My Pregnant Girlfriend
Raya’s First Pregnancy. She’s due June 19th, 2024, and was confirmed pregnant with more than one.
Raya’s First Litter of Puppies are Due June 19th!
Well, here we are! We’re within 2 weeks of our beloved little Ray of Sunshine delivering her first litter of puppies! We’re returning her to her breeder, Fox Creek Farm Goldendoodles & Bernedoodles in West Virginia on June 17th, and she’s due to deliver on June 19th. We’re so excited for her and for future owners of her pups. We think she’s excited too, if not a little confused. Tell me this isn’t a pregnancy glow right here, taken at a vet’s office while waiting to get her ultrasound done. She was sooo excited and happy TO BE AT A VET’S OFFICE!
Raya at the vet’s office on May 24th, all excited for her ultrasound!
The Signs Were Obvious
We knew well before her ultrasound that she had to be pregnant, because of how drastically her behavior changed almost overnight. She went from being a super energetic, playful, and active little girl, to a far more docile lap dog that has just wanted to chill, cuddle, sleep, and lay around and look cute all the time! After the past year and a half of trying to keep up with her going supersonic everywhere, we’ve been perfectly okay with this! A week into her presumed pregnancy, it’s almost like a switch was flipped and she knew that she was expecting, and to take it a bit easier. She also suddenly became an order of magnitude more clingy to me. She needs to be next to me at all times now, which is why I joke that she’s my pregnant girlfriend! It’s amazing how tuned in dog’s instincts are.
So Raya hasn’t been nearly as active as of late, and only cares for a tiny fraction of the physical activity and playtime she had before. She and Puffles have largely cooled it on their daily play time and zoomies with each other as well. “Buffles” was beefy and built almost like a gym bro from all of their play time and wrestling, but has actually gotten a bit “chomby” now. We think he knows too, as he seemingly scolds her not to run and to take it easy (“hey you’re pregnant take it easy!!!!”), and has been a little extra protective of her.
We also learned that pregnant dogs can have morning sickness and nausea just like a pregnant woman, so for a week or two it was tough to keep her fed but we figured it out. My wife made her a bunch of fresh cooked plain burger, pork, and some chicken mixed in with her regular food, and she managed to keep that down for the most part! In these last two weeks of her pregnancy, she’s eating about double what she normally would and wolfing down everything in sight. She’s definitely eating for more!
The biggest shocker of all has been that apparently a dog’s pregnancy pheromones can affect their humans as well, because both my wife and I have been cleaning up a storm. I’ve purged my home office of a ton of stuff, and my wife has been busy all around the house and in our bedroom, which has never been cleaner despite us not “expecting”. It’s Raya! And her puppies aren’t coming home with us! Crazy stuff, but finally de-cluttering the house a bit has been nice!
Baby’s First Ultrasound of Her Babies
Here’s some freeze frames of videos of her ultrasound, taken on May 24th. In one of the videos you can see a little heart beating, which is so cute. Other than that I have no idea what I’m looking at! The vet that did her ultrasound gave us a “confirmed” number and thought there might be more, but I’m not going to say how many baby puppies are in there. Nobody actually knows because it can be difficult to spot them all, but there’s for sure more than one. The only way to know for sure prior to delivery is to do x-ray cross-sections, but Fox Creek Farms doesn’t do that (and the radiation exposure probably isn’t good for the puppies either).
I would say that Raya has generally been enjoying her pregnancy, other than the week or so where she didn’t have much appetite and was nauseous. She’s been getting lots of extra love and attention from all of us, special meals from my wife, lots of extra cuddle time, long naps, and gets to sleep up in our bed with us most nights now too. She’s just so cute in everything she does, whether she’s going supersonic in the yard or around our house, or just laying around growing babies!
We sure are going to miss her for the six weeks she’ll be gone, but are super excited to see her become a mommy, and for her puppies to bring so much love to some lucky families out there. You’re going to get some truly amazing dogs!
ICYMI, click or tap this photo to get to the maternity shoot I did of Raya.
MALES STILL AVAILABLE IN HER FIRST LITTER!
Pretty Girls Are Trouble
As of June 5th on the Fox Creek Farm Available Puppies page, they’re still accepting 1-2 more applications for her first litter, but only for males and not females. It’s the same for the Harper & Bear, another petite litter a few days ahead of Raya & Hank. Apparently, a lot more people want female petite goldendoodles than males.
