The Power of Friends

Quick Health Update

I am feeling fantastic and am actually excited for the next step. Next Thursday, April 3rd, I go back to Madison to get an MRI, meet with dem smart Doctors and start my next cycle of Chemo. I will also find out which arm of the clinical trial that I will be in. I promise to post and update you all with what I find out at that appointment. I apologize for not posting as often, but since I have felt so damn good, I have been keeping myself pretty damn busy...back to normal. I also wanted to let you know that I received some great ideas on how I can give back (from my last post) I will be utilizing some of those ideas and will let you all know what I decide to do. I am leaning towards developing some sort of annual event for survivors and families in the area.


Talking with people about my disease and how I have gotten through it prompts the same response every time...What a great group of Friends and Family you have. What an understatement!

As I celebrate the 3 month mark of recovery from my Brain Surgery today, I can't help but think about the people that have helped me get to this point. I can in no way come close to thanking everyone, but I do want to dedicate some time to some special people...As you already know, I do not believe in leaving things unsaid.

From the minute we learned of the tumor's existence through all the treatments, the trips to Madison, and through every "meltdown", Kim has been there. She is my rock, my best friend and I love her dearly and can't imagine having gone through this without her.

My Parents, from being at my side in the ER to being my driver to Madison, my Mom and Dad have been there. I believe it has brought us closer than we have ever been! I have been able to say things via this blog to my father that I have wanted to say for years, and the talks that my Mom and I had on our drives were fantastic! My Family, from my sister and brother in-law to my brother and sister in-law have been incredible. From a little gesture that meant so much... like leaving me Lance Armstrong "Livestrong" bands while I was sleeping just after surgery, to just calling to check in on me; It has meant the world to me. Thank you!


Friends- Throughout this blog, you have seen the power of my friends. I want to call a few out and personally thank them. Bear with me, but these people have helped me more than they will ever know with simple acts of kindness.


Ralph L- From early in my recovery process, Ralph reached out to me to check in on me and share his recovery experiences. We talked for a long time and he left me with such a feeling of "I CAN DO THIS", at a time that I really needed it. Ralph is who actually recruited me into the NH network. I have known him through work and respected him for years, but this experience and the sharing of his time has truly made him someone I am proud to call a friend. Thank You.


Swan and Lyle- When my wife came out of my hospital room after surgery Lyle asked her..."what can I do?" With tears in her eyes she says, Someone needs to call Swan. Without hesitation, Lyle says I will do it! Now there is a lot more to this story, but what is important is that....your gesture and the ensuing renewed friendship between you and Swan means more to me than I can ever express. You two are two of the closest friends I have and it has meant so much to be able to reconnect with both of you and bring the three of us together again after all these years! Swan- From Sunny to Rainy to Little Pink Houses, you have been there. To Both of you, the conversations that we had on our drives to Madison continue to bring me strength. Thank you for being there!


Jeff- Even the rock (KIM) needs a shoulder from time to time. You have been that shoulder. How can I thank the person who was there for my family at a time that I was unable to? From making her smile with your demented humor to helping with the dogs while I was in the hospital. These little gestures and things you did for my family while I was in the hospital are more than I could ever ask from a business partner and Friend. Our purpose in our business is to provide for our families and I can't thank you enough for providing for mine while I was unable. Thank You!


Mark P- You have all seen what an amazing person Mark is, and what he has done for me during this process. Gene L - said it best in a comment on an earlier post - Mark you are an Angel sent from Heaven to all of us. I couldn't agree more. From the minute you found out about my surgery, you jumped to action. You have been amazing...from coordinating the Talbott Support Group contact list, to keeping people updated on my status, to coordinating "A night to remember, a night I will never forget". Mark Patrick, you are an Angel sent from Heaven to us all!


As I celebrate 3 months of recovery, I have naturally spent some time recently thinking back over the last three months. I have been blessed in so many ways, from quick recovery and early release from the hospital to an incredibly uneventful Radiation and Chemo Phase I. Many people think that my attitude and outlook come from me...the reality is that I have fed off of the incredibly positive people in my life. Thank you is just not enough.



Peace Out!

Where do we go from here?

