Randy Heisch weblog:

Thinking about trying this blog everyday so instead of sending out daily morbid email reminders to everyone, you could just check in if/when you feel like it?  What do you think? Plus it would seem it turns out to be therapeutic for me as well.

On July 13, 2011, my wife (Jan) took me to the ER: I had been dealing with migraines for the past few years, but now trouble swallowing water (getting choked), waking up with a headache anytime I laid down, trying to debug code that morning – just couldn’t get anything to work that I would have usually figured out instantly, and then Jan noticed I started having slurred speech and a face droop – she thought it was a stroke; I had a 2-3cm glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) grade IV removed (not the grade you want if you get to pick); they use an MRI based imaging system they call GPS, that maps the surgeons instruments onto displays of the MRIs during surgery. I was lucky, and thanks to the skills of my neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Webb, the entire tumor was operable and was a 100% successful resection; however, I was unlucky, GBM grade IV is malignant (it typically does not move anywhere except to other areas of the brain). I’m queued up for both fractionated radiation and combined chemo (temodar) therapies at Texas Oncology next week (the surgery incision must heal first). Traveled to MD Anderson in Houston for a 2^nd opinion/ consult and confirmed the pathology, diagnosis and initial treatment regimen, which we’ve elected to have done at Texas Oncology (south) locally. I need for my body to respond well to this treatment and I could be good to go (don’t tell me the odds as I say below) – I’m in a very good subgroup to be optimistic for good treatment results (my age, health, 100% successful tumor resection, highly functional/mobile before and after surgery, etc.) … if I tolerate and respond well to the treatment.

Let me apologize in advance if I say anything that offends anyone or generally otherwise say something that I should not have: most of this has been written under pretty heavy medication (anesthesia (which seems to have taken 2 weeks to wear off), versaid, vicodin, steroids for swelling, headaches. Sorry.

So I’m looking at switching to the tumblr blog: Please try viewing: randyheisch.com (or try randyheisch.tumblr.com) and email me if you have any issues (it’s supposed to be more mobile friendly, easier to append/post, hopefully easier to read). Thanks. Wouldn’t you know the day I switch to tumblr, they’re having server issues big time. So please try again later!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Good Morning!

hi-res

{Treatment Day: 2} (wrote a word VBA macro to compute treatment day assigned to Ctrl-Alt-T)

First treatment went good - unlike Eddie (Randy Quaid), said what happened to him when his wife revved up the microwave in "Christmas Vacation Quotes", I had no noticeable side effects. Never got queasy last night after starting the temodar (took Zofran anti-nausea first); attempting to ween down steroids again. Feel a little out of sorts this morning, perhaps I should have waited before eating breakfast? But better now.

My medical (chemo) oncologist (Dr Chadha) continues to lift my spirits affirming that had I had significant tumor regrowth after the surgery (which they estimated grew at 1cm per month previously), that I would probably have had neurological symptoms, which I have not (and my surgery was 1 month ago today). So that, in conjunction with my age, health, fitness, 100% successful resection, and highly functional/mobile before/after surgery, improves my odds.

Did not “see” the brilliant blue flashes (like I did for the alignment image scans done with this same linear accelerator that sort of freaked me out), but I did “see” a light blue curtain/veil for one brief moment).

Here’s the actual linear proton accelerator; you lay on the table (coming up/right from the lower left corner) with your head clamped down tightly to the table in your custom made mask; the table moves as well as the accelerator for accurate targeting:

Some related accelerator info/images if you’re interested:

First high voltage accelerator

Proton therapy (the radiation oncology nurses do NOT stay in the room during treatment (they’re behind lead watching/listening to your remotely)

Linear accelerator (this is a similar machine I believe – not necessarily the machine used on me) I’m pretty sure they’re using a proton (as opposed to electron) beam for my treatment; curious why you bend the beam 270^o counter-clockwise instead of 90^o clockwise, in this image? Capable of a 40x40cm proton beam pattern coverage area; the collimator assembly is a set of lead? “fingers” that are automatically adjusted, according to scans for each specific patient, to block the beam and apply a set pattern, at a programmed dosage (in my case it’s 2 Gy (amount of energy over a time interval)), I believe the energy level sets the tissue depth.

Is this pathetic or what? My drug regimen and tracking chart (that Rachel made for me); this plus the above external beam radiation:

*** The attack has started! Taking no prisoners! ***

A10 Warthog - 2009 Central Texas Airshow

Thanks for all the thoughtful emails yesterday, I really appreciate,

Randy.

George set up a tumblr.com based blog site fo me this weekend: tumblr blog. I’ll experiment with using it (it’s mobile friendly); I’d like to figure out how to back it up before I dump tons of work into it. Thanks George!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Good Morning!

Great day yesterday (and all weekend) – family was here, had a huge team breakfast, busy kitchen, hung out and talked and everyone traveled back in the early afternoon; Jan and I ran some errands and actually got caught out in real rain in the parking lot – very refreshing!

{Treatment Day: 1}

Treatment starts today (6 weeks, M-F radiation, temodar (oral) everyday) – feels like a long road ahead, not really sure what’s coming, but, there’s one way to find out:

The above image was selected by David Grissom (thanks to good family friend Brian Marshall) for his 2009 "10,000 Feet" album cover:

One of my favorite tunes is “Good Day for the Blues”, especially when he was with Storyville , as here on Austin City Limits 1998: Storyville

Y’all have a great day!

Thanks,

Randy.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Good Morning!

blooming in the pond yesterday

Very good day yesterday: rode with Jan and Rach at 8am out to the Country Nursery west of Schwertner, Rachel was looking for succulents; I made a few pictures with the 100mm macro. Then Phil, Rach, George, Jan and Martha and I prepared and enjoyed a fantastic evening meal (salad steak (Phil cooked) and snow crabs (I steamed)); just great then Uno and Pentago (but I did need to pack in two naps in between); then we watched "Paul" on PPV – entertaining and fun movie; didn’t make it to “The Help” – another time maybe. Feel pretty recharged a month after the surgery now and ready for the treatments to start tomorrow.

