Stacey and I squeezed our way into a couple of available seats in the crowded waiting room. The waiting room, probably designed to hold around 20, had about 30 people waiting. And the shared knowledge in the space that many of us were headed to get some chemotherapy didn’t necessarily boost the overall mood…despite the free coffee. I looked up and made eye contact with another person nearby. Her eyes smiled back, and I said hello. And I’m so glad I did. For a good stretch o

Well I’ve got the date set for lung surgery. I’ll head down to MD Anderson for surgery on April 30th where they will remove 80% of the right lower lobe of my lung. I’ll spend 10-ish days down in Houston, including pre-op and post-op stuff, and then head back to Austin to recover. We are ridiculously grateful for the family and friends jumping in to help us pull this off. The fancy name for the surgery is a basilar segmentectomy. (I’ve learned to listen a little more closely

In the past few weeks, I’ve been lucky to be in some great conversations, all with long-time friends. “Old friends” might be an apt descriptor - we’ve known each other a long time and we ain’t getting any younger. These are all folks with whom my path overlapped for a significant period of time in our past. And we’ve continued to stay in touch regularly, even if our paths have gone in some different directions. But with that shared history, conversation is easy to jump righ

Hi there. Hope this finds you and yours enjoying some spring starting to show up. It's a rare moment in Austin when the weather is not too hot AND the mosquitos aren't yet a problem. That's made for some good back porch hang-out's and hammock time. I was at MD Anderson this week to get a CT scan, labs, etc. and then to review those with my oncologist there. Of all the possible outcomes for that conversation, we were happy to get some good news! There is no evidence of any new

I’m down at M.D. Anderson this week for scans and doctor visits to figure out our path forward. Nothing to report yet on that, but will share an update when we have one. I keep returning to an experience from last week, right after I had my chemo infusion. The drugs mess with my head enough that it’s probably not the best idea to drive, so Stacey usually picks me up for the ride home. I’m now one more person in our house, in addition to our kids, in need of transport to stuff

Hey there. It’s been a minute so I'm sharing an update on the health stuff. The quick summary is I’ve completed 5 of 6 chemo infusions before we head back down to MD Anderson to see how things look. I was scheduled for chemo on Tuesday of this week, but I ended up with some sorta funk that knocked me down over the weekend. At this point, no telling what it was with everything going around (apparently some bad peanut butter going around too??). Anyway, my system was in no co

I’m both fascinated and thoroughly confused by the field of theoretical physics. And even as I attempt to write about it here, I know I’ll shortchange the ideas and get some wrong or incomplete. But I do appreciate that about the act of writing - it reminds me of its own limitations and my own. Anyway…back to theoretical physics. From a layman's understanding, the field of theoretical physics points to ideas of profound interconnection of all matter and energy. Things like q

I’ve been thinking more about the message and work of Martin Luther King since the official holiday a couple of weeks ago. It’s because the world seems so violent to me right now, though I know there is violence happening all the time, woven into the long history of humans human-ing. Sadly, at times I become numb to the violence because it’s so constant. But the violence is landing in me differently these days. It’s because I’ve been experiencing a kind of connecting, resona

Written 1/11/26 The back door was kept busy as the kids went back and forth to the trampoline, deeply immersed in some game I could not figure out. And maybe that was the point….no purpose, just play. Ages five to fourteen, all tangled up together. And we knew they would get hungry, likely soon. We needed to act before the hangry kid mob wrecked the gathering. I gathered each kid’s order for P. Terry’s, our go-to for quick and easy burgers. The five-year-old clarified at le

I’m late to the Stranger Things craze. But my daughter is a huge fan, and is now making her second pass through all the episodes while I’m still in season 1. There’s a sequence early on where a kid, Will, goes missing, and the mother, Joyce, is, of course, distraught. She has this very real-to-her experience of knowing Will is still alive, and that knowing comes through some hard-to-believe interactions with lamps and Christmas lights. (The show eludes any brief explanations,

