Hi everyone. I am so sorry that not much has been added to this since my son Clint first set it up. I took too long to get logged in and stuff and by the time I did, I wasn't feeling very well. Finally, I am starting to feel a little stronger, but I am still struggling with some issues.

So here's the story. Some time in about mid January, I noticed a big lump in my right armpit as I was putting on my deodorant one morning. Now, this wasn't just a little lump and the way I noticed it was my deodorant stick hit it and I couldn't run it up and down my pit like I do every morning. See the picture at the left.

At that moment, I thought to my self, "Wow, I must have really pulled a muscle or something." You see, my right arm had been aching for a couple of weeks and I kind of dismissed the whole thing. I stopped carrying heavy things and really tried to let it "settle down."

After a week or so, I realized that something was not quite right, so I decided to have someone look at it, but it took another couple of weeks to decide who. Finally, I went to see a good friend of mine that I work with at Timpanogos Regional Hospital. He is one of the ER docs there. I asked him to look at it and tell me what he thought. He was very polite and didn't get excited, but he suggested getting an MRI of it. So I did.

Sometime near the third week of February, I had the MRI done. During the MRI, the radiologist came in and told me that he thought that some other studies needed to be done. Specifically, the MRI needed some extra help with special dye and that he also thought I needed a CT of my chest and abdomen. Arrangements were made, and all of these studies were done that same day. The radiologist told me that it appeared to him that I have a lesion suspicious of cancer, probably sarcoma.

Because I work at the University of Utah, I waited until the next day and spoke with the doc that I work with asking him for his recommendation as to who I should see about this. He recommended a Dr. Lor Randall, head of the sarcoma team at the Huntsman Cancer Institute here in Salt Lake City. Arrangements were made and I saw Dr. Randall and his team on February 26th. They recommended biopsy. The biopsy was done the following Friday at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. Results came back stating something like a high grade spindle cell carcinoma of the neural sheath. Basically, that means the cancer is aggressive and probably originated from one of the nerve branches under my arm. This picture was taken the day of the biopsy. You can see some black marks above and below the bandage. Those are "plotting" marks the surgeon made to plan for the future removal of the tumor.

But first, the doc explained that the tumor needed to be treated with chemotherapy first. The plan would be to have chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumor and maybe even some radiation therapy too, before surgical removal of the tumor.

So, I had my first bout of chemotherapy two weeks ago. The first day wasn't so bad, but by the end of the second day, I was as tired as I have ever been. On the picture, you can see, yes six bags of fluid running in, all at the same time. The brown bag on the right, kind of in the back is one of the chemo drugs. It ran for three days continuously. One of the small bags on the left (the one that is higher) was the second chemo drug. It ran for three hours every day for three days. The other fluids you can see are nutritional and for bladder/kidney protection since the brown bag drug is toxic to them. Anyway, after five days, I was sent home and have been dealing with the side effects since. Only a couple of days of nausea and vomiting. They gave me really good drugs for that. Mostly profound weakness and fatigue and now sores in my mouth. It really makes it difficult to eat anything. First the nausea and vomiting and now the sores in my mouth. No fun.

I had another study done this past week that showed the tumor hasn't gotten an larger and that there is larger area of dead tissue in the center of the tumor than was seen before. That is a good thing.

So now, I am scheduled for another round of chemo next Friday. I don't know how many of those I'll have to deal with, but I am not looking forward to it. Oh yeah, my hair started falling out two days ago. I'm not bald yet, but I don't think it will take long.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. They do keep me going. We so much appreciate that enormous response to our plight. We are doing as well as can be expected. I'll try to do better at updating this page. God bless you all.

A friend told me that her grandmother used to say that the scriptures say that "This shall come to pass, not to stay." Excellent. That's how I look at it too.

Until next time.

Jim