I found a time-lapse (over about an hour or so in the early morning) that I did a while back on the Powershot G9 of the pink lily blooming (a bit overexposed; need quick-time installed to view).

Thanks again for all the wonderful notes/emails. I received a really awesome “Healing Ties” lap quilt yesterday from “Family and Friends” at the Wall Brethren Church (my Uncle Tommy is Pastor); very nice thought, a prayer per knot, very much appreciated, thanks so very much!

I hope I remember who I am and all of you after my first encounter with the proton accelerator tomorrow!

Randy.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Good morning!

(Lake Georgetown sunrise Oct 2009)

Feeling pretty good, still have head pressure and occasional mild headaches, steroids and decadron controlled though; but feeling extra rested, the incision (that we delayed treatment for) is healing very nicely; buffered about 5 extra pounds going into this, great to have the family here this weekend, I think I’m ready to go. Caught "30 Minutes or Less" yesterday afternoon, mildly entertaining I would say (Aziz cracks me up though). Plan to try to see "The Help" this weekend.

(Rachel Heisch 2011)

(me, Jan, Rach, George, Sammie, Phil)

Here’s a white lily bloom time lapse (they open up in the morning) I did a few months back.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks,

Randy.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Good Morning!

Looking forward to Phil’s visit this weekend – he’s been in Peoria at a CAT marketing brainstorming session all week; lots of movies to choose from this weekend. Feeling stronger – ready to get this show on the road. Treatment starts Monday. I hope the side effects aren’t too bad; I know it’s really important that I respond well to the treatment and in the grand scheme, 6 weeks of pain if we can get a grip on this problem is of course worth it – but I can’t stand the thought of laying around for 6 weeks without doing/creating/learning/experimenting with anything or enjoying anyone’s company (or theirs mine). Oh well, let’s get on with it! Press on, as Chuck Yeager would say.

This photo won First place-Landscape in the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center 2010 photo contest:

Hi-resolution is here

I received an email plea from the Wildflower center yesterday; with the drought and heat, although the native plants are taking it in stride, the human vistors can’t take the heat and their budget is based on 30% admissions.

I’ve made lots of flower photographs at and donated most of them to the LBJ wildflower center (well, I have a backlog in the queue – the donation process is a little involved so I’m behind). It’s a really beautiful place and pretty much year round there’s lots to see (lots of different peak times throughout the year) – if you’ve never been or haven’t been lately or at this time, you should check it out.

I saw a quote yesterday that I liked: “Flowers are nature’s way of laughing”.

made this top down blue bonnet there last year: hi-res

I went online and made a LBJ Wildflower donation yesterday; and, for any of you IBMer’s out there, learned IBM is a supporting matching gift company (I think because it’s part of the UT system (so you have to specify/target the LBJ Wildflower center)) and they match 1:1, so if you’re interested …

Y’all have a great day and enjoy the weekend!

Thanks,

Randy.

Also, I added a blurb pointer here.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Good Morning!

Pretty good day yesterday: I sat in on a 2^nd conf call yesterday with the guys at work to (re)summarize (hopefully clearly this time) the state of things; I last about 1 hour and then crash, but I’m glad they let me do it – I feel like I’m leaving things in fairly decent shape now; lots of work to do when I get back after the treatment, looking forward to that challenge!

I got lots of nice emails this week, inspiring me, piquing my technical interests (hit or miss engine, never heard of it, now I want to get one (I’m sure the neighbors are going to love to hear that running in my backyard (bang, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, bang, whoosh…..)) and I loved this quote from Kim H. “friends are like stars, you may not see them but they're always there”; and a generous offer to fly us to breakfast in Fredericksburg one morning (thanks Jerry) – that just for the aerial photography opportunity would be fun, but I’ll have to regain some endurance first (I get tired taking photos at the kitchen table after 5 minutes).

Thanks again for all the positive thoughts and comments – it really does boost my confidence and spirit; I only hope I can respond in-kind someday. And I hope your generosity and this experience will at least help me exorcize and expunge likely narcissism and infuse a healthy dose of selflessness. I’ll take all the advice I can get on how to help me learn to help others!

Y’all have a great day!

Thanks,

Randy.

Watched most of "Daze and confused" from Netflix last night. Some of it reconstructs life in 1976 for us, but some, not so much; it was filmed in and around Austin (I used to take the kids to “Top Notch” for hamburgers just about every weekend for a while, and some was filmed here in Georgetown (the middle school and gymnasium scenes at least). I was probably more nostalgic about that.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Good morning!

(no goldfish were harmed when I made this image (it’s swimming happily in my backyard pond – if the cranes haven’t gotten it)

This extra week before treatment starts is good and bad; get to heal and buffer, but too much time to think; ready to get this show on the road. Generally feeling better but get radical swings of energy, fatigue, and the steroid induced insomnia are a problem (my Dr said she’s about ready to drug me: lunesta?)

I ordered a “hot coffee powered” sterling engine and experimented a bit:

This engine will run off the heat of a hot cup of coffee (with the room at about 80^oF, so around a 132^oF delta); here it is running:

sterling engine running on heat

A sterling engine is an external combustion engine (as opposed to your car internal combustion engine).   You supply heat externally (fire, steam, etc) on one side of the engine and you cool the other side of the engine.  It moves air around inside the engine from the hot side to the cool side and that air expands and contracts and pushes/pulls on a piston, which forces the movement.  What's so amazing to me is that a volume of air as it's heated or cooled does in fact expand or contract very, very quickly, in fractions of a second.

