no SCANdal here - I am clean (updated)

Well... the PET scan results are out ... This was the second PET after treatment got over ... An unassuming pre-printed report says that things are fine

Am posting some of the PET Scan pictures for the curious ones who have never seen such images

Here's the latest update from my Hematologist Dr Auro Viswabandya

I had a loook at PET scan and it appears absolutely fine.

Your blood reports are normal and no intervention is required at present.

You can definitely get prepared for half marathon run in November 2008 ! Absolutely no problem.

For some people, the weakness / tiredness remains for a longer time post chemo and radiotherapy. Try to ignore that and get back to your normal schedule. Should be alright.

It will be better to have a repeat PET after 6 months and if everything is fine, then the next PET can be after 1 year.

Scan done

Monday morning I got a PET Scan done. This is the second scan after treatment got over. The previous scan (done in Sep 07) had come out clean. If this one comes clean, then there are good chances that my blood cancer will not come back again.

Results will be out tomorrow.

One year's up

It's been exactly one year since the day I started chemo therapy

Rahim shows the bright part of it -

रहिमन विपदा हू भली जो थोडे दिन होय |
हित अनहित इह जगत में, जान पड़े सब कोय ||

Says Rahim these troubles are good, though if of a limited size
they teach you good from the bad, and make you worldly wise

Clear Scan

- The results are out ...

Which results ??? - Well the results of PET Scan done 3 months after treatment

What were they trying to find out ??? - If there are any signs of cancer cells left in my body

What did they find ??? - Nothing ... it was a Clear Scan

What does it mean ??? - Means that the treatment seems to have worked, the cancerous cells are gone, the residual mass of dead tissue is gone ... and cancer has not returned in the last 3 months

Wow seems good ... so you off the hook ??? - Sort of ... will have to send the report to my doctor and he will decide if this is "remission" ... Then will have to get a few quarterly PET scans done ... to see if the disease is relapsing

So you live life QSQT ??? - Yes I will ... but who doesn't

What are the chances now ??? - Pretty good ... If the cancer does not return in the next year or two there are good chances that it never will

Situation seems good ... you held up will ... Good Show :-) - Thank you

Delayed Plan, Round Trips and a Marriage

Those who have read the earlier post know about my mission-remission plan. In the plan I wanted to wait for normal blood counts before training to first regain and then maintain stamina.

Like all good plans mission-remission slipped from the very beginning - My blood counts refused to hit normal levels - which meant that the plan stood delayed ...

But all was not bad... there was a silver lining ... etc etc ... blood counts actually got stuck after creeping near 90% of normal values ... Being a Mechanical engineer I could easily declare the blood counts as normal ...You see its very characteristic of Mech engineers ... we don't shy away from happily rounding off pi as 3 and the value of acceleration due to gravity 'g' as 10 ... for the illiterate - pi is actually 22/7 which comes out to be around 3.14... 'g' varies from location to location but conventional students like to believe that it is 9.8 m/secsquared ... Mech engineers can do all the approximations because we pad up our final results with a "factor of safety" ... which means that when calculations require a part to be 1 inch thick, the mechanical engineer can safely ask for a 2 or 3 inch thick part :-)) ... Sadly I don't have a "factor of safety" so the optimistic approximation may not work.

Anyways, I could not let technical glitches from spoiling my plan ... Normal blood counts would have signalled that my body could take the load of shaping up ... now I planned to bypass the counts and test my endurance directly ... So I took two adventure trips (must agree that the trips were not solely for testing my load-bearing capacity ... after months of staying at home I was dying to go out and meet people) ...

First trip was more challenging ... it involved driving on Delhi-Agra-Gwalior-Jhansi-Satna route in two days ... Gwalior-Jhansi strech had to be covered after sunset (poor planning by me) on a path which had non-existant roads (poor planning by UP and MP governments) ... the challenges didn't end with the drive ... there was more -> Satna- Allahabad travel, stay with the in-laws, Allahabad-luckhnow-Delhi by various combinations of train and bus ... Bottom line is I endured the trip without too much trouble ...

