My Brothers & Sisters in Arms -

Today is ten years cancer survivorship for me. Time sure flies when you have brain cancer...

My mobility is excellent and I am even entertaining the thought of trying two wheels instead of the trike tonight for the first time in two years. As you may recall, a year ago I bought a Greenspeed X5, a racing recumbent trike so I could keep riding despite the loss of stability and left leg strength and coordination from the tumor growth.

I sprinted with Max in a footrace up at the baseball diamond on Sunday. Dad is getting his strength and speed back. And all traces of my steroid-induced "Winnie The Pooh at the Macy's Day Parade" imitation from the winter are gone!

On a not so pleasant note, I have been spending about half my time for the past several weeks on a new battle. It is hard to believe that I can be doing this well and my insurance company (Medica) is denying coverage for one of my drugs (Avastin). They claim it is experimental and therefore not covered. I have a team working literally round the clock. This is already over $100K. We have contacted my US Congressman and one of our US Senators. Hopefully we can keep the lawyers out of this. We are carefully considering all our options including going to the media. That is our absolute last resort although part of me thinks it is my duty to shine a light on what they are doing.

So after lying awake half the night worrying about this I start the fourth round of my hard drug Procarbazine.

No matter what it is still onward and upward. Today I am thankful for so many things, right after health and family it is having all of you - my many friends - in my life. This cloud of cancer has a brilliant silver lining.

LiveStrong -

Jim