura had surgery on several years ago due to an injury. She fell due to snow-camouflaged ice in her driveway. Arrrgggghhhhh.
So, these three consecutive days I’ve served Laura as her “right hand man”, helping with things a person without the use of one hand need, as well as getting her to her doctoring appointments.
Tomorrow she will see her wrist specialist for a splint or cast.
This is a significant challenge for right-handed Laura, an illustrator of children’s books in the midst of projects and publishing deadlines.
So, I’ll repeat: Life has challenges.
But, we each have resources, internal and external resources, to meet those challenges with courage, strength, and wisdom.
So, let’s remember: Stay strong, be smart, no fear, learn from one another’s challenges, marshal all our human resources with thanksgiving, follow doctors’ orders promptly, and always ready to help one another as we can.

To life! Le chayim!
Below is my three week journey from suspicion of melanoma to being cancer clear:
14.1.2 Thursday AM – Physical by Dr Roberts
14.1.7 Tuesday AM – Biopsy surgery of mole on leg by Dr Roberts
14.1.9-13 Thursday to Monday attending CC Team to Disney World Marathon
14.1.13 Monday AM - Phone conversation with Dr Roberts to hear diagnosis: Melanoma
14.1.15 Oncologist consultation with Dr Anderson
14.1.20 Surgery consultation with Dr Ogren
14.1.23 Wide excision surgery to remove any remaining melanoma cells
14.1.28 Pathology report: Cancer clear – surgically removed tissue had clear margins
14.2.6 Surgical stitches to be removed

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Melanoma Challenge for Coach Gary Westlund

Life has challenges. The more years we enjoy, the more challenges we will encounter.

As my years advanced I discovered that I had degenerative joint disease and arthritis. I wasn’t born with perfect joints, and in my late-40s discovered I would need to have my hip joints replaced. 

Now, in my early 60s, I’ve discovered that I have a cancer challenge, too. Melanoma.
(Above photo by Andy Liss of me with his dad, George Liss, who was coincidentally wearing our Charities Challenge - Challenge Cancer 5k shirt (http://www.charitieschallenge.org/html/challenge_cancer_5k.html) the day we departed Disney World, last Monday, January 13. This was one hour after I received by phone call from my doctor my melanoma diagnosis. I'll always remember that call! George and Andy heard my report after this photo. They're great guys, good friends, who are among the first to encourage me in my melanoma challenge. Thanks Liss-Men!)

I’ll be OK, because I know how to live well beyond cancer.

I will have ongoing cancer management responsibilities.

Yesterday I met with my oncologist, a fine doctor, who told me the following:
  1. Mine is a stage 1A melanoma (I caught it early, sought prompt medical intervention, including a biopsy of a mole on my leg last week, just days after my annual physical exam.)
  2. Monday, January 20, I will see a surgeon to arrange for more surgery very soon that will go well beyond the biopsied area in order to assure that all cancer cells have been surgically removed. No further cancer therapies are ordered.
  3. I will have a 90% chance of no recurrence of melanoma in the next 10 years.
  4. I will see a dermatologist twice a year for exams and screenings.
  5. I will continue to see the oncologist for blood screenings and chest x-rays (melanomas have a tendency to metastasize to lung cancers).

Along my melanoma management way I also want to encourage others to:
  1. Know your own and loved ones’ risk factors for cancers, melanoma in particular.
  2. Know how to reduce cancers risk factors.
  3. Know and recognizing early signs of cancer, melanoma in particular.
  4. Know and practice RxExercise – Exercise as Medicine – as part of cancer therapies management and recovery.
  5. Confidently know how to “Live well beyond cancer”.

For me, melanoma is not altogether a surprise diagnosis as I’ve known my risk factors: Blue eyes and light skin of Scandinavian genes, and repeated sunburns as a stupid kid without adequate adult understanding and supervision of sunburn risks to a young person.

Who used sunscreen or covered up against excessive sun exposure in the 1950s to 1960s? I didn’t.

I’ve also been monitoring a mole on the inside of my left knee area for a few years.

That mole has been slowly changing in appearance, alerting me to its nature perhaps being cancerous. Indeed it was.

(Notice how apparently insignificant a mole may appear, unless one has been careful to watch for observed changes in size, color(s), ragged edge, etc. Ignored and left untreated, this mole would eventually have become much more demanding of more medical care therapies, or even premature death.)

At my annual physical I called my physicians attention to that small mole. He listened to my report of its changing appearance over recent years, looked at it closely, and concluded it had just enough of a suspicious appearance to require a surgical biopsy of the area which he completed four days later.

That 3cm long oval biopsy sample around the mole was taken, and the incision stitched up, two days before I departed home in happy support of several friends who were going to run the Disney World Marathon.

No reason to mention this to these Disney-bound friends before I knew the pathology report.

That pathology report I received by phone from my good doctor on Monday morning while standing on queue to check my luggage at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort for departure from DW back to Minnesota. Yep. Diagnosis: Melanoma.

