Saturdays are for naps.....

Spending the day getting chemo is no fun. A neccesary evil i suppose..... Happy Birthday Dad!

Crappy day One plus Sixty-Four

Wednesday February 6th was the date chosen for me to become cancer free. Apparently the standard of care for a person in my particular circumstance is to undergo a surgical procedure called an Esophagectomy. Describing this surgery as invasive might be considered an understatement. The short description is as follows. Open the abdomen from the front, remove a large portion of the stomach and esophagus. Then following a Thorocotomy (open the chest from the side and back), pull the remaining stomach up into the chest cavity to reconnect it.

Pretty easy right? The nickname for the surgery is the "beast".


23 days as a hospital patient is a very long time. Some might say it's an eternity. When 21 of those have been without being able to eat or drink anything by mouth then things get really interesting. Feeding tubes, chest tubes, catheters, IV's all become the center of your world that stands still. The first week I was in the Special Care Unit (ICU). This is where they keep you so medicated that you can't see straight and they can manage your care with little or no help from you. I don't remember much from here and what I do rememeber never actually happened anyway so I have to take others' word for the experience. Some cool dreams that are a little off the wall. After that I was moved to the third floor for the rest of my stay.


Let me say that I wish I had a pencil and paper for each and every time a new person came into my room or helped with my stay so I could keep track of them all. They were all great. They treated us well and were more than helpful. I'll never be able to express it quite right. Melanie was an all star. She stayed with me for all but about 5 nights. Some of those nights she had been home for 20 minutes when she got my call that I wanted her to some back. Another 40 mile round trip in the book. One significant side effect of all this is my relstionship with my family. We are all a lot closer now I think and have a much deeper appreciation for one another. I rememebr that one day while I was in the hopsital I called my sister Sheri and told her that I missed her. I was feeling very meloncholy that day. Sheri and her family live in Flagstaff and she had been here for the surgery and stuff so it's not like she hadn't been here. She dropped everything that minute and drove in from Flag to see me at the hospital. I'll never forget that.
There are tons of stories like that I can tell and I hope I get to them all.

The pain was bearable. The doctors were unbearable, the usual. I really would have paid $5000 for a pepsi at about 15 days in....

Home sweet home on February 29th. It was a Friday and we had been planning on going home for a couple of days. We were packed and ready at about 3pm that afternoon. We left the hospital abotu 8:30 I think. It was a long slow ride to the car and an even longer ride home. Home has never looked so good. It was surreal and only the beginning....

Insert crazy family story here....

Happy Thanksgiving.... I hope that everyone enjoys a safe and happy holiday.

Everyone has a crazy family story or two. Thanksgiving, Christmas or other holiday dujour is where many of those stories come from. We have a few of our own but I usually let my sisters tell them as my recollection of the details is not as precise as thiers. I am particularly fond of the church service where the congregation was graced by the presence of an inebriated woman in an elf costume. She was priceless. These are the days when those memories get created. I am hoping we'll make a few this week.

Family pictures, a snowball fight and many other activities are planned for the long weekend. Thanksgiving in Flagstaff with the family. First time in years that we have all been together. All but one anyway. Steven comes home in 47 days. The high temp tomorrow is supposed to be 38 and 1-3 inches of snow.. Cool...!!!!! I guarantee someone is getting pelted with a snowball..... Were coming back early so I can do Chemo on Saturday.

Here's hoping that all of those I care about and even those I dont, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Shhhh...It's all quiet....

Nearly 48 consecutive childless hours. Ahhhhh.. We do love these infrequent breaks.


Football Sunday was good. Bears won big against the hapless Rams. I even got to experience the pleasure of a Portillos Italian Beef sandwich imported directly from Chicago. Unbelievable.

Now I am a huge fan of the Italian Beef and/or Italian Sausage sandwich. Lukes here in Phoenix is one of the best around. The Portillos version can be shipped in frozen complete with rolls and hot peppers to top them off. It was beyond compare. I think the rolls would be worth the cost of the plane ticket alone.


We are working on an italian sausage version of stuffing for Thanksgiving. It should be yummy. My friends the Shepherds are visiting the bay area for the holiday weekend. Godspeed to the Shepherds.


Apparently Chemotherapy and Cancer are improving my bowling game. I had a 600+ series last week and my average has improved 21 pins since the start of the season. Not sure what to make of that but I'll take the points anyway.

TGIF!!!!!!!

