Incorporated on Dec. 1, 2006, the City of Milton has been recognized for having the highest quality of life in the state of Georgia and ninth-highest in the southern United States by the Business Journals’ “On Numbers” survey. It is a distinctive community that embraces small-town life and heritage while preserving and enhancing the city’s rural character. The City of Milton will provide opportunity and value in a responsive and responsible environment through active partnerships with the community and its stakeholders. For more information, visit http://www.cityofmiltonga.us, or call 678-242-2500.

Mike Green
December 21, 2012

Last year around December 8, 2011, I returned home after 35 days of hospitalization at North Fulton Regional Hospital. I thought it about the most glorious homecoming possible. I could get on with my life after the pulmonary embolism that almost got me.

It is now December 20, 2012, and through the hard work and dedication of those who have helped care for and treat me, I have had a year of therapy, health recovery and getting used to a new normal. I was able to travel to Arizona with Mary for an interesting vacation at Sedona, Arizona, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and Phoenix in August 2012.

I have been blessed and have recovered strength, mobility, and a good mental outlook.

My disease, multiple myeloma, lives in bone marrow and it attacks bone and soft tissues with tumors, if untreated. I have been having monthly complete blood counts that are checked and determine if treatment plans are imminent. My disease has not been aggressive, the myeloma spikes have increased and decreased on a monthly basis. This is smoldering myeloma. The only treatment I have had for the disease was the irradiation of the original tumor on T-9, which dissolved. Eleven levels of rods and screws have kept my back stable and out of pain.

The m spikes began to rise slightly and I had a referral to Winship Cancer Institute at Emory in July 2012. My Emory doctor is a national leader in stem cell transplants. He monitored me until a follow-up November appointment, advising that we get ready for the new treatment with admission to the clinical trial. He and My doctor at Atlanta Cancer Care, Northside Hospital Alpharetta will coordinate my treatments.

Four weeks ago I fell on my butt and back in the gym restroom. I was strapped for time and didn’t stay balanced. I drove home, but knew after an evening that my neurosurgeon would have to order an MRI. My oncologist at ACC ordered a PET scan. It was decided that all my structural titanium was still functioning. The L-5 had sustained a compression fracture that was treated through Kyphoplasty which injects balloons that send air, raising the height of the compression, allowing bone cement to restore the vertebra. This has helped me function again with mild pain.

The PET scan indicated that myeloma was present in four bones. This meant that the stem cell transplant process would be bumped up sooner.

Here’s how it works according to my understanding:

Chemo meds are used in four cycles to destroy cancer cells in the bone marrow. I take a pill of Revlimid daily, an injection of Velcade twice weekly and steroids four days weekly. After four cycles (two weeks medicated, one not), The doctors confer to see if enough cycling of cancer-killing has occurred for the stem cell transplant to occur. The harvesting of the stem cells is completed out-patient at Emory. This will be frozen, stored and await transplant back into my deleted bone marrow. The transplant recolonizes the long bones with fresh, cancer-free bone marrow. This is an autologous transplant (from a self donor). During this time, my auto-immune system will be compromised to the point where I have to stay about two weeks in hospital at Emory.

Expected outcome: 80-90% of patients experience remission for three to five years..some more…
The transplant can be repeated if myeloma levels increase again. That’s tremendous gains in the survivability of this disease. The transplant coordinator says that it is fast becoming treated as a chronic, not automatically terminal illness. Advances in treatment have become heartening!

When I started this treatment Monday, December 17, Dr. R cheered me with a wonderful exclamation, “the treatment is going to work like a charm on the myeloma!” Resting at home, I told Mary that I felt a burning sensation in my right shoulder blade. Not missing a beat, Mary said, “that’s the Velcade killing cancer cells! (Mary, my healthcare warrior!) At bedtime, when administering the Revlimid again, she told me, “let’s kill some more cancer cells. (Dr. Mary “Rambo” Green, that time.)

I have not experienced nausea yet. My appetite is good. And, I’m trusting in God’s Will and Providence.

I’m still on two legs without support except in crowds that rush around. I went back to the gym Tuesday. Life is good!

Go back and read my last year’s blog on “Christmas Gift.” Imagine me symbolically showing up on your doorstep with baked goods and a warm, “Christmas Gift 2012!” shouted greeting. This year it would resound loud, clear, and with hope!

Thank you friends, family, and medical heroes for reading my ramblings. Much love to you this Christmas Season.

Mike Green
December 20, 2012

The halls are being decked in homes, malls, and offices for the beauty of the Christmas season.