Raya & Hank litter status as of June 5th
ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?!?! :)
STOP.
Think about what you’re doing.
Ask anybody in my family and we’ll tell you, pretty girls are trouble! The moment I saw Raya it was over for me. Raya is so unbelievably cute, and she knows she’s so gosh darn cute and could just about get away with murder in our eyes! She literally could kill something, and we’d be like “omg baby that’s soooo cute!" as I grab my shovel from the garage and start digging a hole to bury the body in. She’s so irresistible and a total daddy killer. She owns me and everybody knows it, and trust me it wouldn’t be the same for a male!
How do you resist this?
So you want a petite princess goldendoodle, do ya? Do you really want something with that much power over you in your own house, and that’s perpetually going to look like a completely adorable baby princess puppy forever? It’s too late for me, but it’s not too late for you! Trust me, a “petite prince” male goldendoodle is going to be a fantastic dog also. Petites can hit above their weight for sure! It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog! :)
Maybe what I’m trying to say is that as much as we all love and adore Raya, her cuteness is already completely overwhelming to all of our brain circuitry. This is not predictive programming (or maybe it is), but if one day one of the puppies from Raya’s litters just happened to “land in my pocket” as I was bringing Raya home from West Virginia, it would have to be a male. We’ve barely survived one of these cute girls, and would absolutely not survive having two sweet petite princess baby girl goldendoodles in our house. I think I would just fall over and die from cuteness overload.
Puffles in May 2024
Just beware of what you’re getting yourselves into!
Males are great. They’re your buddy. They’re your friend. They’re still going to be plenty energetic and cute (or handsome?), but won’t turn into diva monsters that could get away with murder, because you’re so helpless when everything they do is so cute.
Just ask our friends. All are overwhelmed by Raya’s cuteness, but our mini-male Puffles is the one they’d want to take home. He’s calm. He’s chill. He’s super well behaved. He loves to cuddle. And he’s not going to go out and murder something because he knows he could get away with it. Just as much love, but far less trouble. LOL. :)
It’s Hopeless EITHER WAY!!
I know this can work in the other direction as well, so not sure if I just helped more female or male puppies find homes. Either way, you will fall hopelessly in love with these dogs. Truly, God put them on this earth to give humans a small taste of what true love is supposed to be and feel like!
It’s surely going to be an exciting few weeks and months for Raya, and for all of us! I’ll share photos of her and her puppies on the blog once I have some passed to me and permission to share, but good photos probably won’t be until July. As I recall, it takes them a week or so just to open their eyes and develop a little after they’re born, and are typically not even an ounce in weight at birth! The go home date for the puppies in her first litter is mid-August.
Raya will be entirely in the caring and professional hands of Fox Creek Farm in West Virginia through the entire process (and no visitation by us, so that she can stay focused on her pups) so we’ll be out of the picture.
STAY TUNED!!!!!!!
Keeping Up With Raya
Our baby princess Raya is all grown, and currently expecting her first litter of puppies due June 19th. We’re so excited for her, and for the families who will take her puppies home!
Well, it’s hard to believe, but we’ve already had our beloved Raya (“Ray of Sunshine”) for nearly a year and a half! Where has the time gone? It’s certainly been way too long since I’ve had time to get a doggy blog together about her, but that’s another story!
We celebrated both of our doodles October birthdays last year (Puffles on October 10th and Raya on October 22nd) with an off-season beach trip. Yes, we go to the beach more for the dogs now than for our two teenaged children! They both love the beach so much and zooming around, especially off-season when it’s cooler and there aren’t too many people around. We also celebrated our first “gotcha day” anniversary with Raya on January 4th this year. In another blink of the eye, Raya has already had her second heat cycle, and is now expecting her first litter of puppies to arrive on June 19th! We’re so excited for her and for future owners of her puppies! (Fox Creek Farm Goldendoodles breeds their guardian program girls on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th heat cycles, skipping the first.)
