Merry Christmas

hello all!!!

hope you're all having a happy and healthy holiday season. what a year it's been - and after what we've learned about faith, hope, and love; i wouldn't trade it for the world. i've been working out regularly, really trying to pay attention to the body as a whole - and being active has continued to sharpen my mental focus as well. jenny and i went with our good friends jess and vince to cut down our Christmas tree - when we got to the tree farm i remarked to jessica that without the battle with lymphoma i don't think i would have taken the time to go the mountains and do that. although i've always had a pretty positive outlook, i feel that battling the illness has woken a sleeping giant. so look out world, here we come!!!

the new year is typically a time for resolutions - so i'm asking each of you this year to really look at what the important things are in your life and truly be thankful for them. the people, memories, etc. are all gifts that should be used as tools to help celebrate the good times and weather the bad ones. i can tell you all with conviction that going through a valley in life is quite inspirational and as my friend adam says, now whenever i need motivating i can just remember my own story instead of looking to someone else. also. know this - when you find yourself in a valley, you are never alone - God walks with you, heck he carries you!!!

much love to all of you for being there for me to lean on - i'll be right behind you waiting to return the favor. travel safe over the holiday.

ps - here's the link to a zip file containing mp3's of the soundtrack to my life - http://s2research.com/wahoo_soundtrack.zip

happy listening!!!

clean scan!!!

hello all - as jen and i sat in the doctor's office for our check-up a few weeks ago, we knew we were not alone. i could feel all of you there with me and the elation that i felt after being told the scan was clean caused me to take a moment and reflect on how far we've come. that appointment could not have seemed further away during certain parts of a cycle and as it got closer the opposite began to happen. for the better part of 5 months my only job was to get food in me and walk around - now as we leave the treatment behind and the body continues healing it's about a return to normalcy. even though i realize this takes time, all of the subtle everyday aches and pains bring about a certain anxiety [ i.e. - i have dry skin, is the lymphoma back? ] as irrational as that sounds, thank God for jen's patience and love, those thoughts popped into my head every now and then. to calm myself down i went to a quote from The Alchemist [ great read if you haven't already ] - "Your fate and the fate of the world have been written by the same hand." i find that it helps take worry off my plate.

we will have our next check-up in february and as we approach the new year my main goal is to keep getting back into shape. jen and i had a wonderful time in san francisco visiting my sister-in-law laurie and the rest of the shields [ including kim trunko ] and evans clan for thanksgiving. it was just how i imagined it when my dad and i first talked about an outdoor excursion during cycle 2.

this process has been tiring and at some points extremely hard to communicate with the outside world. i thank all of you for your continued prayers and well wishes - can't wait to see most everyone over the holidays. hope you all had a happy turkey day!

soundtrack to my life

hello all -
since i've last posted, jen and i have been on our first trip out of town together since the diagnosis. we had a wonderful fall weekend in charlottesville, and although i left charlotte feeling slightly vulnerable, i returned feeling more confident than ever. one of the main reasons for this feeling was the recognition that my memory is my greatest asset, not something to be feared.

for the first three cycles of the treatment, i did not listen to a single song, thinking that any music i heard would have me recall a time when i was not sick. what i came to recognize at the beginning of cycle four was that the emotional response i was most afraid of was my greatest motivator. this reflection prompted a conversation between jenny and i about the soundtrack to one's life.

for this exercise, you have to select 25 songs, a double disc set if you will, that elicit an emotional reaction [ happiness, sadness, nostalgia, etc... ]. as you're scoring this journey through your past the only rule is that you cannot repeat an artist - that means no double dipping tears for fears dad!!!

feel free to post your soundtracks, i will have a link in my next post where you can go to download the mp3 version of mine. i know sometimes people have trouble logging on, so feel free to e-mail me [ bshields@s2research.com ].

we have first post-radiation scan on monday, but this weekend two of our good buddies are getting married here in charlotte - congratulations to lori and ashley!!!