Ok, now this is getting ridiculous! They keep telling me that I have Cancer, but I am not sure I believe them anymore! :) I feel too damn good. :) Believe me, I am not complaining...lets hear it for the power of positive thinking and prayer!

So enough about me...Its time to take this blog discussion to a new area. In the short time that I am blessed to be on this Earth, how do I give back to others in need? The most obvious choice is by helping people that have my type of Cancer. I have noticed that Madison has a Brain Tumor Support Group that meets on a regular basis. What if I could put something like that together in Rockford? Does one exist? How do I take that up a notch and individualize it so I can actually help individuals with Brain Tumors by sharing my outlook and energy? These have been the ideas that are rolling through my head right now. I am beginning the search to find out what is already out there and where I may be able to help. If any of you have ideas, please send them to me. It needs to be something that allows me to directly share my outlook and energy with others that are suffering with Cancer, most specifically Brain Tumors.

I am full of life and full of positive energy thanks to all of you. Now is my time to pass that on to others...to Pay it Forward to use a cliche. I know I have been blessed and have had an incredibly uneventful treatment regimen, but part of that has to be Positive Attitude and Laughter. I refuse to think I am just that lucky. Those of you who have been to Vegas with me or played poker with me know that that is just not the case. :)

Throughout my 6 weeks of Radiation Treatment at UW Madison, I spent alot of time in the oncology wards and although the staff is incredible, the feeling in the waiting rooms is and was typically one of doom, gloom, or pain, especially in the chemo waiting room.

If I can take away the pain, or provide an alternate perception if even for a few minutes, of someone suffering, then it is all worth it. What better place to start than with people with Brain Tumors. I can relate to their treatments, or surgerys and I can share my positive energy and maybe even bring some smiles to their faces.

Maybe it is something as easy as volunteering for the American Cancer Society...who knows, but it is now a quest of mine. Deliverying teddy bears or games to the kids in the cancer ward...I know I could find the resources to help with that...

So, I don't know where I will go with all of this, but I am determined to find a way to give back. I am asking you all for ideas. I am open to anything as long as I can somehow see the faces of the people I am able to help.

The reason for all of this is simple and not anything grandious. I have been Blessed in so many ways throughout this journey, that I feel that I owe it to myself to give back to others.

Happy Easter Everyone!! I hope you all are able to spend time with your families this weekend.

Please share your ideas when you get a moment!!!

Some Blessings to Share from This week...
1. Running into friends at the grocery. Jerry and Jan, Jason and Katie, and Julie. It was great to see you all!
2. Spending the whole day today with Kim. Not doing anything fancy, just spending time together...a blessing in itself!
3. Getting a WII Game Console and watching Kim play the golf and boxing games...Laughing my fool head off the whole time :)
4. Spending time with Jeff talking about business issues and feeling productive.
5. Getting a call from Miss Ava - (as she was playing with Lyle's Cell Phone) :)

Peace Out!

A week of Normalcy

Well, its been one full week since the completion of radiation and the surprise party of my life. How am I feeling? Absolutely FANTASTIC!! I have had a fantastic week. Had two great events happen this week.

The first event was the opportunity to ride along on a trip with my partner Jeff to visit a client down in Peoria. It was great to spend some time catching up with Jeff, visiting with our client and getting out of the house!

The second event happened today. Kim and I went over to Kim's sister's to celebrate St. Patrick's day. We had a great dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage, played catch with my nephew, and was able to play (ok mainly watch :) ) "Rock Band" (a Video Game) with my brother-in-law, nieces, and nephew. It was awesome to just hang out and play with the kids and have a few hours of true Normal! It sounds like a little thing, but it was a really awesome feeling playing catch with my nephew. It was so Normal! I loved it. My brother in-law and I even spent some time talking about the upcoming golf season...what could be more normal.

So, I would love to give you some big philosophical statement about this Cancer fight, but when it comes down to it...Life is great, and every minute that goes by, I am feeling less like a cancer patient and more like the old me! To me, that means I AM WINNING!

As Miss Ava would say... PEACE OUT!

A Night to Remember...A Night I'll Never Forget

Wow...Just Wow! What an incredible night!