Raya has earned a number of nicknames with us. There’s “Ray-Ray”, of course. Another is “Ray-roo” after a kangaroo, for how high she can jump when she’s really excited. I’m 6’3” tall and she can jump up to at least my chest or shoulder level, and can get face-to-face with other family members! Another is “Way-way” because of how little she is, like how a toddler might say her name. Her parents, Boodles and Jax, were 20 and 22 lbs, so we were expecting her to be a bit bigger. She’s topped out at a mere 15 pounds and is firmly in the petite range, and we love her just the way she is. She’ll forever be our little baby, even as she’s set to become a mommy for the first time. I love that I can still pick her up and hold her like she’s a puppy, even as a fully grown petite goldendoodle. :)
Raya is just beyond adorable. She’s so playful, loving, energetic, and silly. She has a great personality and is super smart, way too smart, and I’ll admit that she’s a daddy killer too. She’s cute and she knows it. Her overwhelming cuteness gets her a lot of attention which she loves, which is so tough to deny her because she’s so cute! It’s a vicious cycle that we all fall for. Not gonna lie, she owns me! She’s just so unbelievably cute and adorable in everything she does. She’s also a bit of a diva, and will let out cute little girly diva princess groans or sighs if she thinks you’re not paying enough attention to her. She was this way as soon as we got her, so don’t blame us! :) If I so much as put a hand on my wife, she’ll come over running and jump up on me while giving a little protest groan. “Hey, why you looking at her???” It’s so cute and funny, and both my wife and I laugh so hard all the time.
Raya had quite an exciting first year with us in 2023. We are big time road-trippers in case you didn’t know, so get around quite a bit. She got a first beach trip to Virginia Beach, VA in February, and then two trips to Rehoboth Beach, DE in June and October. She also got to come with us out to Ohio and Michigan, with stops at Sleeping Bear Dunes and then Mackinac Island. We ended the year with a trip to Savannah, GA and Hilton Head Island, SC, where Raya happened to run full speed into an 18-inch deep tidal pool after a seagull, in temperatures that were below 40F! She literally and figuratively froze and didn’t know what to do. Dad mode! I ran in after her in shoes and pants, promptly pulled her out within seconds, and wrapped her tightly in a towel and held her close until she dried and warmed up. She was just fine, but Raya has since been banned from being off leash at the beach! :)
If you’re considering a puppy from one of Raya’s litters, just know that you’re probably going to get some unbelievably cute, energetic, funny, loving, and silly little puppies just like Raya. They will love you so much, and provide you with endless smiles, love, laughter, and companionship that will brighten your homes in a more than manageable size. You’re also going to be exhausted! Just remember, all these little puppies know are their mommies and their litter mates for the first 8 weeks of their lives. And then they go to a new and unfamiliar home, and all they have is you. Raya is an absolute sweetie, but definitely needed a lot of time, love, attention, and engagement her first year, more so than Puffles did. She got everything she needed from us and more, which also explains doggy blogs and photo posts dropping off! We were too busy loving and playing with her, and having a blast while we were at it. Raya is a happy girl!
Raya’s first pregnancy has not yet been confirmed, but will be later in May. Based on what my wife and I have been observing so far though, there’s no way she isn’t pregnant with how she’s been eating and drinking up a storm! I’ve also been having really strange dreams a few nights in a row when I almost never have any, and my wife, Debbie, has been going on this crazy nesting instinct deep cleaning of the whole house rampage! Can doggy pregnancy hormones and pheromones affect their humans? We think so!
Fox Creek Farm Goldendoodles & Bernedoodles on Facebook
As Raya’s guardian family, we sure are going to miss her for a few weeks this summer, but couldn’t be more excited for the love, joy, and happiness that her puppies will surely bring to their new owners and homes. We cannot wait to see them in person when we pick her up 6 weeks after delivery, and to be reunited with our little princess. It’s going to be an exciting summer!
Raya’s 1st Maternity Photo Shoot
I took the outdoor photos with my Canon R6 and RF 85mm f/2 Macro lens, and then switched to the RF 50mm f/1.8 for the indoor photos. I used the articulating screen to place the camera down at ground level outside so that I could get nice angles of her without having to lay on the ground myself. I’m still using Photo Mechanic for sorting and rating, and recently have been using Radiant Photo for editing.
Normally Raya is a bit bashful after a grooming (omg I’m naked!), but she was happy to be back home from the farm and with her family after breeding, and happy to have all of her excess fur off as it was getting hot.
I hope you enjoyed this blog! Raya’s dedicated page is below, along with the main doodles page where I post photos of both her and Puffles together.