A cancer-curious coincidence of my times at Coronado Springs Resort at this early-January time for attending others’ running of the Disney World Marathon:

It was there at Coronado Springs in Disney World following our team’s completion of the DW Marathon that my dear friend and fellow marathon coach, Jeanne DeMartino, took me aside and quietly asked my opinion about a lump just below her collar bone. Arrrgghhhh! I’m not a physician, but knowing how Jeanne had lost her mom to breast cancer and that significant lump that had too quickly developed, my heart instantly broke. She had an appointment with her physician in the days following our return to MN. Within seven weeks Jeanne began her cancer-clearing therapies.

Best news: Jeanne was so strong going into those challenging cancer therapies, continued to be strong, and actively engaged in her cancer management, that she’s now already lived more than twice as long beyond her mom’s survival beyond her cancer diagnosis. Well done, Jeanne!

Good news for all of us who get a cancer diagnosis: Most cancers are now considered chronic diseases, like a diabetes diagnosis, and we each will live many years beyond these challenging diagnoses.

Coach Jeanne is doing exceedingly well and continuing to serve others in many active ways.

She’s my model of successful cancer management and living well beyond cancer.

I will do well, too, and continue to actively, happily serve others’ health/fitness with RxExercise via Charities Challenge events, programs and traveling teams of Exercise-as-Medicine Ambassadors (http://www.charitieschallenge.org/html/train_-n-_travel.html).

Eleven years ago I had my first total hip replacement, followed three years later with the second total hip replacement. Why? Diagnosis: Congenital hip dysplasia that with the passing of about 47 years resulted in unavoidable degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the hip joints. I was born with malformed hip joints that would only last about 50 years.

Two years ago I learned my achy feet were due to congenitally malformed bones in my feet. Diagnosis: DJD of the metatarsal and carpal joints. This time the condition is inoperable, but manageable for a while with orthotics and metatarsal pads. Imagine: My feet may be perpetually achy, and progressively painful, but for now I can still work while moving about for most of a day.

I’m a lucky guy, a very fortunate fellow; I can still actively work at the health/fitness services I love to provide to others. So, I have a little discomfort in exchange for ongoing great satisfactions in health/fitness services to others.

Now at the beginning of this new year, 2014, presents me with this new challenge: Melanoma.
Yep. Life has challenges. I’ve seen and attended to so, so many others, like Coach Jeanne D, successfully negotiate a variety of health challenges. Brilliant!

I’ve had a few of my own challenges. I’ll have more in the years to come. I’m ready for this melanoma challenge.

Thanks for your prayers, encouragement, and especially for any steps alongside that you may share with me along our way as I continue to train for more road races.

Go me! Go you! Go us!

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Coming American GovernmentCare Crisis & How to Stay Happily Healthy

March 22, 2010
The Coming American GovernmentCare Crisis & How to Stay Happily Healthy (Despite the Growing Government Carelessness for Medical Care).

This morning many Americans are celebrating the US House of Representatives passing a sweeping new Health Care Bill, nearly 3000 unread pages in length, increasing the role of the Federal Government in our US Medical Care industry.

And, this morning many more Americans awoke to worries that our medical care system just took a leftward turn toward troubles of the kind already well known to Canadians and British citizens.

So, what to think? What to do?

The NYTimes even allows for clearer eyed analysis of the coming GovernmentCare crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html

But, the coming medical care crisis is not just about the math, but really about simple economics, i.e. supply/demand determine prices of any product or service and in the extreme determine predictable surpluses or shortages.

What GovernmentCare will cause, always causes everywhere, is shortages of care and higher prices.

Worst of all with government, any government, presuming to "operate" medical care delivery is not merely increasing costs and therefore prices, but creating inevitable, predictable shortages of supply relative to increasing demand for medical services, without a normal private economic solution to shortages which is increasing supply.

Governments do not, cannot, increase supplies of any product or service like the private sector does because government is not in business to produce anything but rather to govern producers. (Compare increasing government spending on higher education over the last 40 years and begin to see why higher ed costs have run far ahead of all other sectors of the US economy. It may be counter-intuitive, but the formula is simply clear: Increasing government spending in any market sector will drive up the costs for goods/services in that sector.)

So get ready for:
1. Increasing queues and waiting times for medical care
2. Discovering that services are unavailable altogether (we're losing 10,000 MD's from practice per year; 35,000 leave practice and we see graduating from Med schools 25,000, just as our Boomers are entering their most medically demanding years. Good luck.)
3. Learning more of us will not qualify for medical procedures (of all 3rd party payers, government payers (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc.) declines more claims for medical care more frequently than do private insurance companies.
4. Decline in general health of Americans
5. More literal suffering, pain, prescriptions for narcotics rather than pain-relieving costlier therapies, and more premature death.

What to do?
Personally, I continue to do all I can at age 59 to stay in control of my own health care by:
1. Staying as strong and physically active as I can with RxExercise, thereby reducing my needs for medical care and avoiding those lengthening medical queues. (For more about the RxExerciseChallenge go to http://rxexercisechallenge.blogspot.com/)

2. Maximizing my own Medical Savings Account (before the nearing time when the Socialists in government fulfill one of their promises to make MSAs and HSAs illegal), and plan on paying myself for all my medical care exclusive of growing government limitations on access.

3. Regularly thanking my medical caregivers for staying in practice as long as they can, and being the best, engaged, active primary partner in all my medical care.

Best wishes all. Life is good, and health makes life richer. Le chayim! To life!