Cankles

Hello remaining readers, haven't written in a while, feeling the need to vent so what a better way than to release my frustrations into the blogosphere....

Life overall actually has been good, I had an opportunity to attend my cousin Jeff and his new wife Heather's wedding in Oahu.  I swam with sea turtles, jumped out of an airplane over the ocean and watched my once kid cousin marry his beautiful bride, pretty good stuff!  I also was able to raise enough money through the creation of my sister Nicole's blog and subsequent fundraising to get her back on track with therapy to help her recover from her stroke.  I have to say that August was one if the best months I've had in a long time...

With that said, the side effects and lingering effects of having so much therapy continue to take their toll on my body.  The latest issue is my feet or what were once feet and now looking more like balloons.  I had a staff infection for a while after my seventh chronic ingrown toenail was removed and I think being active in the ocean has brought it back even after a round of augmentin.  Have to go in tomorrow to my podiatrist to find out what's going on.  I haven't been able to wear shoes for two months now, this is getting old.  I've had to buy all new shoes one to one and a half sizes larger to try and prevent the toenails from growing back into my skin and no matter what I do, even as my toenails continue to get smaller and smaller from extraction, I am still dealing with this crap for the last three plus years.

If I can figure out how to deal with this, the world will be my oyster!!  I feel so blessed to have my relatively good health right now and the cancer seemingly staying away thanks to the success of the Everolimus.  Thank you Novartis for providing the drug and covering my medical expenses.  I feel fortunate to be a part of the successful arm of this experiment and honored to be participating in something that will hopefully help others down the road with difficult to treat Hodgkins.

Here's to normal sized feet the next time I write.

Sorry to gross anyone out!!  Maybe there are others out there who take Everolimus (RAD001) that have issues with chronically swollen feet?