A New Life and a Fresh Start With Faith a Decade After Testicular Cancer
It’s been ages since I’ve done much in the way of writing about my cancer journey here, but it’s time to start writing again.
It’s been ages since I’ve done much in the way of writing about my cancer journey here, but it’s time to start writing again.
It had actually been my intention to start writing a “decade survivor” series of articles back in 2020, and then start publishing them in 2021 to celebrate that year. February 14, 2021 was the day I officially became a decade survivor of testicular cancer. Instead, we saw total mayhem in our world, COVID madness throughout 2020, a beyond chaotic presidential election cycle, and the series never got written. It would have been lost in the noise with everything going on in the world, but that’s okay as it would have been premature.
What’s happened with me personally in the past few years has been astonishing. Anything I might have written before would have been meaningless, as the Lord saw fit to evolve me once again. My return to the Lord’s house, and reclaiming the Christianity of my youth after 25 years as a lost sheep adult, has changed everything.
It’s changed my entire outlook on life. It changes everything about how I see my cancer experience now, and how I would have approached so many things so much differently. It’s also changed completely how I see the world today, and how I see myself fitting into it.
I would say that the relatively minuscule, and unnecessarily painful baby-step by baby-step slow crawl evolutionary process that I experienced throughout my first decade as a cancer survivor, as detailed on this very website, pales in comparison to the complete rebirth that I’ve experienced since turning my life back to Christ in 2021. When it comes to cancer and all that I went through, I feel like I could re-write nearly my entire website at this point.
What are you looking for in life? Peace? Hope? Security? Belonging? Purpose? Meaning? Confidence? Inspiration? Answers? Knowledge? Truth?
God’s eternal kingdom has all of this, and so much more.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33, KJV)
As I peruse back through old blogs that I’ve written, some of them, like this one, just make me shake my head in literal disbelief and laugh at this point.
In that blog, I lamented the perpetual feelings of insecurity that I’d had and perpetual cycles of depression even six years out from my cancer fight.
I HAVE found a way to feel that sense of peace and security again, through my faith in Jesus Christ. The answer was right in front of me all along, if only I had listened. There was no need to suffer through all that I did. Indeed, I suffered due to my lack of faith.
Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; (Isaiah 48:18, ESV)
My faith permeates everything in my life at this point, and I finally feel called once again to write, to share in this personal evolution and all that I’ve learned, and to hopefully help other struggling souls out there find their way, whether cancer survivors or not.
God bless,
Steve Pake
Cancer and Faith Q&A
A snapshot of my cancer and faith journeys, and the bridging of two worlds into one centered around God.
[Note: After my previous article about how my faith ultimately cured my post-cancer mental health issues for my company’s internal website, I engaged in an extended Q&A about this, which I’m publishing here.]
The blog cover image is of the spires of the Russian Orthodox Church in Nice, France, which we visited recently on our trip to France in April 2023. No connection to the story, just a fascinating place we’ve visited, especially considering that I am part Russian ethnically.
Q: What type of cancer did you survive?
A: I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Testicular Cancer. Little did I know, it’s the most common form of cancer in men ages 15-35, yet there's still very little public awareness about this type of cancer.
Q: At what age were you diagnosed with the cancer? How was it discovered?
A: I was diagnosed in 2011 at the age of 33. I had a strange pain in my right groinal area for a few months, but thought one of my children had run into me, or that I had pulled a muscle somehow. The pain never went away and kept getting worse and worse, until one night it became so bad that I couldn’t even sleep. I finally did a thorough testicular self-exam, and discovered a solid mass at the upper rear of my right testicle. My heart literally skipped a beat. I'll never forget that moment.
Q: How was the cancer treated?
A: My cancer was treated first with an orchiectomy (testicle removal), and then with a combination of four rounds of “EPx4” chemotherapy over 12 weeks total, followed by a highly invasive surgery called an RPLND. From diagnosis to being discharged from my final surgery, was 5 months in total.
Q: How did this season in your life impact you (your outlook, job/school, relationships, physically, etc.)?
A: Testicular cancer is an aggressive, but fortunately highly curable form of cancer. The flip side is that the treatments for it are also quite aggressive, and can really leave a mark on you. The chemotherapy made me feel like my body was getting ready to pack up and die, and there was a complication during my RPLND surgery in which I nearly did die, all of which fueled downstream mental health issues. I had recurring nightmares about all of this for years, and struggled with anxiety, depression, and PTSD, including a few suicidal episodes where it had all just become too much.