My friend, Jeff, and I have known each other now for over thirty years, having met back in our college days. When my wife and I moved to Austin in 2008, Jeff was the first friend I reconnected with. Ever since, we’ve managed to keep a pretty consistent schedule of meeting up for some physical activity and/or dinner. And though our wilder days are behind us, we are still able to regularly find some good laughs. Back in November, the news of the most recent metastasis of my co

There’s a thought I often come back to during these cancer experiences. It’s something like “I wouldn’t wish this cancer experience on anyone, but I do wish people could _________________( insert a certain gift received via cancer experience ). And I’ve also heard that from others who have taken this journey or similar journeys. I was recently texting with my old friend, Steve Plunkett. I’ve known Steve since our middle school days of playing basketball, skating, and roaming

Hope this finds you living well. I know a lot of us are bracing for some weather to roll in. Good luck at the grocery store and with your house prep. I went on Tuesday for my fourth infusion of the latest chemo protocol, and everything went according to plan. It seems like we’ve figured out the right dosing that allows for my various blood cell counts to recover from the previous infusion. As I’ve mentioned to some folks, it does seem like this chemo’s side effects kick in q

Written on 12-28-25 I'm ridiculously lucky to have a community around me, checking in on me and our family. They ask “how are you feeling?”, and I’m stumped. It’s a pretty simple question. Or maybe I should say it’s a short question. Because trying to answer it feels decidedly less simple. I feel tired in that flu version of being tired. All versions of tired come with a drop in motivation, but flu-like-tired seems to annihilate all motivation in its path. Strangely, this le

Hi there. Happy new year! Hope the holidays offered you just what you were needing. Sharing along an update on the latest health stuff – always an adventure around here! I had my first infusion of the new chemo protocol on Dec 2 nd , and it packed a pretty solid punch. I was wiped out, and it just took a while to get energy back. The first dose of a new protocol involves some figuring out, whether that’s me figuring out new side effects and their management or the oncologist

Well...as the picture suggests, I was back in for more chemo this week. Turns out this cancer was not quite done with its complications! About a month ago, I was getting my 3-month check-up. Blood work looked great and shows some good signs that my immune system is working better than before all this started. I also had a CT scan which showed that some residual nodules in my right lung had grown quite a bit in the relatively short time off chemo, suggesting a lung metastasis.

Hey! Hope this finds you and yours doing well. Sharing along an update on the health stuff - got some good news! July 14th was my last chemo, completing 12 out of 12 infusions sandwiched around the liver surgery. I got to ring the bell and celebrate that milestone with the nurses and folks in the infusion room. There was a palpable sense of joy with those folks - we were all acutely aware of the journey to that point. Pic below with the nurses. Perhaps sensing I was ready to

Hey there. Sharing along a quick update as we approach a milestone in this journey. I'm wrapping up the recovery week from chemo #11 on 6/30, and set for the final planned chemo, 12 of 12, on Monday. It's certainly been an adventure to get to this point, and we are celebrating....celebrating the fact that we made it here, celebrating that multiple things point to great progress in getting rid of the cancer, and celebrating the community effort that has made it possible. Thoug

Hi all. It was a chemo day today, and the jury is out on whether it's a good idea to try and assemble any thoughts in writing with these drugs in my system. "Chemo brain" is real! Since I last posted, I did get the results from the blood biopsy that we did through our functional/integrative medicine doctor. And it was all good news! There were a low number of tumor cells circulating in my blood, which again indicates that all the work to date has had the desired effects on th

Hi there. Been a while since I've posted an update, so sharing along the latest! It's now been seven weeks since the surgery to remove a chunk of my liver (and my gallbladder got taken as collateral damage...too tucked up in there with the liver not to go). The healing from the surgery went really well, all things considered. I've been able to resume a lot of walking and getting in some yoga too to try and reawaken my body. And still trying to read the tea leaves on what food