This helps explain the phenomenon you may have experienced from time to time where you open and close the refrigerator door quickly, then you try to open it again and it seems stuck; you open it quickly the first time and cold air falls out the bottom and warm air rushes in at the top, when you close it quickly, that warm air almost instantly cools and contracts, creating a vacuum inside, with the door shut, then when you try to open, you really have to pull hard.

When you watch this video, you can see that yellow foam pad inside the clear cylinder moving up and down: it's called the displacer: it displaces the air sealed in that cylinder, moving it from the bottom (when the displacer is at the top) where it is heated by the hot coffee cup and expands and pushes up on the piston, then the displacer moves to the bottom and moves the air to the top, where it cools against the top (red) plate and then contracts, pulling the piston back down.  It's critical that the piston and displacer be 90 degrees out of phase for the engine to run. It's really amazing to me how that air expands and contracts so quickly.

It also runs in reverse on an ice pack, but required the outdoor temperature ~ 100^oF:

Sterling running on ice

I might get this one: efficient sterling it runs off the heat of your hand! Only a 7^oF differential temp, but costs $400.

Have a great day!

Thanks,

Randy.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Good Morning All!

I can’t seem to catch a break getting my sleep back in order: last night the fire trucks came blazing up our street at 12:30AM and stopped at the house across from us; Jan and I walked outside to check it out: they’d come home and thought they smelled gas (we don’t have gas in our neighborhood but they do have a propane tank); I hope someone finds this humorous, from what we understood, they blamed it on the dog! Wonder how many times the Fire Department has heard that one! So I have catch-up naps in order today. I’m off of the evening steroid for 3 days now w/o much headache increase, and that is helping the insomnia.

Thanks for all the fantastic emails: it’s good to hear from everyone and I wish I hadn’t waited until now to have talked to you all. After a couple of notes from my old high school football buddies, especially 7-0 (Combies) yesterday and Buster (7-1) the day before, even though we’ve of course been attacking this medically and intellectually (as much as I’m capable of that), I’m starting to think that 6 years on the football field as I was growing up with a great group of guys, me being a starting quick-side (which means weak and supposedly faster) lineman at most 190lbs, facing Westlake defensive tackles at 240lbs, was really preparing me for this challenge I’m facing now: the only way I know is to take it head-on, bull-by-the-horns, come out fighting, and try to use your head a little to keep yourself from getting crushed (the bigger they are, the harder they fall, just don’t let them fall on you!). As I told Neal though, check back on that bravado after the chemo starts K "So serious" "Pulling for Chuck Smart"

I don’t think I talked about some of the bizarre mental behaviors I experienced with the brain swelling prior to the surgery (and very similar immediately after surgery but before the swelling started to subside): the main issue was a modal problem or inability to recognize states or mode changes: for example, not forgetting to, but unsuccessfully switching the TV from DVR to Apple TV, then sitting there for 10 minutes trying to get the Apple TV to work, I guess thinking I’d changed the TV source, but not being able to recognize that the Apple TV wasn’t working because the source was still on DVR. I feel sorry for my wife having to deal with all this crap all the time, that usually comes so easy/naturally to me; Jan says my worse day is her best day dealing with all this techno-crap; but from my perspective now, I’d trade her understanding, caring, selflessness and compassion for that any day (it’s worth way more in the grand scheme). I will do my best to simplify it or at least help her understand it all without getting frustrated with her. Just because things seem so incredibly obvious to me, doesn’t mean that everyone is bent in that same direction and should see it as I do. Maybe a good picture is in order? Jan is taking such amazing care of me: she prepared a fantastic evening meal last night: lemon pepper chicken breast, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, and the decadence (at my request), lightly breaded/fried yellow squash – just awesome! I’m so incredibly lucky and I’d be totally lost without her!

Y’all have a great day!

Thanks,

Randy.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Good morning!

Although it may be wise for me to ignore national/world news (especially lately it would seem) when I’m trying to stay focused on being positive, I feel selfish with this blog today and yesterday; in the grand scheme of things, 30 American soldiers killed on a rescue mission to help a US Army Ranger unit under fire, things sort of fall more into perspective. My condolences to the family members, who were notified yesterday.

Thanks,

Randy.

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Good morning!

Stronger every day it seems, sleeping a bit better maybe, gaining weight (buffering/charging you understand J - made it through “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” yesterday afternoon without falling asleep (me, Jan, Rachel and George) (pretty good flick I thought). Rachel and Jan charted up a medication matrix for all the meds, including therapy treatments starting a week from tomorrow so we can accurately track. Very lucky we haven’t had any rolling blackouts during this heat wave: I’m turning off all unused equipment and all lights, closing all sun facing windows and closing vents and bedrooms that are unused – still, my unit runs pretty much constantly in the afternoon.

Thanks Luc for the very thoughtful, diversionary read, set of The Adventures of Tintin; interesting coincidence, received these via amazon yesterday, read up on them again, went to see the “Apes” movie and then walking out of the theatre, everyone noticed the Tintin movie poster – December 23, Spielberg directing: Tintin; thanks Luc, I need all the diversion I can get.

Thanks Martha for bringing Rudy’s BBQ for lunch yesterday; yum! Rachel got me a new set of iPhone headphones and bought me UNO; me, Rach and Martha played (Martha took us down).

Great to have Rachel and George here this weekend; we watched "The Emperors's Club" last night, a positive/uplifting movie.

Have a great day!

hi-res

I mentioned the positioning scan we did on Friday, higher energy (low dose) proton accelerator image (same device that will be used for radiation therapy), and the intense blue light that I “saw” (that was not actually present in the room); pretty freaky, but scanning some old photos, I found this lily blur abstract that I colorized and saturated, what I saw looked pretty much like this :

This image was “induced” in my mind, as well as the simultaneous instant metallic/ozone type odor: pretty freaky!