Everything changes after cancer. There’s never a good time to get cancer, but especially as a young adult and with young children at home, it can be especially traumatic. We have our whole lives in front of us and young children depending on us, when suddenly we feel as though we’re at death’s door. Cancer really puts into perspective just how fragile life is and what matters and what doesn’t, but is a terrible thing to have hanging over your head at such a young age. You truly have to evolve at all levels to beat cancer not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.
Q: Besides your faith, what other help did you receive? For example, did/do you see a therapist? Have you changed your exercise or eating habits? Did/are you taking medicine?
A: It's a long story, but I realized early on that my mental health challenges were more spiritual in nature and thus needed to be resolved spiritually, and that anxiety and/or antidepressant drugs just weren't the correct path for me. I sought out cancer therapists which I knew can be amazing after the fact, but a 4-6 week wait for an initial visit at a time when I needed urgent help wasn't going to work, either.
The cancer community and especially the close-knit young adult cancer communities online quickly became a huge source of support for me. No one fights alone, and there I found plenty of others in similarly distressed states. It was easy to find mentorship, guidance, and inspiration from those that were further along in their cancer survivorship journeys.
Writing and running became my main outlets, all inspired by other cancer survivors. Writing, initially in the form of private journaling, helped me start to unravel what I was feeling and why. This really took off once I made my writing public, as there were virtually zero young adult male cancer survivors writing about the challenges of cancer survivorship at the time, and it was a perspective that people really needed to hear. Many thousands of people across the world have benefited from my writing, which was cross-posted and shared at Livestrong, IHadCancer, StupidCancer, the Cancer Knowledge Network, CURE Magazine, The Mighty, and more.
Running was also fantastic, and not only helped rehabilitate my body physically, but helped me manage my PTSD and get it under initial control as well. There's something very primal and satisfying about running outside, not in a gym and not on a treadmill, with wind on your face and scenery passing you by, when you're in such a distressed state. It gave all of this free-wheeling inner anxiety a place to go, and it also helped get my post-cancer chronic pain issues under control as well. I'll never win any awards for my running like I have for writing, but running was a win-win for both mind and body.
Q: Why did you turn away from religion as an adult?
A: Without getting into the specific church or denomination, I'll just say that I was never able to form a solid connection to God at the church of my youth, and that there's no shortage of adults of all ages that have had similar experiences. The lead pastor at my current church once answered in a Q&A session of the type of church I attended as a youth, that any connection to God formed was more likely to be in spite of that type of church rather than because of it, which was quite unfortunate for myself and many others, and a huge missed opportunity.
As a young adult, I also had far too much faith in the world and man's abilities. I was never an atheist but rather agnostic, and just didn't think I needed God or religion in my life. The decades that have passed, the challenges I've faced, and what I’ve seen of the world have completely humbled me, and I now see just how naïve and foolish I had been in so many ways.
Q: What other life occurrences besides cancer helped bring you back to God?
A: When I finally sat down to meditate on this early one morning and came up with the answers, I closed my office door at home even though it was just me and the dogs that day, grabbed a large box of tissues, and wept the entire rest of the morning. It was a good exercise and cathartic in a way to release a bit of pain that had been kept locked away for so long, but also quite the trip down memory lane.
It was so many things over such a long time, but was ultimately the completely unchecked and unmasked evil running rampant through the world starting in 2020 that brought me back to God. The illusion finally broke for me as to the true nature of this world that we live in. The Lord gave me eyes to see, and I cannot unsee what I’ve been shown. There should be no question about who and what is really running this world, and it brought me straight back to Christ.
But complete spiritual demoralization had already occurred even prior to this. The 2010’s had been quite turbulent for my family and I, with a seemingly endless string of toxic and self-destructive people wreaking havoc in all areas of our lives prior to and still long after my cancer fight, often leaving only ourselves to clean up the messes and to deal with the consequences. It all became completely exhausting and intolerable to the point of becoming a bit of a recluse in the latter years of the decade, and then the events of 2020 and beyond started unfolding. I just wanted to be left alone, but that’s not how the world works, and I ultimately tired of feeling so alone in this world spiritually.