It's finally Friday! Woo Hoo!!! Ok enough of the end of week revelry.... It's chemo day, bring on the Benadryl! Better living through pharmacology I always say. I was having a discussion with my daughter yesterday and the subject of medical marijuana came up. I said that If I thought it would help I would probably use it to some extent. She was teasing me because I was saying that "If you have cancer you should be able to enjoy yourself at some point". Of course I have no idea how it would affect me because I think It's been like 25 years since I "didn't inhale". Everyone rolls their eyes when I say things like "Can't wait for the Versed hangover" or "Bring on the Benadryl". Look, I am just trying to make the best of a bad situation.... Really. I am.

I simply cannot wait until Thanksgiving next week. Having my whole family together for the first time in many years will be awesome! I have to come home on Saturday for Chemo but it's a good trade off. The Chemo nurses at the hospital are not usually staffed on Saturdays but they are doing me a favor next week. My medical team is filled with rockstars. They are awesome!

One nice side effect of my illness this last year is that I have grown much closer to my sisters' Sheri and Susan than I ever thought I would. They have both been pillars of strength this year and I am so grateful that we have become so much closer. I love them dearly even though they are flaming liberals.

Only three radiation treatments left. It'll be nice to see that be over... Here is a picture of the machine that does the radiation treatments. It doesn't look like much but I guess it's the cats pajamas as far as the treatments go.

All the way to Wednesday....

Not feeling much in a writing mood the last few days. We are in the post baseball season funk (Glad it's over but missing it all the same)....

Three doctor visits yesterday. The marketing people for these doctors really do need to set up a frequent flier program. Seriously, With all the time I spend at their office getting poked and prodded there should be something coming back the other way besides the thrill of dropping another $30.00 copay. One of my visits yesterday was unplanned. When I am feeling anxious I sometimes go and talk to my primary care physician. I have a really good rapport with her and it's sometimes easier to get the information I am looking for than with a couple of the other doctors on my team. She'll even see me without an appointment which is cool. It's also fun to try and talk my way into the office over there without the requisite blood pressure check, etc. They are all great docs but sometimes I don't want to have to work that hard for the information I need.

I was shocked yesterday to hear that Casey's counselor actually agreed with Melanie and I on something. All I have heard from this person is how I can't control Casey's behavior, etc. WE had opposite stances on a couple of potentially very serious issues. Serious enough I considered finding another counselor. Yesterday I heard that the counselor actually agreed with Melanie and I over something that we had been conflicting with Casey about. All I can say is "Welcome to the party!". It's about time....

Blood tests tomorrow, Chemo on Friday. I am pleased that I have not been sick at all from this Chemo. Of course my anxiety is high as that has to mean they are not doing it right. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the family next week at Thanksgiving. If only Steven could be there we would all finally be together. Even my Dad is coming. We are so excited to have him with us. It's an unexpected treat. I am not sure what precipitated that but I'll be thankful just the same.

I guess Sheri bought a stamp for the imaginary letter she wrote to Steven. I told her that if that letter isn't mailed by the time I get to Flagstaff next Wednesday I am throwing her out of the family.

I am still working on organizing my thoughts for the blog section on my surgery so please be patient.

The chemo ordeal is over......

Finally, Nine plus hours in the chair. Better planning next time I suppose.

Saturday's final baseball game brought the White Sox a rare victory. A good time was had by all.

Sunday's food visit to Steven was a blast as usual. The next time I go there I'll be bringing him home to his family. It's been such an ordeal and I am so proud of how he has handled everything. We have missed him so very much. Less than 60 days to go. Yippee!!!!

Did I mention that Chemo sucks ass!

7 hours, 43 minutes and not finished yet. Lab delays for bloodwork. Slow pharmacists, bad tubing.. Arrrgh!!!!! Calgon take me away!

Chemo sucks ass!

If you are going to be injected with chemicals on a friday afternoon shouldn't they contain hops and barley or at least be distilled? Taxol and Carboplatin do not make for much of a happy hour at the end of the week. I am just hoping I can hold off the puking until I get home. Sigh....

Quick note....

I swear that Mountain Dew Code Red is the perfect food. I have been living on a steady diet of Code Red for a few months now. Many of them were consumed at three in the morning after waking up int he middle of the night (yes i was able to go back to sleep). Recently I have been stopping off on the way to work a couple of times a week and grabbing up a few bottles for the office fridge. One of my office mates John is a self described Mountain Dew (regular flavor) addict so I often pick up a bottle for him to save him a trip across the hospital to the vending machine. This morning when I stocked up I guess I must have accidentally grabbed a diet dew for John instead instead of the regular flavor. He made a peculiar sound after the first sip along with the requisite sputtering noises one might expect. I felt bad but it was still pretty funny. It was even funnier the 2nd time he picked it up and took a drink. It's probably bad for me but since the docs are filling me full of poisonous chemo drugs and shooting me with radiation I think the "Code Red" danger is pretty far down the list....