i have an hour plus of waiting to do before the actual scan on monday so i'm going to spend that time listing the memory each song of my soundtrack brings to mind. a follow-up post comes soon but for now, here's my playlist:

just like heaven [ the cure ]
soul meets body [ death cab for cutie ]
comfortably numb [ pink floyd ]
#41 [ dave matthews band ]
while my guitar gently weeps [ the beatles ]
rear view mirror [ pearl jam ]
jane [ barenaked ladies ]
silence is easy [ starsailor ]
all these things that i've done [ the killers ]
worlds apart [ jars of clay ]
love in a vaccum [ 'til tuesday ]
breathe on me [ jennifer knapp ]
heart in hand [ vertical horizon ]
in repair [ john mayer ]
silver springs [ fleetwood mac ]
one [ u2 ]
here i am [ water's edge ]
we might as well be strangers [ keane ]
when it's raining [ the samples ]
please, please, please let me get what i want this time [ the smiths ]
sleeping in [ the postal service ]
within a room somewhere [ sixpence none the richer ]
ave maria [cover by chris cornell ]
follow you, follow me [ genesis ]
happier [ guster ]

bonus track: here i dreamt i was an architect [ the decemberists ]

have a great weekend - get your flu shots if you haven't already!!!

what fatigue?

radiation and the window of the treatment's lingering side effects have come to a close and i feel pretty good. i've been steadily increasing my running and/or biking distances, although my radiation oncologist wanted me to recover for another 2 weeks before i start ramping up the intensity to an actual training level. through a new co-worker of mine i've received some inspirational words from butch davis [ unc's football coach who finished radiation / chemo treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma ] as he shared that his valley has only served to strengthen his faith in God.

the toughest part of the entire treatment has probably been what i might refer to as the "not quite me" factor. although my hair has grown back [ curly by the way - ha ha ] and i can wear my normal clothes with all of the prednisone out of my system - i'm still not the same bryan. now this will be a true statement for the rest of my life but on a more superficial level - it'll just take time. this is where patience [ or a lack there of ] really starts to show. i've never really been out of shape during my life and to have to physically build back up to a level i worked pretty hard at maintaining can take its toll. also, on the inside my stomach and lungs are still a bit sensitive - the fact that i had to watch what i drank and ate during chemo was understandable but the slow and steady process of my body healing on its own is where the real frustration lies.

however, i am happy to report that my stomach aches have been getting better and i am seeing a steady improvement week to week when working out. it doesn't take more than one positive sign per trial i go through in order to get me pumped up.

so here we are - in remission and the only step left is to be cured. this patience thing seems to be a recurring theme - never forgetting that we live in today.

thank you to all of you for your thoughts and prayers - they mean so much to jen and i

they don't see any bees

i'd first like to start this post by apologizing for the delay in updating everyone. i just completed my 5th day of radiation - i'm on the table at 7:20am and out of the room by 7:25am. the radiation field is a very focused treatment and machine is only on for about 20 seconds on each side of me. i lie motionless on the table with my arms overhead as this big arm rotates around me. i have sharpie marks all over my chest and sides, as well as a permanent "freckle-like" tattoo that they use with a laser field to align everything. the room is lined with lead and the machine itself has a series of lead slats that create my specific field shape. the machine itself looks like a big kitchen-aid mixer without the bowl - and when they're cooking me i feel nothing. as of day 5 i can report no side effects but i realize that sometime in the next week or so i might begin to have some esophageal irritation and a little fatigue. but i digress, on to the great news -

we only have 17 weekdays of radiation [ that's 12 to go ] because...

the pet scan showed great results!!! the original score [ amount of radioactive sugar gobbled up by the mass ] was 35 - it's now a 4!!! we all have cysts in our bodies and anything that scores under a 7 doesn't even warrant further exploration. any shrinking would have been good sign but this is great. the mass that's leftover could just be scar tissue healing but that is why the radiation is our insurance policy. the analogy goes something like this -

if we think of the original mass as a beehive and the malignant cells as the bees - right now they see no bees. however, just because the hive has shrunk considerably and they see no bees that does not mean there are no bees. this is because the test cannot see through the hive - however, radiation can kill anything in it. and what's amazing about the human body is that radiation destroys the dna of the bad cells so they can't repair themselves where as my organs and tissue that are effected by the field can heal themselves over time. so over the next few weeks they will be monitoring my thyroid [ which is in the field ] and i may develop a bit of a cough as the tops of my lungs heal.

the last bit of good news is that because we did the 6 cycles of chemo instead of 4 the mass shrunk enough so that the radiation field stays completely above my heart. so as far as possible long term side effects go, we're looking real good. i've been staying active during these past few weeks and really what's slowed me down the most is the gastritis i've had. this makes alot of sense considering the prednisone is almost completely out of my system and the body is truly on its own for the first time. it's actually exciting to be frustrated by something as simple as a stomach ache - feels quite normal.

we've been handed off to a new set of nurses who i start my morning with every day - they are equally as cheery and inspiring as my chemo team. but then again, you never forget your roots - those ladies will be with me forever.

as my buddy mike fuller said to me this week - "great progress and great encouragement are a great combination"

have a great weekend everybody!!!

