Hey all

Well the Rock Cancer Out benefits raised about $500 between two shows. Not bad considering one of them we didn't even advertise until the day before and the other was during a thunderstorm. All in all I can't complain. I have decided to donate the $$ to the Hope lodge here in Minneapolis. Talking to some of the people around here this place has given them an opportunity to get the right medical care with out going financially bankrupt. I know that feeling after my first fight with cancer. The Friday night show in Eau Claire was fun. All of the bands were great and a huge chunk of the people there were friends of mine and people I haven't seen in years. I do need to give Joey G from the House of Rock a great thanks for letting me host the first EC one there. If I ever get the opportunity again I will host another there it is a great place for live tunes and the staff kicks major ass. My overall experience from Friday night was quite amazing. My friends back home are so awesome damn near everyone of them made it out to the show. Besides that I shot the shit with a lot of them and the encouragement, confidence, and most importantly honesty was something that I really needed to get thrown back at me. At time those things almost seem to make me over confident/cocky. As we all know I am cocky enough. Saturday, I got back in my truck and drove straight back to the hope lodge. I was feeling terrible. I was nauseated to the max and was just plain hurting all over. This was pretty normal since it was my 4th day after getting my chemo treatment, but I never felt like that before and it kind of scared me a bit. I threw up from a tiny bit of nausea on Friday, but none at all on Saturday. The chest pains started up a little yesterday and were quite controllable with the oxycodone. Last night was the other Rock Cancer Out here in Minneapolis and I was so sick that I just couldn't do it. Good thing my good friend Topher was able to handle everything going on. I was pretty bummed because I wanted to see my friends that were coming out to it and we had a nice line up for the evening. The one thing I must remind people is that chemo is different for everyone and every round farther in you get the worse the sympthoms get. For me I know when my sickness is pretty much over. I try telling everyone that it is like the flu. When you are up all night with the cold sweats tossing and turning burning up not being able to sleep at all. Then add in nausea my chest and shoulder pains. I also really can't cough because it hurts so bad to do so. Same thing goes with sneezing, but that is ten times worse. When it is over it is like the flu you wake up feeling good and in a puddle of sweat. Needless to say I did laundry today. Not to mention I also had two of those nasty Hydranititis Suprativa under each of my arm pits pop and those damn things are gross. I don't know why I keep getting them I shower sometimes twice a day.
Today was a great day though. I just did errands in the morning which allowed me to get out for a bit and see the town again. I have yet gotten out of Dinkytown. For those of you unfamiliar with the sectins of Minneapolis I will explain. There are basically 4 parts of Minneapolis Downtown, Dinkytown(UofM campus), Uptown(a trendy area yet full of students), the city parts of Minneapolis. I am right in Dinkytown. Things have changed here so much over the past two years. Now that they have the football stadium halfway up the area is really exploding. Hopefully that helps some of you guys out though. I went to the music scene cookout at my friend Topher's house for a few minutes to see some friends and it was really nice. I know I say it a lot but I really do have amazing friends everywhere. Not much was said about my situation which is nice. Atleast Wendy got to see me so she can settle down a bit. It was on her birthday 3 years ago that I had gotten the results of a CT/PET scan for my check up and they found the curent spot on my spleen then told me they come across these everyonce in a while where it could be nothing and they wanted to just monitor it. Gee, I wonder what happened huh? I don't know if she remembers that but I do. So the rest of my evening was really nice as well. Heather came over to see the place and spend sometime with me. There isn't much to do around here so I showed here around the place and she seemed really impressed by the facility. We planned on watching a movie and I was shocked t learn that she has never seen Grosse Pointe Blank which is one of my all-time favorite movie. It is hilarious and full of action. John and Joan Cusak, Minne Driver, and Dan Akroyd play the main characters in it. Check it out if you haven't seen it. So we watched it and she liked it. I tried sit back and not to recite the movie line for line. She wanted to go for a walk which was really nice. We just talked about things and enjoyed the scenery of Dinkytown. I will have to get on the bal about taking pictures and posting them up on here. I am way behind by about a week on that.

Tomorrow I have to call over to the hospital and get the date of my doctors appointments and scans. There were some problems with the schedulings overlapping with other patients and so I was able to get it. I stressed the point I left UW hospitals over their incompetience. Problem is that Terry(Dr.Maddaus's assistant) is on vacation until tomorrow and she was in the middle of everything. This week will be busy because I will probably get all of that stuff done by Friday. I also have to get ahold of the Bloomington Gustave Larson branch right away in the morning to work on a game plan for working with them. Apparently, they are short a person there again so I guess I might as well flash my excellence and try to stick with them after everything is over and done with. I am going to try and head back down to Madison at the end of the month to finish packing up my room and taking in to my parents for a bit. After I do that I am putting up my room for rent and it will be good timing considering people are coming back into town and football season is right around the corner. For those of you out there that do not know where my house in Madison is located let me tell you. Go to Camp Randall Stadium's student section and look across the street at the house with the big Wisconsin "W" on it. It is a prime location for Fall and engineering students. That is the game plan at the moment. I am also starting up my 30 day pass at LA Fitness with Topher so hopefully I get in better shape. I haven't received any questions in quite a while so email something people.