Cy Ball — Music

Tonight we leave for a 10 day trip to Scotland. This is very exciting of course.  The flight is direct from Denver to London, then, changing planes and on to Edinburgh.  A total of around 11 hours. We will spend a night in Edinburgh and then take a bus to Anstruther/Cellardyke where we will spend [...]

After about 4 months of struggling to produce something, I have finally finished something that I started in December. I have not been idle.  There have been a number of video tutorials in mixing and others on music production.  Some specially good ones are available at The Recording Revolution. They are easier to find on [...]

Today, Laurie and I met with my surgeon.  We are planning surgery to remove the large tumor in my liver.  The last scan places its size at 6.3 cm.  For comparison, a tennis ball is about 6.7 cm. About this time last year my injections to treat the disease were increased from every 4 weeks [...]

I just finished replying to a comment from fellow carcinoid. Our discussion was about carcinoid protocol for anesthesia.  Very important to prevent possible life endangering events during surgery or invasive procedures. During my last chemoembolization, I had a crisis (arguably carcinoid crisis or maybe a run-of-the-mill cardiac crisis) even though the protocols mentioned below were [...]

Today I visited my primary care physician.  My purpose was to get an EKG because my cardiologist was concerned about low pulse rate and high blood pressure last week.  Also, to have the doctor look at my back. I have had severe back pain every morning for about two weeks. Good News! EKG was great! [...]

I met with my oncologist last Thursday and reported the increasing carcinoid symptoms which I mentioned in my last post:  “Latest Carcinoid Survival Data”.  We also discussed the interesting information from that last post. The result is that I am having a new test called the 5-HIAA which is inconvenient to do but should give [...]

January 13, 2013 – Dr. Eugene Woltering wrote this in the ACOR Carcinoid listserv: “Our latest data on 227 surgeries in 177 folks with stage 4 disease (everybody had tumor spread to liver or other organs other than primary site and nodes-obviously the difference in the numbers are folks who had up to 4 sets [...]

Today a friend of mine called and asked if I wanted to go bicycling.  It had not even crossed by mind.  It is easy to fall into a rut and think the winter weather will be too cold and uncomfortable.  Also, it’s easy for me to think that with carcinoid tumor and atrial fibrillation that [...]

This quarter, my bi-monthly blood tests and every 4 months CAT Scan came in December.  The very good news is that both tests and scan indicate that my disease is stable.  I am grateful for that.  Carcinoid tumors typically grow very slowly and I do know a few people who have gone for 6 or [...]

Thanksgiving was a great day.  We spent it at my sister’s.  My daughter and her husband were there.  All of my sister’s children and their spouses and their children were there.  A good time and much good food was had by all.  I got to stop and think about how lucky I am to have [...]