Mmmmm.... Spaghetti....

My wife Melanie is a world class cook. I don't think that she thinks so but she really is. She is always looking for new recipes and stuff to try out. One day last week we had Chicken Breasts stuffed with a sausage stuffing and they were wrapped in bacon. Yummy. Last night was her classic spaghetti with Italian sausage meat sauce. Unbelievable! I wish I had leftovers for lunch today.

Then, reality sets in another EGD is scheduled for Monday. Radiation treatments started this morning and Chemo is tomorrow... Oh joy....

Crappy day one plus one…

December 4th 2007 – February 6th, 2008
So now were off to the races. The GI Doc hands me back to the Resident who says I need an Oncologist and a Surgeon like yesterday and that time is of the essence. So I poke around the hospital a little and find out who I should see. Since I work in a hospital (which turns out to be a good thing) there is no shortage of opinions of who I should go and talk to about my situation. I got two pieces of really good advice. The first was from the Nurse Manager of our Oncology floor who said “If I had what you have here is the name of the doctor I am calling”. The second was “Do not accept anything at face value. Ask questions until you are satisfied with the response. If you aren’t satisfied, someone is not doing their job and that is unacceptable.”
So within a few days I have a Medical Team, not just a couple of doctors. I felt like the General Manager of a baseball team going into the draft….

Primary Care Physician- Dr. Elizabeth O’Connor
Oncologist- Dr. Aurilio Tiro
Gastroenterologist- Dr. Edward Alper
Gastroenterologist- Dr. Derek Landan
General Surgeon- Dr. Jeffery VanLeirRibbink
Thoracic Surgeon- Dr. Thomas Wareing

I run into the usual problems like, “Sure Dr. X can see you, our first opening is January 31st” never mind that it’s December 7th and you have an aggressive tumor trying to kill you.”
It didn’t matter. One visit to Dr. Tiro and he was on the phone kicking ass and taking names. Problem solved. So now it’s time to enter the diagnostic portion of our competition.

PET Scan, The best tool for detecting cancer. – Result inconclusive.
CT Scan, Generally reliable scanning tool widely in use for many general medical imaging diagnostics- Result inconclusive.
MRI- Another- Generally reliable scanning tool widely in use for many general medical imaging diagnostics- Result inconclusive.
Esophageal Ultrasound (EUS)- Same as an Endoscopy (EGD) but sin an ultrasound of the affected area- Very useful for staging and mapping of the tumor.

Now that the diagnostics are done we are in the home stretch. Meet with the surgeons (After the call from Dr Tiro that opened up their schedule) and see if they think they can operate. I have two of the best so once the scheduling merry-go round was over February 6th,, 2008 was the day chosen for me to become cancer free.

As previously mentioned, yesterday was a baseball day….

The White Sox (our kids) got smacked around by the Yankees. It was fun anyway. We have some nice kids on our team this season. Only one game left until retirement. I wonder what Sean will say? I hope that someday down the road he sees value in the time we spent together on the baseball field. I have that same kind of connection with my Dad through our hunting trips. My sisters really got cheated because it ended up like Dad and I had this secret club that they weren't a part of. It's importamnt to note that my own daughter Casey is now being cheated in the same way. I am looking for ways to resolve that issue. I'd like to thank Melanie my wife for bringing that to my attention (multiple times) and making suggestions on how to change it.

If we can’t go to Fort Grant on Saturday I hope I am not too sick to go have Pizza with the baseball team after the game.

Dad, The next meeting of the secret club is December 18^th for Elk hunting.

Every blog has a purpose…. This is the reason for mine.

December 4th 2007 was a crappy day. It was a Tuesday. On December 4th 2007 I was diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer.

In the fall of 2007 I experienced some problems swallowing food. It seemed as though food was stopping on the way down to my stomach. The occurrences weren’t regular enough to cause great concern as usually the food passed after a few moments of pain and I thought that maybe it might be the type or consistency of the food that might be the problem. The condition persisted for a few weeks until an episode that occurred while I was on a hunting trip. A bite of steak became lodged in my esophagus for nearly two minutes and was very painful and frightening. I had to basically vomit the food back up. We were about two hours from the closest hospital and if I would not have been able to pass that food back up I might have choked to death right there in Rucker Canyon. I made an appointment to see a doctor when I got home.

