MRI Results

So got my results......

Not good. Doctor says I have severe labral tear. The tear is the result of my dysplasia and without getting that corrected there is NOTHING HE CAN DO!!

WHAT...ARE YOU KIDDING!!!

As I have said, I really don't think I can handle another PAO. It would be the right side this time.

So it is wait and see...

Don't need to do it right away. As long as I can control the pain or put up with it.

Unfortunately, it will continue to get worse the longer I wait. May end of with arthritis.

Feel like this Merry Go Round will never end. Its has been 3 years of nothing but issues. Its a Nightmare that I can't wake up from.

At least none of this is life threatening. Just a massive disruption to my life, my family and my pocketbook.

Anyway, enough complaining. At least I am still in remission, right........

Talk to you later.

Not a good Day!

This will be short and sweet...

Heading back to Seattle on Monday to see my Hip Surgeon. Right Hip is driving me nuts and it has been very frustrating for a very long time.

I cant afford to do a RPO nor do I want too. So I guess the only hope is arthritis so I can get a hip replacement. Not really anything I want to wish for but its realistic.

Scuba may be history too. Oh yeah, Aaron and I have been working on our Scuba Certification.

Let you know how it goes.

See ya........................

Summer Over??

It has gone by so fast... We have been very busy getting Cameron ready to go to school.

Well, he has now been gone for over 2 weeks. Miss him very much and no I don't hear from him everyday but never expected too.

I remember when I started school. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to mom and dad. He is making good connections, slowly but that's how it goes in a new place.

He is very excited to be there and likes all his classes.

Theresa and I had a great trip back. We spent a few days in Pismo Beach before heading home. We also stopped by the Hearst Castle. Very cool. He was nuts.


Good to be home and getting ready for the Duck season opener against LSU. Go DUCKS!!

My HCL is not an issue at all. My hip on the other hand is. Trying to deal with it each day but not being very successful. Not much to do but get through each day as best I can.

Don't think it will improve so just need to try to live with it, I guess.

Anyway, lots to do today. Just thought I would check in.

Take care and Happy College Football Season!!!

Happy Summer

Ok.....

This is the first free weekend in like for every.... We had a great time at Camporee!! Cams graduation was amazing....

Our trip to USC for orientation was very cool as well. He is very excited to go.

My last HCL CBC was great. No worries. Wants to see me in December but everything looks great.

My right hip still sucks but trying to stay busy and ignore it. Heading to Northern Cal in a few weeks.. Looking forward to a few days of rest.

Life is changing for sure. One left at home...

Keep your fingers crossed my hip stops freaking out and I will be able to enjoy everything that is going on.

As they say at USC....FIGHT ON!!!!

Summer??

What an Awesome day outside today...

Hopefully the weekend holds up. Going camping with both boys this weekend. Cameron's last Scout camp out. Where did the time go?? It has been 3 years since we all went to Camporee together. Looking forward to it.

I am praying my hip cooperates this weekend. Has been a very rough month. Trying to ignore. To much going on to worry about it right now.

I want to enjoy Cams graduation and move to USC...

I will post pics of this weekend.

Talk to you sooner I promise.

Sping is almost here

Good Morning...

Well, my Vitamin D counts came back good. So the supplements worked. My liver test came back OK as well. So what ever was causing a minimal spike went away.

I guess it was a my body telling me NO more Tylenol PM... I don't need it anyway.

Been very busy at work and with the boys so very little time to post. I still am very tired most of the time and my right hip just sucks..

I have been going to the gym 3 days a week and walking but the pain is still constant. I know its my commute to work that is doing it but I am stuck. There is nothing I can do about it at all.

My hope is walking at the gym will help down the road and stop the pain. If not, well back to my hip doctor. We will see.

Next CBC is June. If all goes well, I hope only once a year. These blood test are getting harder and harder to do. My veins must have receded because it is very difficult and painful to get any blood samples these days. I thought maybe I have been dehydrated but I drink fair amount of water.

I think over time this will get better. Cross your fingers for a great result in June.