Back on November 1, 2011, I wrote the following in a blog entry. I was unable to finish writing what I had planned due to my health issue that put me out of commission for a month. One month turned into two, with a threat of the delay becoming three months. A friend chides me when I leave my blog unattended for too long. True to my motto, Carpe Diem, I am returning to my blog to “Seize the Day!”

From November 1, 2011

I first visited the Biltmore Estate in 1967. For nearly a half century I have enjoyed visiting and sharing the experience with family and friends. It has been the scene of memorable events in my life. As I have learned more of the Biltmore story, I have conducted research that has been an incentive to travel. Finding other people that shared my Biltmore and Vanderbilt passion has been a most enjoyable and rewarding surprise. I have made wonderful friends who share in what we call “Biltmore-itis.” I will be adding to this story line over the nest few days.

Tomorrow: A persuasive fourteen year old wheedles his parents into loading up the 1965 Pontiac Catalina and taking a pre-interstate road trip to Western North Carolina “to visit a real castle!”

January 22, 2011

Back in 1967, I used to either spend hours before the television, eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and drinking a coke while engrossed in my favorite programs, or spend hours reading a novel or a volume of Compton’s Encyclopedia, or best of all a combination of the above. I still remember the large, braided, hoop rug and the console black and white TV. Back in the early days of television, those polished consoles were revered pieces of furniture. Almost shrines in homes of the 1960s, these console televisions were important monuments to culture. Members of the family were photographed in their “Sunday Best” with the console television included in the picture.

My father knew that too much television would either make me go blind, or curdle my brains, though. There was a set bedtime, even if I was right in the middle of a program. No excuses…

Around 1967, a ridiculous television sitcom, “The Pruitts of Southampton,” premiered with the indomitable Phyllis Diller cast as an impoverished upper-crust aristocrat, reduced to economizing in her palatial home. She would appear outside her fabulous “French chateau” with her long suffering butler in tow. The plots usually centered on wacky attempts to carry on her socialite lifestyle while being financially broke. Eating cans of tuna and hamburgers figured into plot lines. Of course, Phyllis Diller’ comedic talent saved many a lame plot. The plots meant little to me. The exterior film footage that captured the huge house with its stair tower and many sculptural pinnacles captured my imagination. It wasn’t long before I found out that it was a real house with a name, Biltmore, on an estate in the United States. Finding this information required research. My sources were actual books, periodicals, and reference books. There was no computer search for my information. Information in hand, I realized that a visit to Biltmore was no impossible dream. In fact, it was close to where I lived. It was in North Carolina. This palatial home was also the location of many Chevrolet commercials that aired in primetime television. It wasn’t long before atlases and road maps were being quietly consulted for the location of Asheville, North Carolina. Promotional strategies were formulated.

There were a couple of hurdles that I would have to overcome with my parents if I intended to get to this Biltmore. My father could not tolerate Phyllis Diller, so it was impossible to get him to watch the show for its Biltmore footage. My mother and father believed that out of state trips were invariably to Florida, not other states. I had a big sales job in store for me.

There were two possible approaches. Fall was a great time for road trips into the Smoky Mountains. The ’65 Pontiac Catalina could use a good road trip. The third and unstated good reason for the trip was that it would finally shut me up. Parents appreciate such reasoning.

Interstates were not completed to Asheville in 1967, so trips through the mountains would be necessary. There was no discussion of spending the night, so an early departure around 4:00 a.m. was necessary. Of course, a picnic hamper of fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, biscuits, and fried fruit pies was essential. After all, we could picnic from the car trunk on the side of the road someplace. There were picnic spots all through the mountains. Maybe the Vanderbilts would let us picnic somewhere on the huge estate.

My selling campaign came to an end with success on my part. It was decided. Now, we just had to get ready for the day!

Tomorrow, or next month: Arrival at Biltmore House and Gardens, October 1967
The photograph that accompanies this blog entry is circa 1976, not 1967.

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Introduction

I first visited the Biltmore Estate in 1967. For nearly a half century I have enjoyed visiting and sharing the experience with family and friends. It has been the scene of memorable events in my life. As I have learned more of the Biltmore story, I have conducted research that has been an incentive to travel. Finding other people that shared my Biltmore and Vanderbilt passion has been a most enjoyable and rewarding surprise. I have made wonderful friends who share in what we call “Biltmore-itis.” I will be adding to this story line over the nest few days.

Tomorrow: A persuasive fourteen year old wheedles his parents into loading up the 1965 Pontiac Catalina and taking a pre-interstate road trip to Western North Carolina “to visit a real castle!”