The plan was simple. Dinner at Cliffbreakers, then off to Franny's for a cocktail with a couple people from NH Rockford. Nothing crazy...right Mark? NOT SO MUCH. :)

So, we met Mark at Cliffbreaker's in the Bar before dinner. We had a drink and then the hostess came and got us for our dinner reservation. I was still excited about Mark flying in to see me that I didn't even notice that we walked right by the dining room. Cliffbreakers has a lot of little private rooms for dinner and Mark indicated that he got us one of those. We stopped at the Vanderbilt room...Mark says "I love ya bro" and pushed me in the room. I walk into the room and could not believe my eyes...Close to 50 people, friends from throughout my adult life... all of them staring back at me. I am not sure how long I stood there in awe...it felt like 10 minutes...Just looking at the faces, tears of happiness welling up in my eyes.

I couldn't believe it so many friends all there to see me. The range was awesome..My Best Friend Denny from High School who flew in from Atlanta, the core team of NH Rockford, the core team of NH Chicago, my close friend Gil from my NH Days who flew in from Atlanta, Clients and close friends from Caterpillar that drove 3 hours in from Peoria, a good friend from NH days who drove in from Wisconsin, my closest friends from the area (including darling Miss Ava), my partner(who has been on the road for weeks but took time away from his family to be there), JB & Mark who flew in special from Phoenix, and so many more...

Mark literally planned and executed the absolute surprise of my life. I literally felt my knees start to wobble and jaw hit the ground. The fact that I stayed upright and didn't pass out was a miracle itself.

Kim comes up next to me and says...Oh by the way, we are staying here tonight. Two of my close friends from NH Chicago Kory and Tammy couldn't be there, but wanted to help, so they paid for our room. Unbelievable doesn't even do it justice. Thank you guys so much.

So, not only did he bring everyone together, he had a plan. Knowing that there are two hobbies that I enjoy the most, golf and poker....he planned a poker tournament for during this party....and for those that didn't play poker... CRANIUM! Johnny D....its OK I found the correlation of Cranium and my situation absolutely PERFECT and hilarious...Hell if I can't laugh about my situation by now, then I have a bigger problem. :)

How Mark coordinated so many people and kept it all a secret is amazing. Kim has started to fill in some of the gaps, but it still boggles my mind. You pulled it off in perfect form my friend. Thank You!

Steve Foor helped take the experience to another level by putting a DVD together with pictures and music from our NH Rockford days. It was amazing.

There were at least a dozen other cameras and video cameras there as well, so I will post pics as soon as I get them! If you had one of the cameras, please send me pics!!!!

Did I tell you how amazing this experience was? I was in the room around 6:45pm and spent the evening until almost 1:00am catching up with my unbelievable friends, hugging everyone that I could, crying, laughing, and saying WOW alot! I even played decent poker, which I can't believe because my attentions were all over the room all the time. I tried to give a speech on the fly before the poker started, and I said a few words, none of which I remember. I know I wanted to say more, but in the emotion of the moment, there was no way I was going to get the words out.

It truly warms my heart and blows me a way seeing so much love and support for me in one room. I could only dream that I have been able to touch this many people in my life. Add the prayers and positive thoughts that just the people in that room have sent me and continue to send me...its no wonder I feel so damn good! With this kind of support, I am gonna have some flabergasted Doctors as I continue to heal and wreck the curve of stats for my type of Cancer!

When I say, a Night to Remember...A Night I'll Never Forget, I think you can understand what an understatment that is.

To each and everyone of you that attended last night...>THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!! I do not have the words to express how much last night meant to me. You are all absolutely unbelievable and I love you all! Last night strengthened my drive to beat this disease. I am stronger because of each of you. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

Radiation Complete!!!

Phase I has been accomplished!!! I am officially done with Radiation forever, and chemo for 4 weeks!

My next trip to Madison won't be until April 3rd. WooHoo! I just got 5 hours per day back!!