Added these yearbook photos below.

Thanks,

Randy.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Good morning all! Was ready to start treatment next week (I think), but the extra week for incision healing will let me charge up more. Discussed treatment side effects a bit more; trying to prepare mentally, nutritionally and physically (I have been on the stationary bike almost every day, light load, working up to 30 minutes): fatigue and nausea (which could be completely controlled with medication (many patients have very few of the side effects) will probably be the most prominent. I will not be radioactive in any way (not like some of the other IV chemo). Chemo brain is a bit worrisome: short term memory and cognitive issues, perhaps lingering longer term. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Energy seems to be coming back, but it drops off like a step function, without much warning.

Hope everyone is doing ok. Thanks again for all the thoughtful notes.

We had to cancel our yearly Padre family vacation (would have started this Thursday) – so no sand castles this year (unless, maybe I’ll get a load of sand delivered J); here’s an HDR (Photomatix tomemapped) composite of a pier sunrise I did one morning last trip:

hi-res

I have not mastered noise induction/management in HDR and just now I saw crazy edge chromatic aberration that hopefully cleaned up. I know HDR is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me (and I’m not really that into it), it’s a fun, iterative process, lots and lots of knobs to master.

I like the look on vehicles/mechanisms for some reason; for example:

Y’all have a great weekend!

Thanks,

Randy.

Friday, August 05, 2011

Very strange day yesterday, headaches and not sleeping, got some lunch but then very, very tired, but not much sleep after 1am. Doing oncologist visit today, preparing for treatment start on Monday.

Thanks again for all the wonderful emails, concerns, and positive, uplifting thoughts; a nice thought from a dear high-school friend, a cancer survivor that I really liked and appreciated: “breathe with intention and thought and find time for something beautiful every day”!

Also, let me apologize if I miss responding to any of your emails: I’m reading/responding across 3 different devices and fear some might fall in the cracks. I READ every single one (often several times!). Thank-you.

UPDATE: my radiation oncologist decided to delay treatment for one week, to Monday 8/15 because the surgery incision needs a bit more time to heal. Also, she does not want me to shave my head, now that we’ve fitted the (extremely tight fitting mask) which they say they get 1mm of positional accuracy. They locked me down and used the proton beam to take a, less detailed, but more positionally accurate x-ray for positional verification; VERY STRANGE I saw intense blue flashes and there were no blue lights used (only red laser cross-hairs) coming from the proton accelerator and an instantaneous metallic/ozone type smell simultaneous with the accelerator jolt. Some patients experience it, some don’t. Very Freaky.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

(Taken last year in front of the IBM South 90x parking garage, after asking security of course :) hi-res

Good morning all! Was getting caught up on rest, but after talking to the doctor (who really wants me off the steroids asap), we switched from 2/2/1mg decadron (reduces brain swelling) to 2/2, and I had a pretty bad headache all night and didn’t get much sleep. I’m thinking 2/1/1 maybe; will discuss today; (I think we did 2/2/0 mainly for the insomnia (a huge side effect).

I came across this youtube video doing some diet research, and found this MD (Dr Robert Lustig, Professor Pediatric Endocrinology, UCSF) that claims sugar is a poison: the video is long and gets pretty deep, but It’s pretty scary: of course I’m no nutritionist and I just had brain surgery, so caveat emptor: lustig_sugar_poison.htm

What??? About 4pm yesterday, outdoor mercury bulb, in the shade

Thanks Luc for the fabulous fresh Belgian chocolates – wow, absolutely scrumptious; unfortunately the first shipment arrived Tuesday morning while we were traveling back from Houston and the temperature was 108 ^oF that afternoon when we got home and they were almost soup; the company overnighted a replacement which we got at 9am today:

Randy.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Hi all.  We're back from the MD Anderson 2^nd opinion/consult trip; it went very well, as expected, no surprises: met with Dr John Degroot, neurologist/neuro-oncology; he reviewed my pathology (confirmed it was read 100% correctly (that would have been a nice mistake)), my before/after MRI's and is the 3rd Dr. now to comment on the fantastic 100% successful resection (surgery) (which plays a major role in improving longer term outcome), and is in complete agreement with the treatment regimen that the Dr's at Texas Oncology have me slated to start on Monday.  He did offer some very targeted follow-up advice based on the findings of follow-up MRI to see where I'm at, which possibly may mean another visit/consult to him at MD Anderson to confirm.  He was as optimistic as Dr Chadha, Dr Wu and Dr. Webb, confirming all the factors that I have on my side for a potential longer term outlook (age, 100% successful resection, health, mobility/functionality before/after surgery).  Just need to respond well to the treatment, that's the next milestone as I’ve said.  One concern, there seems to be a great deal of variability in opinions on vitamin supplements before/during (no so much during maybe)/after treatment, that we'll continue discuss. Also, my immune system will be compromised during this treatment and avoiding infection will need to take a high priority.

Stayed at the Jesse Jones Rotary House (Marriott); extremely convenient (a skyway bridge you just walk to your appointment); fantastic cook to order/buffet breakfast; fantastic service and very friendly folks:

Pretty exhausting trip; plan on resting today, then have local appointments on Thurs and Friday.

Thanks to Phil (and CAT for being flexible) for joining us yesterday, we were 3 on 2 (family to Doctors) and got a lot of good discussion and questions answered; things slid out into lunch so we decided not to meet for lunch; Jan and I headed back and sort of randomly stopped for lunch at Schlotzsky’s (an Austin based restaurant that Jan and I both love and have been frequenting since the mid 70’s (used to be downstairs at Doby Mall on the UT campus); interesting coincidence, Jan noticed we ended up directly across 290 from where Phil’s building (Solar Turbines) is located (probably could have looked out the window and waved):

I’ve said I’m clearer and clearer, but had a frightening realization, for the first time yesterday, of how much time has past and how much I do and don’t remember and how much I put everyone through; thanks again all, and sorry if I didn’t get to see you when you visited.

