Well, some people have been telling me I’ve been seriously remiss in not writing on here more often then I do.  The reason for this is multiple, but the more important of these is that I was looking for work, I’ve been a little busy doing some other stuff, and I just got plain sidetracked for a while.  I promise to try to do better from now on.

So in entertainment news, I finally saw both Start Trek and Terminator Salvation.  without giving anything away, I personally thought Star Trek was brilliant while Terminator just plain old sucked big time.  In happier news, Transformers, GI Joe, Harry Potter and District 9 are coming out in the next few weeks, so those are movies that I look forward to even though I’ll probably have to wait til they come out on video.

Nothing has really changed treatment wise.  We’re looking at option and it may involve some relocation for a bit, but everything is still up in the air.  The problem I’m facing is that I feel like I’ve been placed on the backburner in the office I’m currently at, and when we had a conversation that was fairly confrontational with my doctor and we all left feeling somewhat dissatisfied.

I’ve got a few graduations and weddings to go to.  I can’t wait to go to them, since I love seeing Sarah dressed up.  She looks GORGEOUS!!!

I also spent a day or so in the hospital with some pretty severe abdominal pain, but by the time I got seen by the GI doc, the pain was under control, nearly completely gone, and they just said that it was “acute onset pain” with apparantly no cause.  Sometimes I hate doctors.  Once in a while, I think that all they do is guess.

Anyways, I’m gonna log off for the night.  Tomorrow is the day we celebrate Marisa’s b-day, so we’re having a little get together.  Have a great time and be good humans!

I want to apologize for no blogging earlier, but I came down with a rather nast bout of pneumonia and it really kicked my butt.  It was bad enough that I had to postpone my chemo treatment for a week, so I’ll be doing chemo this week.

  Thank you one and all who joined the Relay for Life weekend before last.  I’m not sure of the exact amount we raised in total, but I know it was in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands.  The best part was that this was raised in part by those of you who don’t have an immediate reason to donate to cancer research, so I thank you all.  I spoke at the opening ceremony and that speech was recorded by Sarah, who immediately posted it on youtube.  Just type in Jeff Millet in the search area and it will pop right up.    I also want to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the relay.  This includes, but isn’t limited to a couple of young ladies from my sister’s work, my Aunt Cassie, almost all of my littler cousins, such as Hayley and Jenna, (and my bigger cousins) my sister, who also ran the kids corner, which I heard was a big hit with the kids, Sarah of course, my parents, Terry G., Lynn from the Magic Lamp, the Malarkey’s, the Redondos, the two Davids and Pam, Mike, the Kaufers, Watsons, Donna and Dale and numerous others who couldn’t attend but supported the relay in other ways.  I thank you all for your support and we’ll be back again next year, bigger, badder and maybe just a little more attitude lol.  Honestly, I don’t know how we would have done without all of your support.  You guys are great and even if I don’t know you all that well, I love all of you for supporting me. 

Something I almost forgot to mention was that the Kiwanis Youth club, or KEY club, has offered to take me on as one of their projects.  I’m not sure what’s going to be done for me, but they’ve offered to do some car washes and other fund raising events district wide, which pretty much covers all of the inland empire.  I got to meet some of these great kids at the relay and I got to meet even more of them today at Ayala

Hey, ho, let’s go! How y’all doing???  I’m not doing too bad.  I’m almost done with my internship.  I hope to soon be actually making money while working in the near future.  Sarah has a line on a job, so we’re both crossing our fingers for both of us to working our heinies off really soon.  I’m also thinking of starting up my own company, so I can be my own boss.  I’ve been working on my business plan for a while now, and getting to where I have almost everything I need, except the things that cost money.  I’m just letting y’all know that I’m working on that aspect.

 In other news, the RC Relay for Life is this SATURDAY!!!!  I want to see each and everyone of you there, since I will be giving the opening day survivor’s speech. It’s gonna be a hot one Saturday, so bring sun block and some cold drinks.  And if you just can’t drag your lazy butt out of bed at nine am, Sarah’s going to film the speech.  It’ll probably go on my website so you don’t have to look for it too hard, but Sarah might go ahead and put it on youtube before it’s on the website.  So, the relay starts at 9am sharp, and lasts a full twenty-four hours, so that means that we’ll have someone walking the entire day and night.  It’s gonna be a fun time, so stop by.  It’s on the football field at Rancho Cucamonga High School on Highland Avenue and Rochester Boulevard.  From there, just follow the crowd.  I’m sure there will be tents pitched and RV’s and trailers parked in the lot, so we’ll all be making ourselves at home.

Howdy humans and really intelligence species of apes.  I realize it’s been a while since I’ve written, but I actually have a good reason for that being so.  The reason for my lack of writing is (this sentence has been removed by the censors). See?  I told you I had a perfectly good reason for not writing.  I’m just kidding.  There are no censors on this blog.  The reason I haven’t written is very simple.  Between school, my internship and the fact that I didn’t want to leave anything out (and it’s been busy event-wise too).

First off, my Aunt Karen passed away at the beginning of April.  This is full of irony, because she was always calling us, worried about how I was doing.  It all started when she tried to get out of bed one morning.  She fell and broke her ankle.  At the hospital, they discovered her kidneys were failing and that she was gaining weight because of her inability to filter out enough fluids from her body.  Unfortunately, by the time this was discovered, it was too late.  They could have put a dialysis shunt into her if they had caught it in time, but it takes a certain amount of days before they could use the shunt, but she didn’t have that much time.  She died quickly, which was a blessing in a way because she didn’t suffer for very long, but I would have preferred that she didn’t die at all.  It was a nice ceremony and there was a lot of love for her, so I’m glad others got to see what a wonderful person she was.