6 cycles down - time to heal

hello all - yahoo!!! we are finished with chemo and looking back i'm thankful for the extra 2 cycles. my scan is august 3rd and i meet with the radiation oncologist on the 13th. i'm thankful for this time to heal up and build up my stamina. i've been back at work full time for the past few weeks and it's been great to get back in the groove. i've been biking and / or running everyday - getting outside has been great. jenny and i have been on many dates - something i missed quite a bit during certain parts of the cycle.

while the next few weeks will be an exercise in patience - i've been trying to find ways to not feel like i'm waiting for the next step. i saw a nutritionist on monday and she was wonderful. i already can visualize my body working its way back to 100%, but there's a new goal - a stronger, healthier than ever bryan. if chemo is gonna tear me down i'm going to rebuild from the inside out the right way.

my voice is pretty close to normal for the first time since mid-january and that is just amazing. the doctor told me to be patient because the nerve that controls the vocal chords takes a while to heal. it's not that i didn't believe him, it's just been a long time - what a nice reward for trusting in something i'll never understand.

hope all of you have a wonderful weekend - it's been nice to experience a day 22 for the first time in 4-1/2 months. slow and steady wins the race - the mass that was once so cleverly hiding on me never knew what hit it. now it's on to our insurance policy.

happy birthday to... ME

thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes - it was wonderful to hear from my nurse sharon that i could have raw fruits and vegetables. i have avoided these for 4+ months and let me tell you what - salad and watermelon have never tasted so good. oh, and that birthday wasn't half bad either. so my counts were very strong at my interim checkpoint last week and this process, which has been an exercise in patience, has really helped break down a lot of myths that the big 'C' word and its treatment used to imply to me. i've been riding the bike outside all week and i'm only more inspired by watching the tour de france every night.

i spent last week with jen, mom, dad, and courtney - they got to see week 2 and all of its mood swings. jenny, whom i'm convinced should be in a different species [ the closest description i can think of is angel ], can read me like a book after 5 cycles was not shocked to see what i affectionately refer to as "A--HOLE" bryan. the rest of the family had heard of this prednisone filled, rage machine but not until cycle 6 had they seen his wrath. because of the anti-nausea meds, the steroids that help reduce inflammation, and the chemo itself, all sorts of levels are out of whack inside the body. and as many of you know, i'm already a passionate man so all these factors come together to produce the perfect storm.

here are two examples of this phenomenon - my sensitivity to certain beverages in cycle 2 causing me to plot the demise of my wife as she kept listing different drinks i could have. all the poor thing wanted to do was keep me hydrated and all i could think about was tossing her off the balcony similar to darth vader and the emperor's final showdown in return of the jedi. the second scenario involved my sensitivity to sound in cycle 2 [ by far the worst cycle ]. as i moaned from the unchecked nausea, my innocent father came down the steps to the bedroom in order to check on me. as he walked his windpants produced a "swoosh" sound that was like nails on a chalkboard to me. so as this kind man wanted to provide any amount of help to me, i could only think about slicing his achilles tendon, therefore ensuring he would never walk again. and although cycle 2 was the worst, jenny dealt with "blow ups" each cycle and it got to the point that she could defuse them faster than a nascar pit crew could change a tire. unfortunately my sister had not witnessed this irrational time bomb but last week she found herself right in the middle of it. the best part is we had just had a conversation about how she felt like she wasn't close enough to the action only 2 weeks prior. hard to believe a simple question about sunscreen on my bald head could cause me to want to rip someone's head off.

i share these events for 2 reasons. first, because they make my buddy lori furman laugh and second, because we crossed a major threshold and looking back we didn't try to avoid the wave, we rode the wave. chemo is the hardest physical challenge i have ever encountered [ or could imagine ] but even more significant is the mental game that you encounter minute by minute. with all the imbalances in my body, i can't expect to control all my physical and emotional reactions but i can choose how i use those feelings - and we did a lot more pumping up than sulking during these six cycles.

so here's to the best birthday ever. hanging with my family, dinner with my buddies here in charlotte, memories of hibachi grilling with my buddies across the country and most importantly, holding hands with my very own angel - jenny.