Phil and Sammie joined us for dinner at Hillstone (Houston’s?) Monday night in Houston; enjoyed the company, conversation and the food was quite good:

We were having a/c issues cropping up before all this, I was investigating replacement alternatives, but part of my analysis was this linux based netbook, with a USB/serial port to one of my serial port based analog/digital I/O boxes I’d made a few years back; using LM34 linear temperature sensors, I was monitoring the ambient air and vent exhaust into the room (and had concluded to a failure mode (had the fan capacitor replaced and it’s been working ok); but we turned off the a/c for our 2 day Houston trip (since it’d been acting up); I monitored this behavior yesterday after turning it on when we got home, that I thought some of you might get a kick out of:

This is the serial port based PIC microcontroller (reads 4 analog channels, 8bits per channel):

And a simple (and incomplete) python program to read and display; the red line is room and the blue line is exhaust vent temperature (50, 60, 70, 80, 90 ^oF on the vertical); 10 minutes per x-axis tic (all up and running prior to my issue):

So about 7 or 8 hours to go from 85^oF at about 5pm, down to around 78^oF, until it finally starts typical cycling as expected. Previously, during a normal cycle, the blue would start to fall, but a few minutes later would start increasing again, for about 5 minutes, then, if we were lucky, would start falling again and continue to cool. The compressor would be on, but the fan wasn’t spinning up (outside), the compressor pressure would build up, and shut off; then finally the fan would spin up and the compressor would come back on (ie, a bad fan capacitor – required to help spin up the fan).

Randy.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Good Morning! Slept much better last night, although I’m up at 4am; strange day yesterday, very tired, more so than other days; lack of sleep the night before caught up with me I think (bleeding burnt orange again (to aggressive washing my hair I think). Thanks Rachel and George for keeping us company all low-key weekend; you guys are fantastic!

So every year at this time, for only a few weeks, the sun tracks far enough south and when it sets in the evening, we get this prismatic disc projected through the front door peephole that travels across the opposite wall; not sure why I find this interesting enough to post a photo, but I do:

Got some good positive comments and good discussion on the project videos. Added a few additional project videos at the end.

Have a good day.

Randy.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Good Morning!

Blooming in the pond yesterday

Sleeping a bit better, still wake up with my mind racing, ideas, thoughts, plans, etc. Happy Birthday Mimi, thanks bringing Linda and Judy for a visit yesterday – enjoyed seeing you all.

Except rain was threatening and the frogs were all meeting at the pond last night and crazy loud:

I had to sleep in the front bedroom. Nice having Rachel and George here again last night – sorry for my movie selection L

So “Cowboys and Aliens”, can I get that time and money back? It was too soon for a movie for me, I was falling asleep, but a nice endurance test/distraction I suppose, so maybe ignore my critique.

I mentioned the sand castles we built on many of our traditional summer Padre vacations: they’re here if you care to look.

On the subject of brains and creativity: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Next project: working on thank-you notes to the tremendous hospital Doctors and (OR, ICE, nutrition, etc) nursing staff: just unbelievable dedication, compassion for their patients, fabulous and superb care; motivates me like I’ve never been to try to find some way to give back to the community and somehow use my knowledge/skills to help people.

Have a great day!

Randy.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Good morning! Feeling good this morning, except didn’t get much sleep last night. Yesterday, Dr. Chadha did prescribe all my drugs for treatment, which included (trying again) weaning off the steroids (decadron 2mg, 2mg, 1mg early evening to reduce brain swelling) to hopefully reduce the insomnia side effect. No bleeding burnt orange today (and thankfully not maroon either!). Can’t believe I just had brain surgery and am walking and talking just like before – a bit of a headache and fatigue, but other than that … I did start a reduced exercise routine on the stationary bike day before yesterday, light load, but for 10 to 20 minutes – wow, really feels good.

Rachel and George stayed with us last night: plan on trying a movie today maybe (Cowboys & Aliens?)

Thanks for all the wonderful emails yesterday!

Randy.

Friday, July 29, 2011 PM

Just got back from our first visit with the medical oncologist/hematologist (Dr. Punit Chadha) who talked with us for probably an hour - he explained everything in detail, was very clear, informative and positive for my specific case; again, age, health condition and other factors, including a 100% successfully tumor resection, puts me in a very good outcome category; and again, my body’s response to the temodar will be the next milestone, so hoping for the best. I’ve miss-lead in a few cases: I’m not getting sterotactic radiation, this applies higher doses to specific sites (also called cyber and gamma knife); is not called-for in my case. The MGMT enzyme => MGMT methylation indicates a temodar effectiveness if I’m understanding correctly; however, knowing or not knowing the presence of this marker really changes nothing, at least in the initial treatment plan, based on current medical knowledge. We’re very optimistic about this treatment plan and hoping for the best. Treatments will start one week from this Monday (8/8): radiation every day for 5 days of 7, temodar drug everyday (weekends too) for a period of 6 weeks. Then one month off/recovery, then a follow-up MRI, that’ll be a nail-biter. Following up with temodar probably for life (originally we thought for 6 months). So tolerance of temodar is crucial – just hope for the best. I’ll probably pretty much be out of commission during the treatment; nausea can usually be pretty well controlled; fatigue will probably be a symptom. Got my mask made today (holds my head precisely in the same position for this 6 week period:

And had a mapping CT scan w/contrast locked under this mask; this data is overlaid on the MRI images and crunched on a computer to produce a precise control stream, tailored by my radiation oncologist Dr. Wu, of data to feed the nuclear accelerator positioning: I got to visit the room where one of two are located – took off the edge a bit now that I know what to expect: a room sized piece of equipment that can orbit 360 around a table that you lay on with your head fixed in place and the table can be twisted on the up and down axis 180 degrees under the accelerator. On Friday we do a dry run with all this equipment, except the radiation turned off, to confirm all the mapping info, for treatments to start on Monday.