I’m gonna go into my health real quick, because there’s been some new things to tell you all about.  First off, my doctors have switched my chemotherapy treatments because there’s a possibility, repeat a POSSIBILITY, that the old chemo had become ineffective because one of my CT scans showed two new tumors around my abdominal aorta.  Because of that possibility, they thought it best I move to the new treatment, which necessitated my removal from the clinical trial I was on, but I think we had gotten to the point where the clinical trial drug was getting ineffective too.  The good news is that it seems that whoever goes on that particular drug receives the first round of chemo longer than without it.  That means that cancer patients can get the initial treatment for longer.  YAAAAAAAAY for me!  This new treatment is a lot milder, with less drastic side effects than the previous treatment had as well.  Unfortunately, the side effects I do get are crappy ones, if you get my drift….

Also, I found out that I was positive for the KRAS (you say it KAY- Raz) gene.  That means that I have yet another type of treatment further down the line.  That means I have at least four total types of chemo I can receive, which if nothing else, gives me more time to survive until the radio wave treatment gets approved.  I’m telling you that it’s only a matter of time until they find a cure for me.

Also, I went for another opinion with a medical oncologist at UCLA.  He wants to see the most current CT scans before he rules out surgical options, but he wants me to continue on my current treatment for now.

So, now that my medical status has been thoroughly updated, it’s time to get on with what else has been happening in my life.  I finally finished my classroom portion of my education, which leaves me with just my one month internship until I complete everything.  I even had my graduation, which I had promised my mom when I finished high school.  Hey, it may have taken me fourteen years to keep, but I can finally say that I’m a man of my word.  So there!  Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!

I was asked to speak at my graduation ceremony, which made me feel honored.  They basically wanted me to talk about my experience there and how it was affected by cancer.  You know me, I can’t pass up an opportunity to talk about my favorite subject.  Namely, myself!!!  It was surprisingly hard to come up with the right words to explain my predicament.  No one really wants to know what it was like for me to go to school.  The nose bleeds, the diarrhea, the lackadaisical attitude I had.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, because I did.  My problem was that I’d start to feel sorry for myself and then I would think to myself that I was going to die anyway, why bother getting my degree?  Stupid, I know.  But that’s the way I felt sometimes.

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with so far in regards to cancer is the depression.  The physical stuff is all things that I’ve been able to deal with.  Pain-wise, I’ve always had a high pain threshold, but it’s been taken to new heights by cancer.  Actually, the hardest part to deal with cancer is the mental aspect.  I think that’s because most of us don’t want to deal with the fact that some times we feel irrationally sad.  It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that you’re mortal.  Most people my age still have that illusion.  Most of my family expects to live into their eighties, and every time they see me, I remind them that not all of us will make it that far.  That depresses me, and I know that it depresses those who stop to think about it.  Fortunately for some (not necessarily family members, but some friends too), that thought doesn’t always cross their minds.

Anyways, enough sad crap for me today.  Well, one more thing, and then I’m done.  I didn’t sleep at all last night.  Not one wink.  I’m afraid that it’s been a recurring theme ever since I’ve gotten sick (officially sick, not from when I started having the cancer).

Now, on to my internship.  I’m working at a computer shop in

My primary motivation for this is that I tend to not take orders very well.  On the other hand, I trust myself, so I can’t miss with that. Another thing is that it’s relatively inexpensive to start up a company of this sort, and I’ve always wanted to be my own boss.  Additionally, it gives me the flexibility to go to chemo every other week.

Good morning boys and girls!  Yesterday was a good day.  Not a great day, but a very good day nonetheless.  We went to San Diego for my long awaited second opinion with Dr. Lowy, a surgical oncologist.  To sum everything up in a few short words, I might have been a surgical candidate when I was first diagnosed, but since then and due to the fact that I’ve just started on my second version of chemo, we need to see how effective it is and come back for a review in a couple of months.  There are several options we can take if the new chemo works or not.  So while he didn’t give us any information we really didn’t already have, he also gave us some hope without raising them to a level that is unsustainable.

Theat’s the other thing that I should mention.  They took me off the clinical trial, most likely because we were entering the period of diminishing returns with that line of treatment.  Plus, they changed the type of chemo I was receiving because it stopped working as well as it should.  They found some new tumors in my abdomen, although they weren’t sure how long they’d been there because they simply never looked in that area before.

 I ended up in the ER again on Wednesday after chemo because the new treatment caused some shortness of breath.  Friday, I think I was a little dehydrated, because the muscle twitching started back up again.  I wasn’t very sick, but I alternated between hot and cold, hot and cold all day long.

Saturday, I went out with Tim and his Sarah for dinner and had a good long chat with them, which I don’t get to do enough.  Then we went to his brother’s house for his b-day party, although we just stopped in and made an appearance.

Sunday, we moved my furniture around in order to make the most of the available space in there with the existing furniture that I had.

Other than that, there’s not much that I can think of that I haven’t already talked about. I’m feeling good, so are the rest of my family and Sarah.  Talk to you later!