Like most men my age I don’t have a regular physician. At forty-one and in relatively good health (save a bunch of extra pounds and too little excercise) I had yet to receive a regular physical or have a need for anything other than an occasional antibiotic or sprained ankle x-ray, etc. I went over the Heuser Family Medical clinic that is part of the hospital where I work. Scottsdale Healthcare is a teaching hospital and the Heuser clinic is where much of that teaching gets done. I went in to see one of the residents for an exam. After the usual speeches about my weight, staying away from smoking etc, my doc referred me to a GI Specialist. With my periodic history of acid reflux and less than stellar eating habits the Doc seemed to think that this was nothing more than a side effect from the reflux or some other related condition. Esophageal Cancer was on her list but at my age and health she seemed to think that it wasn’t a probable cause.

The GI specialist scheduled two diagnostic procedures, a Barium Swallow and an Endoscopy. One sucked, the other was involved sedation with a very cool drug called Versed. Not everyone is a fan but if I could get a six pack to go I wouldn’t leave the house for two weeks. A barium swallow has you swallowing a substance that looks and tastes like wet chalk dust while standing in front of a fluoroscope machine. While you swallow the chemical the technologist can see all of the movements of the esophagus etc to see what the problems might be. The test was inconclusive. They saw the hitch in the muscle movement but no cause so on to Endoscopy. This is where the Doctor gets you stoned and put’s a tv camera down your throat into your stomach and large intestine. Best of all you have no memory of any of it. Just a blank stare and asking what’s for lunch? Oh, and by the way… Your conversations later that day might go something like this. "Honey when did we go to that restaurant that those leftovers are from?" "Today on the way home Dear, Don’t you remember?" An hour later… "Honey when did we go to that restaurant that those leftovers are from?" ..... Often times if the Doctor sees something out of the ordinary or otherwise interesting he’ll take a small tissue sample for testing. My test came back positive for Esophageal Cancer. Specifically, Squamous Cell Carcinoma at the junction of the esophagus and stomach.

December 4th, 2007 was crappy day number one.

It's Tuesday...

It's Tuesday, Why is that significant? I am not sure. Good news is today is a baseball day. Fall Baseball for us means an evening on the ball field coaching my son and his teammates. Only two games left this fall season. Our record while not impressive is not indicative of the progress we have made. I am proud of those kids. I wish all the parents acted like they were too...


This season is a special one. I was really missing being out there with the kids over the spring. I arm twisted Tim Macey (One of the baseball parents) to come out and help me take a team this fall. Tim, his wife Heather and their boys Carter and Ben have been around the school and baseball league for the last few years. Parts of my recovery (and now relapse) have been slow and it seems like sometimes the only things that help are doing the things that used to be "normal". Tim's contribution has been immeasurable and this entire season would not have been possible without his help. His understanding and generosity have been a blessing and I will be forever grateful for the gift he has given me. I also need to thank my youngest son Sean for putting up with me and my ridiculous expectations. Thank you for working hard when you didn't want to. I promise, from now on I'll just be a fan ok?


Two more X-Rays today and more CT Scans tomorrow. Scheduling Chemo is going to suck. With the holidays coming the chosen day of Friday is a drag because I can't be away with my family and be here to get chemo at the same time.


Brandon Webb got screwed by not getting the NL Cy Young award. Linecum, the Giants pitcher in his sophmore season had a great year but not nearly as gutsy as the seasoned veteran Webb.

A travesty, just like when the Yankees make the playoffs, the Democrats win the White House or a steak being well done.

If you have cancer you should be able to benefit some way right? I am not talking about getting a speeding ticket fixed or something like that but something easy like being able to visit my son on Saturday instead of Sunday this week. I have Chemo on Friday so it's not like I'll be enjoying that 8 hour car ride but not having to rush home on Sunday afternoon would be awesome... Unfortunately it looks like the Arizona Department of Corrections doesn't care that I have cancer.


I had dinner out with my kids last night. First time in a long time it was just the three of us and we weren't eating happy hour food at Applebees. Credit Casey who wanted to try something new (crab), which I never do so not only did she order Crab (not my favorite) we got mussels to try too... Not a bad as I expected. I was happy to have broadened my horizons if even a little.

I never should have let Casey keep me from line dancing with the wait staff though.

The power of positive thinking.....

This is my blog... It wasn't that long ago that I didn't know what a blog was. For that matter I didn't know what Esophogeal Cancer was either. Now it looks like I am destined to be imtimately familiar with both. My name is Scott Smith. I am a 42 year old white male living a middle class life in Phoenix, Arizona.

On December 4th, 2007 I was diagnosed with Esohpogeal Cancer. Specifucally, a stage I-II squamous cell carcinoma tumor at the junction between the esophogus and stomach. Sounds cool doesn't it? Not really.

A friend suggested that u use a blog to communicate with family and friends about my conditon, treatments, etc. I thought I might give it a try. Maybe it will be theraputic, who knows. Thanks for reading...