Second trip was within a week -> I went to Mumbai to attend my friend Andy's wedding. It was a typical Tam affair ... the detailed story is on the IIMB Class of 2004 blog. This one was two days flyin-flyout kind of a trip . Was good fun ... but took some time to recover from it ... slept throughout the day for 2-3 days ...

Anyways ... so that was how I was whiling away my time ... after all I have the licence for doing Haraamkhori ... though I guess the licence will expire soon ...

I have my PET Scan on 24th Sept ... The scan will tell if the treatment (chemotherapy and radiation) has succeeded so far ... an all-clear in the PET means I would be back to normal life (though I will have to take care of my body ... stay in shape and get regularly checked-up to see if the cancer has relapsed) ... In case PET shows that the cancer lingers on, then I will hold my Haraamkhori licence and may have to get on to a second-line of treatment (which is slightly tougher than the first line treatment ... with less optimistic results) ...

So the coming week is a week of uncertainties ... which is nothing unusual for me ... I can continue making full use of my Haraamkhori licence-

Ajgar karey naa chaakri
Panchi karey naa kaam
Das maluka kahi gaye
subkey daata raam

CBC 4000 and climbing

Most of my friends have been tracking my progress (against blood cancer) thru this blog.... there was a time when I made frequent postings ... in those days; no one felt the need to mail or call to find out about my health ... lately I have been getting a lot of calls and mails from my pals - all wondering if am doing OK ... I guess a personal health update is overdue

So here's the latest -

I have completed the first-line of treatment ... this means I have undergone R-MACOP-B chemo therapy and have also taken radiation (40 Gy which were distributed over 20 sittings) ... If this first-line treatment succeeds ( I hope it will) then I will not need any further treatment and will go on to live a (hopefully satisfying) long life :-)

When the radiation got over (in late June) I came back to Delhi have been resting at home for the past 1.5 months ... in this time I have slowly evolved and brought into action my Mission-Remission ... Mission-Remission is a three staged program for getting my life back
here's how it goes -

1. Let blood counts mount
Chemo and radiation had slowed down the production of White Blood Cells (WBCs also called Leukocytes) in my body ... a normal man has WBC count ranging from 4000-11000, mine had come down to 2400. The first thing that needed to be done was the wait for the blood counts to come back to the normal range. I rested at home, ate good food, got blood counts analyzed twice a week ... all in anticipation of normal blood counts ... My counts first rose to 3000 level ... stayed there for a while and then slowly started improving .... I reduced the frequency of getting counts done to once a week ... Last Monday the blood counts touched 4000 ... if the figure goes further up in next Monday's blood counts I would declare myself to be officially back to normal blood counts.

2. Get back in shape
To give you an idea ... I was 5 kgs over my ideal-body-weight when I was diagnosed with cancer ... the treatment put me on steroids and I gained a further 5 kgs .... so now I am 10 kgs overweight ... before I got the disease I could work 10 kg dumbbells with ease ... now I have trouble doing 3 kgs ... earlier I could go on a morning walk of 6 km and come back feeling refreshed ... now I get totally drained out in a 3-4 km walk .... Clearly I need to shed weight and build up my strength and stamina
I have given this 3 months time ... starting next week (when I will declare the blood counts to be officially normal) ... aim is reduction of weight by atleast 10 kgs (from 81 kgs today), reduction in waist ( from 38 inch today, to below 32 inch) and regaining stamina (back to comfortable 6 km walks) ... in the process I might also get back my strength (with other things in place it will come automatically)
During this time I also aim to get a job for myself ... What kind of a job? ... I don't know ... I am a man of many talents (some would say "well hidden", but I ignore them :-) ... and since I am a very fast learner ... I can potentially do many things (no point being modest these days :-) ... I have to make up my mind ... there are unconventional options like teaching or taking up a job in one of the NGOs ... but my guess is I would get back to rigmarole of corporate life ... any suggestions on this are most welcome ... please feel free to shoot out possible career options and openings at baawara@gmail.com

3. Keep on the good work
Once life gets back to normal ... I intend to keep it that way ... I probably will need to be more careful with my health than most blokes ... but hey staying fit cannot be that bad a choice ... I think making little challenges for myself will help ... first challenge ... completing Delhi Half-Marathon in 2008 :-)