Bubba number 6

I think November is having an identity crisis, isn't it supposed to be cold now?

Fun day at Queeny last sunday. Maggie raced again but was intimidated by the plethora of single-track mountain-bikey goodness and the 90s-2min hill climb at the end of the lap...all of which, got me psyched!

I'll defer to my buddy Jeff Yieldings description here for the first part of the race. Devin and I were on the verge of attacking when Devin bobbled in front of me on one section and Josh attacked and got a gap. I chased back on using the big hill at the end of the lap, this was with 4-to-go. Then I tried to recover for a lap (it was only a 5minute lap). Then I held Josh's wheel for another lap and fought the ridiculously steady JDE (Johnson Diesel Engine)....then attacked on the hill with 2 to go. I couldn't drop him. Then on the last lap, I attacked again on the barriers and got in front. I then cruise controlled it to the hill and attacked. I couldn't ride away, which left the uphill finish where I gave it my all and ended up with a win.

In other news, I posted a few weeks ago about the certain ambiguity in which my family and I have been living with over the past year. Recall that the story goes like this:
January 2010- radiation treatment which takes about a year to have an affect
July 2010- blood test showed that my tumor marker went up, uncertain about the validity of the test

Now in November 2010, the actual trend of my tumor marker looks as though it has gone up about 60% in a year. What's that mean? What is my tumor marker? How accurate is it? Well, I used to think I could answer those questions but now I really don't know. In July, it seemed as though the rise of my thyroglobuilin, aka tumor marker, was in contrast to all the scans I had which revealed stable or improved disease status (present in vertebrae, lungs, and neck). The blood test is supposed to be very accurate for increases or decreases in the size or amount of cancer in my body, so the knee jerk reaction is to scan me head-to-toe again to and compare with other pictures. Right now, I'm told to not worry too much about it and live my life normally over the next 2 months until I see my doctor on January 3rd at MD Anderson.

It is so incredibly hard too not attribute some kind of behavior or lifestyle trait to this change. But I'm no more or less active than I have been in the past 5 years. Stress-wise, my life is abound in it but is it contributing to the change? Basic science research is hard. I don't feel like I'm making significant contributions to society, etc. Is it the coffee? Adrenal fatigue? Too much protein? Fat? Carbohydrate? Beer? Bike riding? Pesticides? Bike racing? Is it some household cleaner we're using or laundry detergent? Maybe my renal or hepatic function has changed and I'm actually clearing the thyroglobulin at a slower rate? Maybe antibodies were masking it this entire time and we've had falsely low test values over the past few years? Maybe the test is like PSA and not as reliable as we thought. Fuck, I have no idea what I should do. More surgery and probably a fancy new chemo drug (like this) is probably in my future. At least for my cycling life there's this possible side effect.