Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Cancer, Coronavirus, Family, Friends & Co-Workers, Home/Life, Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)

Life Begins Anew (Again)

2 Comments
Ken, Kiyomi, and Toshiro

As of today, I am legally and technically unemployed. I’m under NDA to my previous employer, and I’m receiving Disability until my next employer.

It’s kinda overwhelming. These past few years have been the wildest roller coaster of my life. I am truly going to miss the friends and co-workers I’ve made these past few years. I wish we could have done more together; I would have liked to see our project go further (with the plans we had for improving it).

Over the past few years, Victoria and I neglected our house while we focused on my health and our travels to support it. Now we need to literally “clean house” as we address each room and make everything useable once again.

With my health and job search, I need a separate office space from the one Vicky has. She has an office in our Guest Room while I have a wall of our Master Bedroom. Both were neglected and collected books, papers, dust, and cruft. Now I need to make mine clean, presentable, and professional again.

Since hiring managers, co-workers, and engineering teams assess your background as much as you, I need to clean up my office so that my background is as clean and professional as my desk and workspace is.

So these next few days, and likely next full week, will be very busy as I pick myself up, dust myself off, and try to get my life back in order again.

#cancer #career #coronavirus

Coronavirus, Everyday Life, Family, Home/Life

Finally, a Bidet!

2 Comments
Bathroom Bidet
FINALLY! …WE HAVE A BIDET!
 
More than two months after I ordered it, we finally have it installed and working. It took us a month to get due to it being out-of-stock with the Coronavirus demand, and then another month since I was hospitalized for a week and then not healthy enough to install it once home.
 
With heated water, heated seat, adjustable position and spray pressure, warm air dryer, and night light, it’s a really remarkable bidet. Many thanks to the wonderful Victoria for her help and patience today! 💕🥰
Bathroom Bidet
Bathroom Bidet
Cancer, Coronavirus, Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)

Week in the Hospital due to Pneumonia and Sepsis

A week in the hospital with Pneumonia and Sepsis
Thankful to be going home from Hospital

Last Tuesday (May 5th, 2020), I started running a high fever (103°F) and severe vomiting.  I was first admitted to Kaiser-Permanente in Tysons Corner, VA, then took an ambulance to Reston Hospital Center when they couldn’t get my blood pressure elevated higher than 70/38.  Virginia Hospital Center denied my admittance due to a high number of COVID-9 (Coronavirus) patients, and they couldn’t ensure my safety.

For the past week, I was pumped heavily full of IV antibiotics, antifungals, magnesium, potassium, and fluids.  I quickly gained 20 lbs of fluid retention and my lymphedema worsened in my legs and arms.  When I was discharged yesterday, I was shocked to see the scale.  I’ll need to walk more, ride the Peloton cycle more, and stretch more over the coming weeks and months to expel, reduce, or reabsorb this fluid weight.

I was very cautious and kept separated from all the Coronavirus patients at Reston Hospital Center, but it was made abundantly clear how very dangerous a respiratory infection and ventilator would be to my severely immunocompromised health.  The medical team made the implications of a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and what a respiratory infection would do to me while being so heavily compromised with neutropenia and lymphopenia.

So I need to be VERY careful when outside of the house and in social settings… now more than ever.  I’m thankful to be home again, but I need to be even more mindful and careful.

Cancer, Coronavirus, Family, Home/Life

Burning Down the House

Charles Papert, Burning Down the 100yo Farmhouse (Washington State Veterans Cemetery)
When we are frustrated with ourselves, or with each other…
When we are angry with ourselves, or with our neighbor…
We don’t go burning down the house, no matter how immediately gratifying it may be.
 
Thomas Neal Foreman would never be my first choice for a role model, although he continues to shape my decisions to this day. If stories like “The Shack” and “Five People You Meet in Heaven” are true, I am certain that my father and I will meet again to resolve our unreconciled differences.
 
Kenneth Balogh Foreman would never be my first choice for a role model for others. I was the oldest of three sons, made more than my share of mistakes, was the loner and black sheep of my family. I attended college for two years, joined the US Air Force, tried to do the best I could with my own resources over the decades since. I did wrong by others, I did wrong by myself, and tried in various ways to set things right or atone for my mistakes.
 
A little over two years ago, I broke. I shattered. I got shitty news. Pretty much the shittiest news a person could get. My internal medicine doctor called us at home on a Sunday afternoon to apologize for the news he was about to give, and then told my wife and I that I have cancer.
 
The last two years have been the craziest roller coaster you could ever ride. Imagine doing loop-de-loops and hairpin turns until your hair fell out, you puked out your guts, and you shit yourself… now ride it for another year or two. Cancer and chemotherapy are kinda like that.
 