We’re queued for a confirming 2^nd opinion now at MD Anderson in Houston, early next week. They now have my tissue sample and we’re bringing the MRI/CT scan CD’s (that I have already loaded and viewed on my PC). There are a number of treatment facilities that my medical doctors here recommend/suggest and MD Anderson is one of them (they are 100% in support I’m seeking this confirmation but very confident I’ll get the same suggested treatment plan).

So I know some UT fans that’d like to think they bleed orange; I’m of course a UT fan, I graduated from UT, my younger brother (a Civil Engineer in Houston), my Dad, my uncle Tommy (who was on campus the summer of that sniper attack), and both of my children – but today I woke up bleeding orange (and just pretty nearly, really burnt orange) from my surgery incision (I have the pictures to prove it but I’ll spare you those); paged my surgeon, talked to him while waiting for Dr. Chadha who also physically examined me; they both agreed it was typical drainage, but we’d keep an eye on it (the surgery must fully heal before we start the radiation too). I’ll never think the same thing again when I hear someone say they bleed burnt orange.

Jan took me for a late Brick Oven pizza lunch – yum, yum (cook’s spicy special and salads).

I received some positive comments about the sand castle picture: I’ll try to pull together all our sand castle images and post them; we were really into that for several summers when we did our annual beach trip (Port A, padre island, low key, just the way I like vacation) another wonderful memory of quality family time well spent – there’s nothing more important as far as I’m concerned.

Thanks for all the wonderful notes and messages, it’s hard to explain how fantastic those make you feel,

So Very much appreciated.

Y’all have a great/safe weekend.

Randy.

Friday, July 29, 2011

(close-up of Martha’s flowers)

Good morning! Meeting with medical oncologist this morning (get the mapping CT scan that will be used for targeted radiation).

Good day yesterday: they guys at work let me sit in on a discussion of my work (the state I left things in (and I wish I’d been a bit more organized)) – what a pleasure working with Jesse and Allan and the team; also, my IBM management has been extremely helpful and supportive, I really feel like IBM has my back on this and that is a tremendously relieving feeling I hope you can imagine (my manager Dan has been so very encouraging, understanding, helpful, caring, reassuring; difficult for me to express – thanks guys. Looking forward to returning as a rehab opportunity/challenge.

Took this with the new lens (not too shabby as a 100mm prime) from the car as Jan drove (who takes a 100mm 1:1 macro on a milkshake run???)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Good morning!

The pink lilies are blooming in the pond.

Steve, thanks for a “normal” lunch yesterday; nice to get out for other than a Dr visit (Don’t worry, Jan drove and joined us). Wow ate way too much, just love Indian food though. Of course I have about 3 trips planned now!

Having trouble getting to sleep, mind is racing. Try to wind down, but it’s difficult (maybe the vicodin).

Watched “Stranger than Fiction”; not your typical Will Ferrell by any stretch (don’t let that deter you); interesting to me on many levels, particularly the break the mold, break out of the obsessive rut and get to living aspect. Aww, he gives the girl, who is passionate about baking, flours as a gift. Now I want to go to adult space camp.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Good Morning. About have the headache pain kicked. Very clear again today. Where has the last two weeks gone. Got a lot to prep for – daunting: at this point it feels like a challenge, a big unknown; not my choice. Trying to rework the blog a bit. The photos below were taken under a bit of duress (pretty much just gotten home from the hospital). I think the family will want to post some different pictures – I’ll do these for now:

Image 1 Me and my beautiful wife Jan

Image 2 Jan, Rachel and Phil (my pride and joy - what I live for)

Image 3 and it keeps getting bigger and better, my awesome new son-in-law George Henderson

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Good Morning all!

Gotta show this one (I hope (my son) Phil doesn’t mind): he’s entertaining their summer interns for a job well done at the CAT Ranch near Houston (why doesn’t IBM have a Texas Ranch – awesome); the ranch owner knew Chuck Yeager and has this photo on the wall at the ranch; Chuck Yeagers autobiography is the first book I ever read that I could not put down – a true inspiration to me (reminds me of my Dad – a Korean War vet (they offered my Dad the platoon sergeant job and he refused, but then they told him who they were giving the job to and he knew that guy would get them all killed – so he took the job): (you think life is tough, right up until real bullets whizzing by your head are added to the mix) I’m going to reread or find the audiobook; thanks for sending Phil (and enjoy the ranch):

Image 4 Chuck Yeager Photo at CAT Ranch

Had just a fantastic day yesterday. Started with an inspirational message from a man surviving prostate cancer: “ALL you gotta do is have faith, if you believe that everything’s gonna be ok, you gonna be good” (of course with a healthy dose of modern, traditional, targeted medicine:

ok, So the first person that saved my life (probably not the first time over the past 35 years), my wife Jan:

Image 5 Jan and I

And here’s the 2^nd (I think most of you already saw):

My skilled neurosurgeon, DR. Michael Webb:

We visited Dr. Webb Yesterday and I got the staples out: he just grabbed each one with a pair of tweezer pliers and yanked each out (one shot across the room: and I think he said, that’s a first).

I hope I didn’t offend him – I asked him about the incision shape, I believe he was trying to make a straight, clean cut straight up/down the side burn, so it wouldn’t show, and I might have sounded ungratefully like, hey, where’s my horseshoe scare. I hope he tolerates idiots well.

