03/13/08 - Rocky Hagan

This is an unusual post for me, as it's an obituary for a friend.

Rocky Hagan passed away last Saturday from a massive heart attack. I had met him when we both went to radiation treatment in November-December 2006. He was genuinely very nice, and Laura and I went to dinner a few times with Rocky and his girlfriend, Jo Ann. They were both about to retire.

I have been looking in the local papers for an obituary, but I have had no luck. I googled his name, and his passing was memorialized by a number of Radio Control (RC) websites. Apparently, one of his hobbies was racing RC cars. Everyone felt the same about Rocky, they only had good things to say.

Laura and I saw Rocky and Jo Ann when we went to Moffitt hospital recently on February 26th. We made tentative plans to meet for dinner soon. Jo Ann called us last weekend with the terrible news. From what I can tell, he passed doing one of his favorite things, racing RC cars. He will be missed...

Our sincere condolences to Jo Ann, his friends, and family.

03/13/08 - Medical Update

I received chemotherapy last Saturday, and I am just starting to feel well enough to do some things and get around. For some reason, my body reacted worse than normal to the treatment. I think it was due to some of the drugs interacting negatively, because that seemed to be the only thing that was different than before...

I have had a lot of medical appointments in the last week also. A lot of checking of my blood counts. My potassium was high, which looks like it was a false reading. My most-often checked counts are still low, but that's become "normal." For a yet unknown reason, my liver counts have been abnormally high. I have been getting special tests to see why my liver counts are high, but nothing has panned-out so far.

For now, I feel a lot better than I did the last few days. Hopefully, things will improve from this point forward...