Whilst in prayer and a deep state of despair one day in 2021, I felt a warm breathe and whisper from God on my shoulder, and He led me to my current church where I’ve found the connection to God, hope, guidance, fellowship, and so much more that I’ve long needed.
Q: What state/region is your church located?
A: I attend Frederick Christian Fellowship (FCF) Church in Frederick, MD. It's a non-denominational Christ-centered, Bible-believing church. You can read more about the church itself here, and my personal story of returning to church after 25 years here. It’s a truly amazing church that transformed me the very first time I attended services. The lead pastor gave a nearly hour long sermon that day that explained nearly everything I had been in such a deep state of distress about above, as though the message was for me personally. My only explanation is that God wanted me in that church, on that day, and to hear that message for a reason. If I had a church anything like this during my younger years, I never would have turned away from God and the church.
Q: At what age were you baptized as an adult?
A: I was baptized for the second time in my life last year at 44 years old. I was originally baptized as an infant, but baptisms are meant to be an outer expression of an inner transformation towards God, and a conscious choice one makes. This isn't something you can develop as an infant, and so infant baptisms aren’t performed at my church. Second adult baptisms such as my own are actually quite common!
Photo by Pat Kauffman
Q: What type of changes have you made in your life since you regained your faith?
A: By the grace of God, I continue to be transformed by my faith for the better. I pray daily, keep reading and studying the Bible often, attend church groups and social functions when possible, and don't allow myself to keep worrying about too many things to list, including cancer. There's no question I've had that hasn't been answered in the Bible, and I've learned to put all of my faith and trust in the Lord and in His eternal plan. As my faith grows, the last of my mental health challenges fades away, instead replaced with great hope and confidence for our eternal future in Christ!
"Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." ‒ Isaiah 41:10
How Rekindling My Faith Cured My Mental Health Issues
I suffered needlessly for years from my mental health issues after cancer. Rekindling my Faith is what ultimately cured them.
[Note: My company asked for 400 word submissions for Mental Health Awareness Month in May for their internal website and blog, and so I wrote one.]
As a young adult cancer survivor, I’m no stranger to mental health issues. My cancer fight a decade ago was brutal and left numerous physical scars, but the mental ones went far deeper and took many years to overcome. All of the uncertainty after cancer fueled endless cycles of anxiety, depression, and even PTSD. Cancer had long left my body, but the mental fight within raged on silently for years.
Life was challenging but spares no one, and eventually other tragedies and resulting traumas found their way into my life, some of which almost made my cancer fight seem easy. Moreover, the sorry state of our depraved world can be completely demoralizing to anyone, with all of its evils and injustices, endless wars, and unrighteousness of all kinds. Through all that I’ve faced, I’d considered taking my own life on more than one occasion, thinking it might be easier. Starting to redevelop my faith is what finally put a stop to it.
Born and raised a Christian, I had turned away from religion for the entirety of my adult life. It was actually current and former [Company] employees who saw my struggles through the years, that planted the seeds within me that helped rekindle my faith in God. A current colleague gifted me a beautiful set of Bibles a few years ago which I read faithfully, and soon after started attending weekly services at the church a previous colleague had long ago invited me to. I was baptized for the second time in my life the year after, having commit myself to leaving the foolish ways of my old life behind, and putting all my faith and trust in the Lord. These small gestures changed my life.
Peace in my soul has replaced endless worrying, understanding has replaced so much confusion and angst, and hope and joy for God’s eternal Kingdom has replaced the utter dread and hopelessness I’d felt for our earthly world and existence.
“But first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
Never underestimate the power of faith to heal from mental health related matters. I discounted faith and religion for many years only to continue to suffer, but now offer myself as living proof of its truth and power. All that I had been seeking, I have found through my faith.
StevePake.com
Raya's First Grooming
We finally got Raya’s first grooming done at 17 weeks old, but don’t judge the results! It’s our fault.
We finally got Raya’s first grooming done at 17 weeks old, but don’t judge the results! It’s our fault. We’ve been so amazed at her perfectly straight low-maintenance coat that we hadn’t been brushing her, like at all. She really doesn’t need it. The problem of course is that when she needs to get groomed, she won’t be used to things in her hair or people handling her, so it didn’t go all that well.
