Vince's Journey

I have to admit I'm pretty excited today. Dr. Leming said it's okay to move forward and have the stent removed from my ureter which means a couple things; I'll soon no longer feel like I have to 'piddle' 24/7 and more importantly, the treatments are working!!! What a relief on both ends (no pun intended). I'm not sure when the procedure will be scheduled but I'm hoping on Friday....I think I can 'hold on' for a few more days. Should it be removed on Friday it would mark day #71 of this very difficult episode. And I'm not exagerating - I have literally felt like peeing for 71 straight days; in fact, I'll bet I've gone to the bathroom an average aof at least 15 times a day over that stretch. My Ohio State math tells me that's over 1000 trips to the 'pisser' in a little over two months time and yes, I washed my hands every time. Not sure what I'm going to with the exit time! Hopefully it will lead to more quality time on my bike, watching tv, driving to work, I can resume running and I'm really looking forward to mowing my lawn. Our neighbor, Ron, has been such an amazing help mowing our lawn while I've been going through this but I really enjoy mowing our lawn and I'm confident that I'll be able to resume that activity next week. I did get a little negative news, my white blood counts are a bit lower that usual so I'm getting a neulasta shot on Wednesday to give the counts a boost. Since I'm going one a month now, that should help get the counts to where they need to be. They're not drastically low - I was a lot lower back in 2005 - but a boost will give us peace of mind. So the treatments are working, the stent is coming out and next week I won't have to pee all the time - today was a good day. On the family front, Abbey has wrapped up her co-op semester at Amylin and will be heading back to Dayton for summer school on Mother's Day. Aaron only has two weeks left and he will be graduating from St. Louis University and Judd's brief career as a horse whisperer appears to be over. Some day I may tell that unbelievable story but I still can't truly laugh about it. My only advice is if you go to Kenneland for a day of horse racing, don't try to do your best Dr. Doolittle impersonation and try to talk to the horses, it's not worth the effort....or fine. As I announced on my Facebook page, we are training for our next LLS century bike ride - this year we're going to Scotland for a 110 mile trip through the lower uplands. We're hoping to raise over $50,000 for LLS and if you'd like to join our efforts - check out our webpage. http://pages.teamintraining.org/soh/frndstnt14/vhopkins So that's about it; as always, thanks for checking in! I'll let you know when the stent comes out...it will be a happy day!!!