Paul's Heart

Life As A Dad, And A Survivor

Archive for the category “Recreation”

03 Mar 2014
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Half Of My Life With Cancer


If you have followed “Paul’s Heart,” you notice a countdown box off to the right of the screen. It has a milestone, that to the majority of people, represent something once thought impossible, surviving 25 years from cancer. Yes, today I begin my 25th year of having survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. So the countdown should change from twelve months to go, to days left to go.

I am a 24 year survivor of cancer. I have lived half of my life in spite of a disease that kills millions and yet a cure for all seems so far away. Another year down, I know it is no small feat. But once again, as always, my heart is too heavy to celebrate yet another year gone by. I miss so many that I have had to say goodbye to, and this year gone by I include Kim, Karen, Peter, and Michael.

Last week, as I sat across from my father in his hospital room, a nurse asked my father who had been just told his cancer had returned, “what would you like?” To which my father responded, “to survive cancer like my son.”

Today I recognize, but not celebrate, my 24th completed year of remission for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. It is a sad commentary that in the twenty-first century, we still have not found a cure for cancer for everyone. I am disappointed that follow-up guidelines are not more well known so that survivors are better followed-up for late developing side effects. I want to see better surveillance of patients for critical side effects for drugs that are known to have the possibility of causing side effects, some potentially fatal.

We are so close. Seriously, part of the survivor guilt I deal with, is why I have gotten to live, while so many do not. I am hoping that if anything at this point, is that I may see in my lifetime, a cure for cancer is found, patients are followed more closely during their treatments, and survivors are better followed-up. And as the days count down to one next year, I want to celebrate.

Posted in Adoption, Animals, Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Food, Inspired By..., Politics, Recreation, Side Effects, The Heart
09 Feb 2014
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The Challenge Of Getting Fit


For at least a month now, I have been going full tilt at the gym, trying for the umpteenth time to get myself back into shape. I am not motivated by the “people who are overweight are more likely to have cancer or diabetes” or “having to buy an adjoining seat on an airplane”. Quite simply, I know I feel better when I exercise.

My problem is not will power or guilt. Whenever I try to get back into an exercise routine, like what I did back when I was in high school (okay, I am not in denial either – it has been thirty years since then), I usually have some sort of setback. That setback can be health related, or lack of motivation related. Just the other day it was power related as the gym suffered a rare closure due to power loss from a huge ice storm that we had recieved.

Breaking from the stereotype of patients who undergo chemotherapy, looking emaciated, I actually gained weight, more than fifty pounds. I suffered from “pumpkin face” as my weight ballooned due to my increased appetite from the prednisone I was taking to counteract one of the other chemo drugs I was getting. By the time I was done with my treatment, I weighed over 200 pounds for the first time in my life. Just as I got through my treatments however, I was just as determined to get the weight off. I lost sixty pounds within four months, half the time that I was on chemo with strict diet and exercise.

Over course, aging slowly and a destroyed thyroid (from radiation treatments) helped me to regain the weight, and again I made yet another attempt to restore my weight and physique. I was successful at it too, if it weren’t for the tightness in my chest. In spite of being in good condition, a major heart issue was discovered and required emergency heart surgery (see “CABG – Not Just A Green Leafy Vegetable).

So, following that surgery, I had to give yet another shot at getting my body back into condition. It was a bit of a slower process because I needed to be careful with issues concerning the heart. But my determination was still the same, to get back into the condition that I was in before the surgery. But then I started seeing my doctors for follow ups, and then realizing that I was dealing with late developing side effects from my cancer treatments, for the first time in my life, I was beginning to feel defeated. Conversations with my doctors became more about what I should not be doing. Exercises that gave me strength and power were now of the list of things I could do. Slowly, I began to let the rest of my physique suffer and it seemed as if the late effects were also progressing a little more quickly.

Two months ago, I took the bull by the horns. No more “can’t”. I have been posting my accomplishments on Facebook, not necessarily as bragging, but rather as accountability and to show, that you can, and still need to take care of yourself. I am hoping this week to accomplish two goals. First, tomorrow, not only will I have achieved the calorie burn I was at when I had my heart surgery, but I will also be at the weights that I lifted. Emotionally this is a huge milestone for me.