Kim, my Mom and I went up for the final treatment today. We met with Diana who talked to us about the interim and our questions. She did a great job explaining everything to us. I will get an MRI when I go back in April and meet with Dr. Ian and Dr. Mehta. At that time, I will find out what arm of the clinical trial I will be in. Then I get the Chemo drugs and new calendars. In addition, they will read the MRI and tell us what is says. In addition, I have to send in weekly blood work so they can keep an eye on me. After that, I repeat that same routine every 8 weeks until Chemo is done, which will depend on what the MRI scans say. Using Dr. Mehta's words "no progression" is the magic words.

Getting the final radiation treatment was uneventful until the end. At the end, the techs gave me my mask as a souvenir, and a special certificate that the techs wrote notes to me and signed. Kim also brought some chocolate that she picked out for the techs....BIG HIT!!! I think they were gone minutes after we dropped them off.

After leaving the Radiation treatment, we celebrated with a great greasy burger at the Blue Moon in Madison (which I highly recommend) best greasy burgers in Madison. :)

After we dropped my Mom off, Kim and I decided to run some errands, which upon hindsight probably wasn't the best idea. The reason was that we were both physically and emotionally tired before we began our errands. So several hours later when we got home, we each had a mini meltdown. For both of us it was the last 6 weeks of emotion finally coming to the surface. So, we cried for a while and let it out. I think for me it was the realization that I had survived the first 6 weeks of treatment and did it in great shape. In addition, it was a realization of how much our life has changed and for me, how much of a sacrifice that Kim has made for me. I truly understand why there are so many support groups for CAREGIVERS...it is exhausting. I couldn't ask for a better primary caregiver in Kim, nor could I ask for a better support group than the one I have with all of you. I think it just piled up and decided it was time to come out. Tears are cleansing right? :)

It took all day, but it finally hit me. Phase I is complete and I am still alive! Moving into phase II is scary, but exciting as well. I am still waiting in the back of my mind for the day that dem smart docs say...OK...its all gone, you can go back to living your life. That, however, is not going to happen. With a GBM Tumor, "no progression" is good...as Diana says, make this disease chronic.

So, I MADE IT! Phase I Complete and as Diana put it I am doing better than most people with the same tumor as me. That to me is GREAT NEWS! I like being an overachiever. :)

The initial celebration has been smiles and tears, but all in all excellent. The celebration continues tomorrow with my good friend Mark. Can't wait to see ya brother!

Got Kisses from Miss Ava today and she told me to tell you... PEACE OUT!!

3 DAYS TO GO!!!

1,2,3 - Wed, Thurs, Fri.... No matter how you count it, I am done with Radiation in 3 days!!!

I am finally starting to see it...the end of Radiation. I still concede that I am entirely too healthy to have cancer. I feel too damn good. I haven't had a bad health day in weeks. So other than Fatigue, I am working on exiting the Bug Zapper (Radiation) in 3 days feeling fantastic and only having fatigue as a side effect! So, the way I look at it, the power of positive thinking is working.

I asked Dr. Mehta today when I will know something. His response was great. He said that there is no definitive timeframe. But, much like Diana told me at the beginning, the goal is to turn this into a Chronic Disease. Dr. Mehta told me today that every new scan that I have done that shows "no progression" I take another step towards remission. This is good news and a little scary. Knowing me, it means that starting in early April, I will work myself into a frenzy every 8 weeks while I get a scan and wait for results. Then I move on. :)

Once I make it past the Chemo Phase (6-12 months depending on scan results) then I will consider myself a cancer survivor. Until then, I will continue being in active treatment.

Phases. I am about to complete phase I. And no matter what any doctor says... I AM TOO DAMN HEALTHY TO HAVE BRAIN CANCER!!! :)

So, I am paying attention and actively particpating in my treatment plan as I have learned from many many survivors, but with the way I am feeling, I am LIVING EVERY MOMENT THAT I CAN....all I need now is the snow to melt so the GOLF CAN BEGIN!!! :)

Marky P is coming to celebrate my end of radiation this weekend. I can't express how excited I am to see him. I am sure it will be incredibly emotional, rightfully so as most of you would agree based on how much he has done in keeping the Talbott Support Team up to speed on my progress. I will post at end of weekend to share my celebration and experience with you all!

As Always PEACE OUT!!!