After a long ordeal of trying to find help for my cancer situation we got into trials at MD Anderson cancer hospital in Houston, TX.  They put me on two things that had been approved for treating cancer individually but not together.  The Avastin causes my nose to ooze blood constantly.  When I told them I was going to have an operation on my foot they took me off the Avastin.  In 5 days the nose bleeds let up and my dreams returned.  In 7 days it was like someone removed a veil from my head and I could once again see the world in living color. 

When I first began taking the Avastin it clouded my mind and vision so slowly I didn't realize what was happening.  When it wore off it was quite noticeable.  The other stuff they are giving me causes pain in my legs and hip joints.  The treatments don't make me sick at my stomach like chemo did.

I meet cancer patients from all over the world at MD Anderson.  We all have cancer in common and everyone has been nice to us.  I learned a former Russian president went there for treatment and they asked him why he came to America for treatment when Russia claims to have the best of everything.  He told them MD Anderson was the best in the world and that's why he came.  When doctors get cancer that's where they go and beings as medicine is all they research they must know something important.

I have two regular doctors at MD Anderson.  My main Dr. is Dr. Kurry and the second is Dr. Susan (don't remember her last name).  I am glad there are two that check on me both different.  Kurry is very casual easy to talk to and sometimes funny.  Susan is very serious about my heath and checks me over real good and doesn't leave until she's satisfied she understands just how I'm doing.  She's the one that took me off the Avastin before the operation on my right foot.

Like so many we hear of cancer treatment trials but until I went and experienced it myself I had not met anyone who had been in one who could tell me anything about it.  Now I know first hand how it works and what it's like.  I can answer questions for anyone who is interested.

The trial people aren't nurses or doctors they are trained by the companies that make the treatments.  Everything is so highly classified they often don't tell the doctors what's going on.  Dr's must authorize the treatment and say it's OK to try or they can stop a treatment if it has a negative effect on the patient.  Doctors. do view the medical aspects, CT scans, and lab work to see how a trial is affecting their patient.

The only way a person can be included in a trial is after chemo has already failed and in my case it failed twice and so did the surgery that removed most of my right lung. 

The surgery left me disabled.  Anything that exerts me even a small amount like climbing a flight of stairs causes me to stop and catch my breath.  I had 16 rounds of high dose chemo that nearly killed me.  It kills cells indiscriminately both cancer and good cells.  It left me with a kind of PTSD.  If I enter the hospital here where I took the chemo treatments I become light headed and nauseated.  I told Dr. Kurry and he said that happens to many patients, bad enough they refuse to return to the place where they got the chemo.

The trial has stopped the cancer from growing but it isn't killing it like I want.  I have this huge tumor on my back on the right side and I want it gone.  I hope they switch me to something else that doesn't make me sick but will be more aggressive against the cancer.

The cancer has returned! When it does that they call it stage 4 and that's the type of cancer that kills people.  That's what I have.

Dr. put me on 6 more rounds of chemo that makes me violently sick.  One day I puked practically non-stop for a full 28 hours after being very sick the day before and was very sick the day after.  I thought I was going to die.

I've endured 3 rounds of chemo and have 3 more to go and we hope that kills it but there's no guarantee that it won't come back, in fact it likely will if we don't find some other method to deal with it I'll either die from the cancer or the chemo.  Dr. said he would keep me alive as long as he can and hope and pray for a cure.

I've converted the short story "Kim of New Eden" over to screenplay format.  The novel version is now available on Kindle books.  99c download or if you are a Kindle unlimited user they are FREE to read.

Kim of New Eden on Amazon.com

This story is about two characters that come into the Ember Reign novel series in book 3.  The story is previous to book 3, after Ember Reign book 1 before these characters actually meet each other in book 3.  In book four  Rose and Km join the Star Dancer team and become command crew members with Megan and her friends on their new ship Star Dancer.

Karen, Might Have Been the Last of Her

A short story with the main Ember Reign characters and a teenage girl who's been betrayed by her friends and decides to leap from a bridge in the middle of a cold stormy night into the river and end her life.  When passing over Ember sees the girl and decides to have a closer look.  Find out what happens on a dark and stormy night when a young distraught teen meets a real life guardian angel.

The cancer has derailed all of my work and they give me stuff that affects my eyes and mind in negative ways just to fight the cancer.  That update is in the left column.  For the moment I'm off the Avastin and my mind and eyes are once again working so I'm taking advantage of this to update a few websites and finish my work on the Kim of New Eden screenplay.  Now if I can just find someone who's interested in producing it into some kind of TV show.

The Ember Reign novels are Kindle downloadable books for about $5 a download.  They are also Kindle unlimited books now so anyone who is a member of that club can download the novels and read them for the price of their subscription.  That means they don't cost anything, just go select, download and enjoy.

We are working at this time to get all of these novels in print format as well.

I've been all but out of business thanks to cancer and treatments that disable my mind and my eyes.  Please see the updates in the left column.  They took me off the Avastin for a short time and my mind is once again working so I thought I should make some updates while I can.

I've added SSL security to 5 of my sights and it cost plenty and will cost more when I renew in 2 years.  This site is now secure but you must use HTTPS:/ in order to access the secure pages.  Look for the little padlock to the left of the URL.  If it shows locked then you are access the secure site.  Hackers can't get in there so they tell me and neither can viruses.  The sites are all monitored from GoDaddy and scanned regularly for malware.

I'm making some needed changes to the website to make it easy to find your way around.  People who don't know us personally who need us for business need to be able to locate our business pages and information quickly.

The old site is cluttered with all kinds of family things and if friends and family still want to reminisce the old pages are still here, just use the OLD-HOME link on the new menu.  All the old news, old photos and family info are still out there.

With all that's happened our mobility and abilities are now limited.  We are still shooting the plays for Southside High School but Matt is in charge and Dawn sometimes helps with the shooting.  We have been shooting for them since 2004.

We can now burn up to 50 disks in a row quickly and with professional quality labels.

With my limited mobility I'm still able to work at my computer stations and making disk duplications is something I'm fairly good at.  The information for the publishing service is on the publisher page.

We still do limited video production work.  We have a new 4k camera and a pair of HD cameras that we use.  We even have a quadcopter that we use to get aerial video with.  If we are working a job we can shoot air-born video for no extra charge.

We still do limited video editing work like what we do for the school.  We can still shoot weddings and special events as long as they are nearby and easy to get to, as time permits.  Please see the video production page.