But for all my brokenness, the world around me was sane and fixed. The world around me was steadfast. I could grab hold of my family, our friends, our medical team, and know that the world was in a fixed position and I was the one who was spinning out of control.
 
And now, we all are the ones who are broken. It is not just me spinning looking for my magnetic north and hoping to settle there, we are all looking to stop spinning.
 
And this is weird, and this is bizarre, and this is heart-wrenching and heart-breaking. Who do you turn to for help when the helpers need help?
 
I don’t have an answer for this.
Cancer, Coronavirus

Watching People Overstress and Snap

1 Comment
Our elderly, our sick, and our parts of society we neglect

Having Stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma in the middle of a sane and functioning society makes me the broken one. My health is critical, and I wouldn’t make it if not for my dependence on others and the medical system.

Being immunocompromised in the middle of an irrational and dysfunctional society makes each of us broken. When I am in need, and someone snaps at me, is it because of my neediness or because of their frustration and anxiety at being in a terrible and abnormal situation.

I read in several comments and tweets yesterday that the economic and social stresses are too great, and perhaps the elderly and immunocompromised should die for the greater good of the society. I was appalled at each, but I understand where each is coming from. From their perspective, they are young, healthy, and do not fear the coronavirus. Death is something that happens to other people; people they don’t care about.

Our society and our infrastructure were designed only for a best-case scenario where all days are sunny, things would last forever, and no would need to care for or maintain anything. This pandemic is showing just how frail our systems and society really are. This is what happens when not all days are sunny, and what happens when you don’t take care or think about the capacity of your medical system.

And the saddest thing is, we probably won’t learn anything from it. Your health, my health, our health, should NOT be a profit-making endeavour. If it is not profit, then it is a non-profit. Non-profit agencies and corporations are dependent on society to make them work, which many people mistakenly call “socialism” without the foggiest clue of what that word means or the necessity of social contracts in order to make shared infrastructure work.

We are victims of our own hubris and desire to get the most we can for the cheapest while the few profit from our desire and scarcity of supply to our demand.

I don’t know what to say to this. I feel terrible and overwhelmed being a very broken person in the midst of a broken society where the young, the stupid, the uneducated, and the foolish want me dead so that they are not inconvenienced and their frail social ecosystem can continue rolling in entertainment, selfish/singular happiness, and financial well-being…. even if it comes at the cost of others’ lives.

#canceer #coronavirus

Cancer, Coronavirus, Everyday Life, Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)

Cancer in the Age of Coronavirus

Prominent Signage around Kaiser-Permanente
Prominent Signage around Kaiser-Permanente

As I’m visiting different Kaiser-Permanente facilities in DC and northern Virginia, we noticed the prominent signage and got stopped by numerous security guards and medical staff to inquire about my N95 mask.  With each, I explain that I am a cancer patient, that I am immunocompromised, and I show my medical ID bracelet or Kaiser-Permanente member ID card if asked.

When we met with my oncologist today, she wore her mask and kept a good 6-foot distance from me as we spoke.  She voiced her concerns that I am at extreme risk for Coronavirus between my decreased neutrophils, lymphocytes, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

With my weekly Rituxan therapy, I was running a greater risk of lymphopenia since:

Rituxan (rituximab) can induce prolonged B lymphopenia and expose patient to infectious complications. It has been well-documented in most of the oncologic studies.   All CD20+ cells are affected by monoclonal antibody rituximab, or other anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, as well-obinutuzumab, ofatumumab, veltuzumab. If you look at the basic blood cell count you could see lymphopenia in most of patients treated with rituximab. This lymphopenia is deep and long-lasting. There are some publications that pointed to higher risk for lymphoma relapse if lymphopenia persist longer than 6 months after rituximab treatment.

Both Johns Hopkins and Kaiser-Permanente agree that I have an unusual case of aggressive mantle cell lymphoma for which they have no data.  Given that I am on my third remission, that I had two previous relapses of aggressive lymphomas after two to three months, they agreed that I should have “maintenance chemotherapy” of Rituxan monthly for the next three years.  They will be monitoring me closely with telemedicine visits, frequent PET/CT scans, and weekly blood draws.

And so I continue to take it day-by-day, week-by-week, and month-by-month.  I’ll no longer get my hopes too high or celebrate when a PET scan is clear or a week’s bloodwork is good, but I’ll be thankful and grateful for both the good news and my time.  If we can go for several months or a year without a relapse, then truly can I relax a it more, breathe easier, and truly give thanks or celebrate my time free from Stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma.