Scary Good News!

This weekend was great and scary at the same time. Let's start with the best part: on Friday I got back my MRI results after my forth chemo cycle, and once again great news: no contrasting areas, and therefore no grade 3 tumor. This means that the worst part of my tumor has not come back. The second good news is that the grade 2 portion that was left in my brain has gotten smaller once again. God is giving me more chances, I feel so blessed, the chemo seems to be working and I am feeling great!
Saturday started well, with me putting training wheels on my daughters' bikes and taking them for a ride, which was lots of fun. After that I spoke to a couple of friends from Boston that always inspire and energize me, then went to a friend's birthday party, where I met another brain tumor survivor, which of course is always energizing (at least from my perspective!). Finally I headed to my 21st high-school reunion, which I helped organize while I was at home recovering from surgery through Facebook. It was so great to see old friends, some of which I hadn't seen for over 15 years!
However after such a long day I ended up with a bad sinus infection. For any normal person no big deal, but this was the first time I got remotely sick after I started chemo. While knowing that my blood has not been terribly affected by my chemo, I could not help wondering if my body could handle an infection like it used to.
So I dedicated my Sunday to bed, spending most of the day in the horizontal position reading a fascinating book that I highly recommend: "The Emperor of All Maladies, a Biography of Cancer", by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Not only is this book an incredible journey through the history of cancer and medicine, but a series of lessons in many different topics: the perseverence of different people to find answers to several scientific challenges, the tough work to make cancer a national scientific priority in the US, the genious of several scientists that with amazing insights connected dots that were far away to develop new drugs against cancer, and the journey of so many people that were left behind in the fight against cancer but that with their bravery opened the doors to so many new treatments. Now I understand how the medication I take is connected to Mustard Gas, or why I resisted so much against radiotherapy and still believe I should until there is no other option, even though radiotherapy is in several cases the right treatment option, and the genious behind this discovery is just incredible.
Today I am up again in front of the computer to share my perspectives. A phrase in the book from Franz Kafka really struck me in the guts as a real lesson: Impatience kicked us out of Heaven, indolence kept us out. The fight against cancer, brain tumor and so many other persistant diseases is about patience and hard work, not only from the patient but also from amazing people that invest their lives to research, treat and raise funds to combat this modern day plague that has been around for centuries but that is much more present today as people don't die anymore from other diseases that were but are not deadly anymore.
I really want to thank the whole medical and pharmaceutical community for all their work and I hope that their continued efforts will someday help us find a magic pill against cancer. As I thought about work and tried to connect the dots and give meaning to our jobs and companies I came up with an interesting thought: students are taught in finance classes that managers are supposed to act in the best interest of shareholders, and therefore always strive to maximize profits. This is the moral equivalent of saying that survival is about eating the most. Like a famous organic products retailer CEO and founder says, food is for people what money is for business. Yes, all businesses and people need money, but the key to a long life and business is purpose. Eating is for people a way to survive, but not necessarily a path to total satisfaction. Every business needs a purpose, the money will follow if it performs its purpose well and if it pursues a relevant purpose to its customers or consumers. When we are lucky and happy enough to reconcile professional and personal goals we've found our way to total happiness. As I read the book and became increasingly interested in medicine I wondered if I should have been a Doctor. I quickly answered myself: if I had wheels I would be a car, if I had wings I would be an airplane, but I am who I am and love every second of it, with or without brain tumor. Life is awesome and unfortunately finite, but if it lasted forever we would probably not find a sense of urgency to live and do the things we like the most. Carpe Diem!
And I almost forgot: my sinus infection is gone, what an amazing recovery!

Birthday Post!

What a week! Nothing like another birthday...

Now that I have two birthdays I feel like I am getting older faster, and I have to say that getting older never felt so good. Feeling like every day counts gave me a renewed sense of life and in a way I feel so much better today than I was before. Facing death in a way enabled me to really live and enjoy every second, I have to admit that in a strange way my brain tumor enabled me to really find a renewed sense of purpose and really focus on doing things that I really enjoy. Everything else gets brushed to the side, why would I ever do anything with my life that I don’t enjoy? Shouldn’t we all live like this? I have to say that I did already live like this, but now I believe even more strongly that people should not waste time with things they are not passionate about. Whether work, friends, family, I’ve always tried to do the things I enjoyed and surround myself with people I liked, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I live a very happy life, regardless of any condition.

My mother-in-law’s father had a really funny saying that I have to share: “no one wants to get old, but even less die young!” What a great way to capture how I felt. Today getting old doesn’t feel that bad. Livia would always ask him why he wouldn’t go out with his friends and he would always reply “the sons of ** all died”. In a weird way I always felt really connected to him, we had a really similar sense of humor, we shared a taste for wine, we were tall, and as crazy as it sounds he developed a brain tumor. Unfortunately he was diagnosed late, his tumor was a glioblastoma and was well larger than mine. But he lived a long and fulfilling life and I live with his legacy until today.

My birthday was really special. I woke up with my little daughter singing happy birthday while I was still in bed. She is usually the last one to get up and I am the first one. She was so proud to be the first one in the house to get up and knowing that my birthday was the first thing she remembered that day made me feel really special and lucky. I was also blessed with lots of Happy Birthday wishes, most wishing me also lots of health. I had an MRI on Sunday and for whatever reason I felt cured, we’ll see what the results say. For that reason I got up, biked for 20 minutes and went for a 10 minute run, which I did at my old running pace. Running never felt so good, I hadn’t run for a long time and it made me feel great. To add to the feeling, I ran into a girl at the gym that did 2 Ironmans. Is this a coincidence? What a motivation, everything pointing in the right direction, she shared that there are triathlon teams, cycling clubs, all within walking/running/biking distance from where I live. My life has such a strong gravity towards the things I wish, makes me feel like someone is really watching over me. As someone born on Easter from a mom born on Christmas I am starting to suspect who He is. Regardless of religion I have found that Faith is such a motivation in life.

This is it for today, I hope to have more great news on my next post, at the very least I will have a lot of fun, in 5 days we are having a high-school reunion and I hope to meet a lot of old friends that I haven't seen in several years. Let the celebration schedule begin!