Brian D. Buck's Weblog
out here where right before me there is everything and nothing
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- Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:49:28 GMT
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- Brian Buck
I have sad news for you today. Brian died on April 8th in the early hours of the morning. Brian died the way he lived, on his own terms, strong until the end.
Brian loved life and wanted to live, but in January of this year it became clear that he would not survive this last recurrence. He chose to spend his final months at home surrounded by the people and things he loved. This, of course included our beloved dog Willow. This journal has always been important to Brian, and I thank you for being part of it. His mother, brother, and I wanted to share this slideshow remembrance of his photos and life.
His wife and loving life partner,
Claudia
Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:00:00 GMT - My New BAT
Hopefully I'll be updating the blog more often now that my brother did some amazing work retrofitting one of my BAT keyboards so that it fits nicely -- or shall I say very sweetly -- on top of my laptop. He made a completely new case for the circuitry from hardwood and made the location of the keyboard adjustable with a velcro backing. This allows me to type fast on the BAT and still be able to access the nubby mouse thingy above the "B" key and also be able to hit the mouse clickers. It was a labor of love, I can tell, Thanks Bro!
Here it is in action writing today's post:
Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:49:27 GMT - Treatment Update
It's been an interesting few weeks. First, the last treatment I had didn't work either, so the Friday after Election Day I began an alternative way of administering the miracle drugs that I had such a bad reaction to in June. So far, so good! The trick was to give me half the dosage of Oxaliplatin and increase the dose of CPT-11. I'm also getting a full steroid treatment before and after the treatments, which is common to do with other chemos that are hard for people to tolerate. The best news so far is that the treatment has definitely reduced the swelling in my leg a lot, so we are all hoping we've finally hit the right combo to beat back this tumor.
Also a warm welcome to my old friend Noah! Glad you looked me up. There must be some sort of karma, or serendipidy or whatever you want to call it -- just two weeks ago when Mom was in town we decided to take a road trip from here up to Weston and see the old house on Godfrey Road. It's been at least 5 years since I've been up that way. Hope to talk soon and catch up.
Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:18:50 GMT I did my civic duty and voted. I was voter 181 for the day, about twenty people in line ahead of me. Felt great to vote.
The big news of recent weeks is Claudia and I got a dog! I wish I felt up to formatting and posting some pictures, so here is a link to some raw photos. Her name is Willow and she's a 11 month old Pembroke Corgi. She's already warmed our hearts, and brought so much love into the house. I'm sure I'll get around to getting more photos up soon!
Tue, 02 Nov 2004 16:40:34 GMTI've been pretty bogged down with treatment fatigue over the last few weeks, and to top it off, I've come down with a head cold in the last few days when my immune system was at its lowest. Luckily, Nupogen, which gives me aching back pains, has brought my white blood cound from a .7 earlier in the week back into the normal range of 4.5. It really is a miracle drug for cancer patients. It's hard to explain, but this simple cold could have easily turned fatal, and unfortunately I've known a few people who have died on treatment from viruses and colds when their counts were down. I've been lucky that in all my years this is only the second time I've been hit with something while my counts were dangerously low.
The other big news in the last few weeks is that I got into a wreck on the West Side Highway. I was cruising along and all the sudden the car in front of me was at a dead stop. I was only doing 30 or so, and managed to slow down enough to where my airbags didn't deploy. I tried to shift to the next lane, but there was somebody there. Traffic was flowing fine in all of the lanes, in fact there was nobody stopped in front of the lady when I hit her. I have no idea why she was stopped, and she didn't want to talk to me. Luckily nobody was hurt and her car sustained minor damage. My car, unfortuately, scooted under her bumper and it caused a lot of damage, including busting the transmission cooler, which rendered the car un-drivable. So it's been in the shop for the last week or so and I'm out my $500 deductible. Luckily our insurance policy provides a rental, so at least we weren't left without a car.
Wed, 06 Oct 2004 18:49:30 GMTMy most recent treatment didn't work either, acording to scans that I had this week. The good news is that the mega-pain I had in my leg seems to have gone, even though there is still a lot'o'clot left in my leg on the scans. It's probably just still breaking up, and with my blood counts so low, I can't take any of the thinners that will supposedly break it up more.
Next week, or as soon as my body recovers enough, which may be another week, I'm starting a new treatment of Gemzar and Taxotere, which is one of the last of the available chemo options. After that, it will probably be radiation of some sort.
It has been an amazing frustration this summer rolling through every chemo combination to no avail, and watching this bastard of a tumor grow bigger with each scan. There's really not much else I can say other than that. I have to go back in on Sunday to check to see if I need another blood transfusion. Ahhhh.....the life of a cancer patient.....
PS -- thanks Jay for the CDs, they really picked me up this week.
Fri, 10 Sep 2004 20:50:44 GMTCan't sleep. Even though I'm taking enough meds to stun an elephant, sometimes they seem to work the other way. It's 1am and I'm totally wired, the most awake I've felt in days. Sometimes I envision my neurotransmitters as waveforms, and some rouge wave comes along and pushes me in one direction or another. Tonight I'm at the top of some sort of manic crest. Oh well. I'm making up for lost time by queueing up some Hendrix bootlegs I found over on http://www.easytree.org/. Supposedly all this stuff is legal. If not, oh well, my bad!
Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:07:08 GMTTo make a long story short, the pain in my leg ended up not being an injury, but a clot that was released from my hip and traveled down to my calf/knee-pit area. Last monday they did the calf scan, plus a bunch more, saw that the last chemo wasn't really working on the hip, started a new chemo regimen on Tues & Wed and then Thursday I got blood since I still hadn't recovered from the last chemo, but there's no time to waste....then on Friday I had surgery to install a protective "greenfield" filter below my inferior vena cava. Basically the filter will protect my heart and lungs and break up any large parts of clot as they dissipate from my leg. The surgery was really easy, they go in through a vein in my groin and go up, similar to the heart-stint procedures that are common these days. The thing is designed to stay in permanently, and I'm kinda glad to be protected. It was quite a week and I'm totally exhausted from it all, I slept pretty much all weekend. I went in to the center early this morning and traffic wasn't too bad due to the RNC Convention, but I have to go back in on Wed for more blood work. Hopefully I'll get off easy again with the traffic.
Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:28:37 GMT
