Month: March 2024

Eighth Immunotherapy Treatment

Ben

March 26th, 2024

Today was my eighth immunotherapy treatment and this time we decided to make good use of the travel time. My daughter got some of her required driving hours in and some good experience driving on the interstate. Thankfully, it was a nicer day than it has been for the last few trips and traffic on the interstate was not too crazy. I didn’t want to subject her to the big city traffic yet, so we switched out before we got into the city. She did a great job and while she did admit to being nervous, she didn’t overreact to any situations and didn’t give me any reason to fear for our lives! 😀

The nurses were apologizing for the wait time today, even though I didn’t really wait any longer than my average visit. Since I hadn’t waited all that long, I asked one of them if it had been a busy day for them. Apparently, before I arrived for my appointment today, the nurses were so overloaded with patients that some people had been waiting for a couple of hours from their initial appointment time before they got called back. I guess I arrived late enough in the day that they had already worked the queue back down to a pretty short wait time.

In Other News

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in this blog yet, but for the past several months I have been doing lot of research and sifting through all sorts of laws and legalese at the state and federal level. Why you ask? Well, I’ve been considering starting my own side business. I’m not planning anything too exciting, I’m just looking for a way to try and sell some of my digital creative work as a way to make a little extra money (I hope) to help us out with rising expenses and long term plans. Don’t worry, I’m not quitting my job or anything crazy like that. I’m just planning to try and create some extra income when I’m not at work.

I know you can sell things in person or online without creating a company, but a single member (me) Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a reasonably inexpensive way to be sure you can legally sell your product(s) and at the same time provides you with some legal protection, just in case something goes wrong. So, I think I’m just about ready to give this LLC idea a try. I’ll let you know if and when I do it, and if you happen to have been thinking of doing something similar, feel free to ask me about it. After all that research I now know a decent amount about the rules governing the formation and management of your own LLC, at least in this state, and I’d be happy to try and save you some research time if I can answer a question for you.

Health Update, Life Update

Doctor Visit, Happy, Hopeful, Optimistic
Seventh Immunotherapy Treatment

Ben

March 6th, 2024

Well, yesterday was the seventh immunotherapy treatment and as before, I have no treatment related issues or side effects to report. However, I had a bit of a weird experience when they were prepping me for the infusion. The first vein they stuck the needle into didn’t bleed. Apparently that can happen, but it was strange to see the needle come out without even a drop of blood on the puncture wound. It is currently just a little pink bump, kind of like a mosquito bite that doesn’t itch.

This visit, the wait time in the lobby was a bit longer than normal and I overheard a lady and her daughter sitting near me discussing the immunotherapy treatment, what it might be like, and wondering aloud “does it always take this long to get in?” I decided to get their attention and talk to them for a few minutes since we were all waiting, and I let them know that the wait time was normally not this bad. The lady had recently had a biopsy of her melanoma on her leg, almost in the same spot as me, and she and her daughter were there for the first time to talk to the doctors about the immunotherapy treatment option.

I shared what I could with them about the treatments I’d had so far, the lack of side effects up to this point, and I let her know the doctor she/we were seeing was a very pleasant person and easy to talk to. I think I was able to calm their nerves a little bit, at least I hope so. 🙂

Dermatologist Visit

This morning before I went to work I had a follow-up visit with the dermatologist and I was given a good report. The doctor told me there are no new spots to be concerned about and my scar from surgery is healing up nicely. I’ll be going back for another visit in about three months.

Health Update

Doctor Visit, Happy, Optimistic
Sixth Immunotherapy Treatment

Ben

March 2nd, 2024

Well, here I am again, sitting at the “tomorrow that almost never came.” I meant to post about this trip the day after it happened, but that was Valentine’s Day. I kept telling myself I’d write it up “tomorrow,” and now here I am at about two and a half week’s worth of tomorrows, finally getting around to writing this up. So, on February 13^th, I went in for my sixth immunotherapy treatment, which, thankfully, was pretty uneventful. The road trip is starting to become familiar and since the weather is beginning to get warmer, I’m looking forward to being able to drive with the windows down, or at least cracked, soon. I don’t know about anyone else, but I enjoy having the wind in the car.

For the past two to three weeks since my last visit, I had been a bit under the weather, so I was glad to be back to a standard healthy state by the 13^th because it’s no fun having to figure out how to safely blow your nose while driving, let alone at interstate speeds! 🙂 I was dealing with a lot of sinus drainage, which for me almost always ends up causing chest congestion and coughing that can last long after the drainage has stopped. However, as I said, on the day of the trip, everything finally seemed to clear up.

Valentine’s Day

My wife and I decided to take our daughter and her boyfriend out for Valentine’s Day at the end of that week. We went out to dinner and did some semi-competitive hatchet throwing. We had done this activity before and had a lot of fun, but this was new for the younger two. If you’ve never done this before, I recommend it because it can be a lot of fun. The local business that offers this activity teaches you how to do it and how to be safe while having fun.

You might be surprised to hear that it really doesn’t take a lot of arm strength to throw a hatchet at a target. In fact, it is actually harder to hit the target if you throw the hatchet too hard. If you think you might like to try this too, you can look up the details online or just ask one of us for more information.

This Tuesday is my next treatment day and the day after that I have a follow-up appointment with the dermatologist. I’ll be getting checked over again for any external signs of returning melanoma. I don’t expect any bad news this time around, but either way, I will let you know how things go, and I promise the next post will be more punctual! 🙂

Health Update, Life Update

Doctor Visit, Happy

Month: March 2024

Eighth Immunotherapy Treatment

In Other News

Seventh Immunotherapy Treatment

Dermatologist Visit

Sixth Immunotherapy Treatment

Valentine’s Day