The essentials were definitely taken care of at least! The poor baby couldn’t even see because her hair had grown completely over her eyes, so our groomer got her facial area cleaned up very nicely, took care of the privates and other essential areas and trimmed her nails, but couldn’t do much with the rest of her yet. The result is a nicely trimmed down face, but her hair across the rest of her is still quite long and now a bit bulgey looking. Her proportions are definitely “off” and not very princess like! LOL! No worries, her humans will correct their shortcomings and get the princess properly “brush trained,” so that she can get a more proper grooming next time. :)
She and Puffles continue to do great. They still love to play in our yard and chase each other for around an hour per day, 10-15 minutes at a time. Basically whenever they get back from a walk together, they have a little go in the yard. Raya’s Puppy Kindergarten class has been going well. She’s learning a lot of new skills and is getting much better at just chilling on her mat. We’re also working on her leashed walking skills, among other things. Recently she’s figured out that she can jump up onto couches, but she doesn’t yet know not to claw at them so that’s been an issue! I’ve had to put one of the fences out to block one of the more delicate couches, and we have to keep an eye on her. We’re also trying to teach the little princess proper manners! She has the cutest little diva princess groan if she’s not getting something that she wants, and will also bark! So we’re working on that too, and not rewarding bad behavior.
That’s all for now!
Raya's First Time At The Beach with Puffles
The only thing better than having a dog is having two dogs. And the only thing better than taking a dog to the beach is taking two dogs to the beach. :)
We love the occasional off-season beach trip. We typically can’t get to all of our favorite mid-Atlantic beaches that we’ve accumulated over the years in a single summer, so cue an off-season trip to the one we missed the previous season. Off-season beach trips are especially great for dogs, as the beaches are usually quite deserted and distraction free, and dog regulations far more lax if even enforced at all. And let’s be honest, we actually go to the beach more for our dogs at this point than our teenaged children. Our kids used to love Virginia Beach, VA and still do, but now are more like “muh WiFi need to login” whereas the dogs are like “YEEEEEEEEHAAAAW!!!!” In defense of our children, having now two dogs has increased their beach enthusiasm by quite a bit, because it’s pure joy seeing two dogs blast around a beach and having the time of their lives together. You can’t help but bask in their joy and enthusiasm, and be a part of that with them. I’ve said this many times, but dogs are a gift from God to teach us humans what pure love and joy is supposed to be like.
Believe it or not, this was the first time we had both Puffles and Raya in a car at the same time together, so what better way to test it out than a 4 hour road trip? I folded down the split right rear seat of the third row of my Suburban and let Raya’s crate peek through, so that she could stay crated or come out into the back seat if she wanted to. We actually kept her crated the whole way down and she was fine. On the way back up, we gave the dogs the whole rear seat and allowed her out of her crate, and they shared the space together very nicely and didn’t fight even once! We were impressed, to say the least. They’ll both be great road-trippers together.
But enough of the logistics. We kept saying “we’re going to da BEACH!” to Puffles and he knew exactly what we meant. He could smell it as soon as we got there, and pulled hard for us to take him there right away. Raya was like, beach? Huh? What? She learned fast!
Doggy beach photography with Canon EOS R6 and RF 70-200mm f/4L IS lens.
So yeah, could you tell they had fun? :) They were both dead tired after blasting around the beach each day and slept very well at night. Poor Raya could barely even move for a final potty break one night, and had to be carried out. The weather was in the mid-50’s for most of our time there, which is just about perfect for these dogs to be able to blast around without getting overheated, which is actually another great reason for an off-season beach trip for dogs.
MOAR Photos
Fun fact. I took nearly 1,500 photos over the weekend, but only put 27 in the blog. If this wasn’t enough and you really need MOAR photos, click the link below to see an extended cut with triple the number of photos. I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of these two. Enjoy! :)
See More Doggy Pages Below
Crazy or Not? A Month With Two Dogs, Puffles and Raya
So a month with now two dogs. How did it go? Are we nuts? A lot of people we’ve talked to have said we’re crazy for getting another dog, but just remember there’s a fine line between genius and crazy! :)
Well, January 2023 was an interesting month in the Pake household to say the least, bringing another puppy home with less than 48 hours notice on January 4th. In case you missed it, we had just decided to get another puppy on January 2nd after getting back from our winter vacation. We had been thinking a late-Spring puppy and had previously checked in with our breeder, only to find out they had a completely adorable and absolutely perfect 10-week old female puppy available that was going to be part of their breeding program, that urgently needed to be re-homed for some reason. We picked her up that Wednesday, and the rest is history.