By the way March is my 3rd anniversary. It was March when I was diagnosed HCL. It is a day I will never forget. I am very fortunate however, to something I can deal with and move on knowing I wont die from it. I know many others who don't have that type of luxury.

Talk you again soon.

Vitamin D Levels

Found this article when reading another message board (thanks Rob)...

As I discussed in another post, my doctor found I had low Vitamin D levels. Freaked me out a bit but found out in the winter, in Oregon, fairly common.

However, I thought this was an interesting article showing how important Vitamin D levels are for Leukemia patients.

Insufficient Vitamin D Levels in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients Linked to Cancer Progression and Death

ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2010) — Researchers at Mayo Clinic have found a significant difference in cancer progression and death in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels in their blood compared to those who didn't.

In the Mayo Clinic study, published online in the journal Blood, the researchers found that patients with insufficient levels of vitamin D when their leukemia was diagnosed progressed much faster and were about twice as likely to die as were patients with adequate levels of vitamin D.

They also found solid trends: increasing vitamin D levels across patients matched longer survival times and decreasing levels matched shortening intervals between diagnosis and cancer progression. The association also remained after controlling for other prognostic factors associated with leukemia progression.

The finding is significant in a number of ways. For the first time, it potentially offers patients with this typically slower growing form of leukemia a way to slow progression, says the study's lead author, Tait Shanafelt, M.D., a hematologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

"This finding may be particularly relevant for this kind of leukemia because although we often identify it at an early stage, the standard approach is to wait until symptoms develop before treating patients with chemotherapy," Dr. Shanafelt says. "This watch and wait approach is difficult for patients because they feel there is nothing they can do to help themselves."

"It appears vitamin D levels may be a modifiable risk factor for leukemia progression. It is simple for patients to have their vitamin D levels checked by their physicians with a blood test," he says. "And if they are deficient, vitamin D supplements are widely available and have minimal side effects."

While the researchers have not yet determined if vitamin D replacement in patients with initially low levels will reverse the more rapid progression associated with insufficiency, they are planning a study to explore that hypothesis.

This research adds to the growing body of evidence that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for development and/or progression of a number of cancers, the researchers say. Studies have suggested that low blood vitamin D levels may be associated with increased incidence of colorectal, breast and other solid cancers. Other studies have suggested that low vitamin D levels at diagnosis may be associated with poorer outcomes in colorectal, breast, melanoma and lung cancers, as well as lymphoma.

Replacing vitamin D in some patients has proven to be beneficial, the researchers say. For example, they cite a placebo-controlled clinical trial that found women who increased their vitamin D intake reduced their risk of cancer development.

Vitamin D insufficiency, in general, is widespread, Dr. Shanafelt says. "Between one-fourth and one-half of patients seen in routine clinical practice have vitamin D levels below the optimal range, and it is estimated that up to 1 billion people worldwide have vitamin D insufficiency," he says.

Vitamin D is obtained from skin exposure to sunlight, from certain foods (fatty fish and eggs) and from supplements.

In this study, the research team, including physicians at the University of Iowa, enrolled 390 CLL patients into a prospective, observational study. They tested the blood of these newly diagnosed patients for plasma concentration of 25-hydroxyl-vitamin D and found that 30 percent of these CLL patients were considered to have insufficient vitamin D levels, which is classified as a level less than 25 nanograms per milliliter.

After a median follow-up of three years, CLL patients deficient in vitamin D were 66 percent more likely to progress and require chemotherapy; deficient patients also had a two-fold increased risk of death.

To confirm these findings, they then studied a different group of 153 untreated CLL patients who had been followed for an average of 10 years. The researchers found that about 40 percent of these 153 CLL patients were vitamin D deficient at the time of their diagnosis. Patients with vitamin D deficiency were again significantly more likely to have had their leukemia progress and to have died, Dr. Shanafelt says.

"This tells us that vitamin D insufficiency may be the first potentially modifiable risk factor associated with prognosis in newly diagnosed CLL," he says.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (http://www.nih.gov/), Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, the Henry J. Predolin Foundation, Vysis, Inc., and the Mayo Hematologic Malignancies Fund. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.