The second is a shirt. I plan on wearing a shirt on Friday that was intentionally purchased a size smaller than I normally wear. So, not only am I feeling better physically, mentally, I am hoping to look better as well. Like my doctors told me when they first discovered my late effects, they cannot reverse the damage, but they can slow them down. And that has been my challenge to get fit.

Posted in Cancer, Family and Friends, Recreation, Side Effects, The Heart
20 Jan 2014
1 Comment

Super Baby – Part 2


It appears that I am not going to have to wait another thirty years to see my football team get to the Super Bowl. Last night, my Seattle Seahawks defeated the division rivals the San Francisco 49ers to advance to the greatest show on earth. Of course, this similar scenario took place eight years ago.

During the 2005 football season, the Seahawks were catching everyone by surprise. Even more of a surprise was that they were advancing deep into the playoffs. At the same time, another major event in my life had been advancing. I was deep into the process of adopting my second daughter, Emmalie.

You probably have co-workers that operate football pools or bet on the games, and I was no different. I stayed away from them, because I am a much better fan than a gambler. However, January 2006 was different. I had a bravado that had me making statements like “Put your house on Seattle”. I actually told a co-worker, a very serious better with football, to bet his house. Of course, he looked at me like I was crazy. But I was very serious.

If you have followed me a long time, or even just begun, you can see I do not really have the greatest of luck (though it is beginning to turn around). In my past, anything good that happened to me, always ended up underminded, a cruel Murphy’s Law trick.

My paperwork from China for Emmalie was on its way from China, meaning that I would be travelling soon. Though the Super Bowl was three weeks away, I had to prepare myself, that if the Seahawks were to get to the Super Bowl in 2006, no, they were going to get to the Super Bowl in 2006, I was not going to be able to be here to watch the game. Although clearly, I was much more eager to meet my youngest daughter. Conflicted, but eager.

I told my co-worker to bet everything he had, including his house, that the Seahawks would beat the St. Louis Rams (another division rival) in the NFC Championship game to advance to the Super Bowl. And then I explained why. Of course he looked at me as if I were three gallons of crazy in a two gallon bucket. But I stood firm. Unfortunately for him, he did not share my confidence. I do not know how much he had wagered, but clearly he did not win his full potential.

As expected, the Seahawks won and advanced to the Super Bowl on February 6, 2008. As expected, I got my notice that I would be travelling to China to adopt the newest addition to my family, Emmalie on February 9th. But at least I would get to the my team for the first time in its history, play in the Super Bowl.

I received a telephone call just a week before February 4th. It was the adoption agency. “Mr. Edelman, I’m happy to tell you that your travel date has been moved up to February 6th.” That was great news! I would get to hold Emmalie sooner. Then it hit me, that was Super Bowl Sunday. Oh well, I would just have to rely on the DVR, because big sister Madison and I were too anxious to travel to China to bring Emmalie home.

There is one bad thing to the technology in 2006, memory usage. My DVR had been erased back to zero per cent used, so I had plenty of space to record the game. What I had not been counting on, was that my ex was taping all of her soap operas while we were gone. Of course I had to record the Super Bowl in high def which would take up more memory, but look great. BUt unfortunately, when the memory maxed out, the DVR would start to delete the oldest programs first. So, after two weeks of recording two soap operas every day, when we arrived home from China with Emmalie, though I already knew the results of the game from two weeks before, and being jet-lagged with the thirteen hour time difference, I still wanted to watch the game.

What game? Memory usage had pushed the oldest program off of the DVR, in other words, my Super Bowl. I never got to see it after all.

As we sat at the table last night, Emmalie and I had a conversation on how she and I were going to watch this year’s Super Bowl together. Even more strange, thanks to a childhood friend, even my oldest daughter is into football now. Although it is more because she heard of a football player with our last name (Julian Edelman of the Patriots).

It was an entertaining game, not pretty, but gutsy. But in two weeks, my Super Bowl baby, now eight, and my older daughter will sit down and watch the spectacle that I missed eight years ago. I have always enjoyed telling the story of the game that never was. That I was flying over the North Pole during the kickoff of my football team’s first Super Bowl appearance. But the eight years of memories being the father of two beautiful little girls… priceless.

Posted in Adoption, Family and Friends, Recreation and tagged

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