I’m making this image of the incision with the staples, small (no shaving, these days at least by his team):

He was not really seeing patients yesterday (was in interviewing new staff); and I asked him if he was taking the staples out and I think he thought I was asking him specially to do it (because he mention the nurses name that would do it – but he said sure: so he yanked and we talked. Just a great guy, very positive, he pumped me full of optimism:

He said, forget the averages, that I’m in a subgroup of young, healthy, highly mobile/functional before/after surgery, that is not representative of the whole group over which these averages are taken.

I know enough about statistics to know you really need to be careful using statistics unless you have studied this math (I flunked my first engineering stats class (including random and stochastic processes) – ended up with one of a few B’s in my core eng classes). And if any of you find errors in my logic or math, I don’t want to know about it!

So for example let’s say you’re doing a study of a small group (the other huge problem typical folks do is use data from small sample sizes, which is effectively useless, the N=1 case is useless data to try to project onto other cases. I you have a group of people generally 60 years old that die of a disease, 3 live to 61 years, 1000 live to 70, and 5 live to 100, the average age is 70.1 (if I did my math correctly). But there’s a subset in that data that routinely live to 100). So that’s my focus, don’t tell me the odds, unless you have it broken down by subgroup, including mine, no never mind, never tell me the odds.

Of course, I still need to get lucky: if my body responds well to the upcoming treatments, I’ll be good. So ya’ll please keep the wonderful thoughts and prayers I’ve received and positive energy flowing my way. I’m going to do everything I can to prep, eat right (not like I have been – I’m been in healing mode), exercise (which Dr web approved me for (but I don’t get to start until Jan approves me) and THINK positive and focus on being optimistic. I don’t believe you can heal yourself with your mind, but I do know you (and others around you) can make yourself sick with your own mind – I’m staying out of that place.

We asked about the MGMT? Genetic markers which he said they still don’t have lab results for, if those markers are present (or not I’m not sure which), then the temodor has a better chance to work more effectively.

And after this, if necessary, he committed to continue to work with me as aggressively as we want to attack this, which could include some of that wide awake surgery where they probe areas of the brain while they ask you questions and test your responses to take out more areas but leave good stuff. The problem is, the tumor cells are of course microscopic, you can’t see them until you have 100’s of thousands in a mass, so the surgeon debulks the tumor using 3D MRI (takes out all that he knows is tumor and not brain, but some of those microscopic cells remain (I asked, he said the mri only resolves to about 3mm; he said, he took out everything he knew was tumor using that 3D MRI view, but then he said you’re just looking at brain, and you can’t distinguish any more tumor from brain cells and mine was getting close to face muscles he said – I told him I take face droop any day over being able to think clearly). But we’ll cross that bridge if/when we get to it.

He did allow me to go back on 3/8hrs steroid, which keeps the swelling down and controls the headaches the best, need to wean down before the next treatment.

I feel very clear today, the first day I felt like I can track/administer my drugs (Thank goodness Jan has been doing that job the past week).

Ya’ll have a great day.

Thanks Martha for the colorful photo project

 (I’d gotten a new lens in the mail that I hadn’t gotten to test in time to return if it had any issues – oh well, I like it anyway (Canon 100mm f2.8 IS Macro)

Monday, July 25, 2011 – getting these staples out today, can’t wait I really think they’re causing some of the headache pain.

Absolutely fantastic having everyone at home this weekend (including George  - who took this picture for us):

Phil, Rachel me, and Jan

(my Son Phil was Georgetown high school valedictorian, an IBM Watson Scholar, graduated from the McCombs business honors program at UT Austin and is now employed with the global petroleum division of CAT (Caterpillar) in Houston; my daughter Rachel, following in that shadow with grades better than me in high school though, got accepted to UT Austin and 1 year later, was 5/75 students accepted into the UT School of Architecture Interior Design program, she recently graduated, got married and is employed by a local architecture firm in Austin and my beautiful wife Jan, high school sweetheart, married 33 years this December, the secret of my success, and that’s no lie. And then there’s me causing all this trouble (BSEE/MSEE UT Austin 1980,1991, registered PE in Texas and IBM employee since 1984. I am very proud of my career and work, but it just doesn’t measure up to this absolutely fantastic family (both immediate and extended) that I’ve been blessed with (it is so totally awesome to have two beautiful, loving, compassionate, happy, fun creative, imaginative, intelligent, strong, optimistic, children that are smarter than me at my side when I need them to help discuss all the medical issues with my wife and I). I’ve worked on a lot of cool projects as an Engineer, but none hold a candle to my “life-project”: this amazing family.

Ate a lot (maybe too much).  I’m getting absolute premium care at home, got pumped full of milkshakes all weekend.

And Phil snapped this one:

Phil moved my wireless from nearby my head next to my computer (one thing I worried about as a possible cause).  George helped reroute cables.

Jan talked to Dr Wu yesterday morning and she decided to start weaning me off the steroids; but my head felt swollen all night and I had a headache most of the night.   Better now though after alternating advil and norco (acetaminophen and hydrocodone).

Picked up the guitar, had a few issues but could still play (not my hardest song): my doctor griped me out in an email saying, don’t push it, it will take some time; here’s what I was trying to play (I recorded this a few years ago – if I can get back to this, I’ll be happy (except I’ve been wanting to improve on it (it’s nowhere near exact)), if you’re interested (I know it’s not that good, I play to relax, and it works):

me attempting one of Monte Montgomery's versions of Mark Knoplers Romeo and juliet

Forced Rach and George to watch  Doc Holly wood last night

One of the reasons I like this movie so much, it pretty much represents to me exactly like it felt growing up in Round Rock, instead of the squash festival, we had Frontier days and the Sam Bass shootout, same time same place every year everyone always went - a whole weekend event, everyone knew everyone (“Can’t poop in this town without everyone knowing what color it was” and parade (I’m pretty sure I was in at least once, the old Settlers park dance located right next to the spot where they always had that exact same carnival and rides (the zipper, tilt-a-whirl, etc) and some of the same carnival people I think. At the field track SW corner of 620 and I35, where I practiced 8^th grade football (we walked to practice, in pads, from the school across the i35 bridge every day).  Also when he calls the Grady chamber of commerce and gets the weather/time, not sure we had that in RR, but it does remind me of, for all you youngsters, without the interweb, we did get the Austin American statesman in round rock and they had this feature I can’t remember the name, where they posted all these self-help info tapes along side 4 digit numbers, and IF you had a touch-tone phone (we had a rotary dial at first in RR (our home number was actually printed on the phone AL5-2311 (which is 255-2311), you could lay in bed an punch in these codes and listen to all kinds of info on various subjects).

