Best wishes from the Netherlands Parofes! Keep up those good spirits.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRvhRhWWE44[/youtube]

Como esta'


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrhf_zgtmAg[/youtube]

Yes, how are you doing, Parofes? We hope it wasn't the leukemia that returned. Keep us posted, if you can, we think of you often and send our very best wishes.

Well...

Went back to the hospital for 4 days and now I'm back home again!
Getting sick of this, don't have a life anymore outside the smelly room of Santa Paula hospital....in total I guess I've been inside 170 days of this year.

Anyway, the latest test shows no reason to think leukemia is already back, yay! Buuuut, it is working at turtle steps, so I'll have to do another myelogram test (damn! 15th!) in a couple weeks.

But, as long as the bone marrow keeps like that, I'll die an old man with no chemo. But if it starts with all the crazy shit again, more eight months of chemo, and I still haven't found a bone marrow donor. Man these are the dark pages of my up coming book. To find a bone marrow donor is so, soooooo difficult...

At home, eating like a lion with a strong hunger (without the games hehe), hoping to visit some mountain soon, maybe in a few weeks since now it's rainy season already here, I lost alllll the winter....and here that means for mountaineering, all year.

Me and Max have tons of clients to Plata, Aconcagua, Ojos Del Salado and Ice climbing course in the next seven months, and I'd like to help him in the mountains instead of just sell all our work, but I don't know if I'll be able to do it, it all depends on my bitch bone marrow. The next will be Aconcagua bc trekking and right after that Plata, probably I won't be on it. :/
Sometimes Max gets angry (not with me, with all this cancer shit) and talks to me for hours trying to convince me to go with him, but I can't promisse anything...well, life.

THANKS again for all wishes, good vibes and all. love u guys...

Cheers
Parofes

In time, I apologize folks for my voting rotine, haven't been online much here in SP so I missed hundreds os good pages and images...
Sorry about that.
Hope I can get back on track in no time.
Last afternoon I walked 6kms and today the goal was 7kms, but the damn rain is on and after 2,45kms had to come back home, hope I can do an extra 5kms today.
Cheers
Paulo

glad to hear the cancer is not back. hang in there..... you'll get your life back, and this will all just be a bad memory someday

Paulo, your walking more distance than me. My knee is still recovering from my last epic which was three weeks ago (I took a nasty fall). Glad your doing better. Keep up the good work and stay strong.

Good on ya' Paulo! Glad to hear you're doing some mileage out there again.

The problem is:

We don't know how the bone marrow is reacting to all the chemo. It can go rogue in a day. So far, so good (wild guess). But my blood cell counts are still very low.
Hemoglobin for instance, is at 7.9! For my age, for a mountaineer, should be at least 20.0 or close.

So, walking on the street I literally fell like at 6000m, with headache and all. And I live in São Paulo at 790m high.
But that's okay, I can handle it. Completed 7,2kms yesterday and today I did 8,1kms. Now comes the muscle pains ahahahahaha...

Josh, happy Bday man! Lost track of time, sorry,....you're a big boy now, be good! hehehe

Suck it up! (for me)
Suck it! (for Miss Leukemia)

And get better on this knee bs....

Just got back from a recent trip to reach one more summit on Itatiaia NP, and the task was so hard for me I came to the hospital just two days after I got home.

The result is this, and today is my 5th day admitted here:

I had for some time on (probably a couple weeks alredy): Acute sinusitis and pneumonia. (and I didn't know about it)
So, think about that, I was hiking above 8000ft with acute sinusitis, pneumonia, only 12.000 of platelets and 5.1 of hemoglobin, my blood was able to carry only a third of the oxigen a healthy blood does. So this 2500m mountain to me was actually a 8000m peak. Without artificial oxygen use.

Did again myelogram and bone marrow biopsy, and here it is, the devastating news, the cancer is already back, and in a couple days the chemo will start again, a "re-induction", with the same compound that almost killed me back in jan/feb.

Well...I'm too sad now, but ready for the fight.

Wish me luck, I'll need it to survive this ordeal all over again.

Cheers folks
Parofes

PS: At least I summited the damn mountain, soon TR and mountain page online.

I'm thunderstruck. All I can do is send best wishes.

Here's to keeping up the good fight and thinking that if anybody can do it, it's you!!

Good Luck Parofes!

Hang in there, Paulo!