We had our Doc Hoag too I’d say in Dr Peters (the guy that tried to work out a crack spine bone by stretching me on his chiropractor table).

So that movie feels to me like what growing up in Round Rock was like, before RR lost its soul.  It’s in the past now.

Ok, got to get an easy ftp’er app now to blast this blog up to randomphase.

Later.

I asked my neurosurgeon to snap a photo; after I woke up from surgery I gave him my email address and he sent it to me (my kids said “awesome, he’s back): here’s the image:

(absolutely don’t click here if you get queasy Brain photo – proof that there is brain in there – no proof of actual usage though – still working on that.

Please forgive me if I’m overindulging next, please feel free to skip the rest:

If anyone is interested, here’s how I have spent some of my personal time over the past few years (the most fun I’ve had is family time, watching my kids grow up and progress into and out of college, spent a lot of time down at UT, when they were both there at the same time for one year it was a total blast). I’m so very blessed and lucky to have gotten that experience.

About 7 years ago I was inspired to get back into photography (which I dabbled with in high school).

Here are some of my images (admittedly poorly organized (it’s on my to-do list): photo.net (I checked yesterday: I now have 190,000 images on my pc 1.5TB (a little more than ½ are unique (I was in the habit of shooting both raw and .jpg))

Also have some images on panoramio, mapped into google earth: interesting (to me) that the one (along about pg6) that has the most hits (15k) is a sand castle the kids and I built in 2006 at Padre).

Also, if you’re interested in looking and BTW these are NOT for profit (there isn’t (or isn’t supposed to be) any markup) and please believe I’m not suggesting anyone purchase, but I’ve made a few blurb.com photo books here (or if this link doesn’t work, just search for “Randy Heisch” on blurb.com; I’ve made them fully previewable (all pages) online at the blurb site (full screen is best). They (blurb.com) make pretty decent quality photo books (way better than like a walmart photo book for example); you can specify different paper qualities/types/etc and are fairly reasonably priced (except if you get carried away like I did recently with the 160 page book). And there latest downloadable book creation software has gotten pretty good – easy to learn/use and pretty powerful (you can edit layouts, etc).

For grins, Here are some of my home-based PIC microcontroller projects (mostly all sidelined recently by the photography); these microcontrollers are amazing, in an 8 pin DIP, you get 2-3 channels of analog input, 2 or 3 digital outputs, counter/timers, low power use, and about 1 to 2K of instruction storage and typically, 32-64 bytes(not K or M or GB) of RAM, and it amazes me how much function can be packed into one (some assembler, mostly all done in C):

These generally only play on Windows IE, firefox usually too; not iphone,etc):

Inductive IBM Logo (in 904 EBC) (rotating electronics with an inductive power couple)

High intensity (Charge pump) LED Strobed UT logo

reflective strobe IBM logo (stationary electronics: I have an IBM patent filed on this one)

Domino clock Gave one of these to my Uncle Jerry (a huge domino player) and he loved it I think (it actualy had dominos over the LEDs); every 10seconds, it recomputes the combinations to add up the same, correct time, but with different combinations, so you have to add up to get the time.

Lenz's law slide and magnetic tunnel I wanted to demonstrate Lenz's_law (where a magnet will slide down a steep metallic surface by inducing a current and back EMF to slow the fall (try dropping a strong magnet through a aluminum or copper tube and see how long it takes to fall, amazing)

magnetic matrix

Rotating IBM logl DISPLAY (upstairs in the 904 EBC longhorn room)

magnetic piston engine

INductively powered alpha display The first inductive couple project I did, using a hacked inductive electronic toothbrush base (the beauty is of course no electrical contacts to short or corrode, no physical connection required to supply power – the other advantage, these device and spin or rotate inside that magnetic field).

PIC enhanced light tracking tank

remote mailbox monitor

Thaumatop I My electronic version of the old Thaumatropes

Thaumatop II

Umbra Kinesis

Rotating strobe clock This clock won 2^nd place in the IEEE Spectrum Clock Competition 2008; it uses 2 PIC microcontrollers, one stationary that controls an inductive power couple that supplies power, as well as data pulses (time set and second tics, derived from 60Hz line), magnetically to the rotating PIC microcontroller, which displays the hour, minutes, seconds hands are colored arcs, as well as hour markers; this video shows the initial prototype; a pc board layout was done for the competition. The rotating blade also serves as a fan to provide cooling to the inductive drive power transistors.

geomag motor

mini railgun This project demonstrates charging a HV capacitor to around 400VDC and then dumping that into a 25ohm coil with a BB projectile sitting at the bottom; sitting on the lab workbench, the BB would fly up and hit the ceiling.

This movie, "Dazed and Confused", pretty much exactly sums it up for Jan and I (well after re-watching from several years ago, actually maybe not, some of it hits home, some not) at Round Rock High School, 1973-76; planning on watching again soon:

1976

Let me know what you think about the “blog” idea.

I wish everyone all the best,

Thanks,

Randy.

Randy's email

Jan's email

Phil's email

Rachel's email