INTRODUCING RAYA THE MINI GOLDENDOODLE (BOODLES/JAX 10/22/22)
So here’s all of the craziness from the month, starting with the bad.
Here’s What I’m NOT Going To Remember About Bringing Home Another Puppy
First things first, talking to your breeder late on a Monday about an available puppy, and agreeing to pick her up less than 48 hours later was absolutely nuts. I mean, if you have a deposit down or you’re expecting a human child, you have some time to plan measured in months. This was hardly even days but rather hours. Let’s just say that Tuesday was absolutely frantic, tearing through the house looking for all sorts of puppy related things, and then making a bee-line to the local pet store which was cleaned out from the holidays for the rest. Fortunately, I was able to find everything that I absolutely needed prior to pickup between our basement and the local pet store, and the couple of things that could wait arrived a few days later in the mail! If there’s anything that was crazy about all of this, that was it. Not sure I want to do that again, but Raya has been worth it! :)
I’m already forgetting about a month of sleep deprivation. Even though my son was mostly responsible for getting her out in the wee hours of the morning if she needed to go, my “dad hearing” still kicked in listening for my kids to be listening for the dog. I never slept past 4am for most of the month, and turned into a sleep deprived zombie. She typically needed to wake up and get out for a bathroom break just before 6am, and only a few times before that in the 2am timeframe. This is actually really good for a puppy, but I don’t remember much of the rest of January due to the sleep deprivation and overall really light sleeping with the “dad hearing” thing.
I’m also already forgetting Raya’s excessively bad nipping habit when we got her. All puppies nip, but it was really bad and might have been handled in a way by her previous family that made things worse. She was probably just too excited to finally be in a forever home, but we had to give her the tough love treatment of depriving her of attention whenever she nipped, which was a lot. I think it was more painful for us than for her because she’s just so cute, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do and it was 80% better in about a week, and after a full month with us her bite inhibition is now excellent.
I’m also already forgetting about her pea-sized bladder and needing to go out every 30 minutes to an hour in the middle of winter. This is why you might want to think twice about a “Christmas puppy,” but these fully professionally bred GANA blue ribbon Goldendoodles are wicked smart, and we think she might have been playing us for treats when she realized she could get a snack every time she had to go even the slightest bit! Crate training is teaching her to hold it, and as of this writing she can finally go down for bed at 9pm and make it past 7am until she needs to go! Woohoo!!!
Another quickly forgotten issue were her doggy diva meltdowns about being fenced off and always trying to bust down our pet fencing no matter how well reinforced, a few times successfully. The cutest thing she did after we put some fencing up just trying to keep her out of the kitchen, was this very aghast princessy look of horror at once again being fenced and not willing to stand for it, backing up a bit while closing her little eyes and mouth as tightly as she could, and then trying to ram through the fence again! It was so cute I couldn’t help but laugh, and then just picked her up and held her as we put the fence away.
So pet fencing doesn’t work for her. Puffes was okay with it when he was a puppy, but all dogs are different! We figured out she’s much happier and far more calm just being crated temporarily if she needs to be, or if someone can run interference and have her practice her recall and lie down commands for treats, so that she’s not hovering right next to our feet in the kitchen and in danger of getting stepped on. Fair enough!
Accidents in the house? Very few. Discounting the first few times she peed in the house, always on the mat next to the door to our garage because we suspect her previous keepers might have been training her to go on a pee mat, I can definitely count her accidents on two hands with fingers to spare.
One of the last accidents she had, my wife was “watching” her and jokingly called her ugly. Less than a minute later, princess Raya pooped on her exercise mat in protest, and that I will remember! Dog’s don’t necessarily know words, but they know tone of voice and expression, and I have no doubt this was a protest pooping right on my wife’s mat. The funny thing was my wife was on her exercise bike and clipped in, so she couldn’t just jump off in an instant to stop her! I wasn’t there, but it was hilarious!
What I AM Going To Remember About Bringing Home Another Puppy
She’s just so cute and so precious! I mean, who doesn’t love a puppy?
Everybody loves a puppy! Who doesn’t want to hold one? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a puppy that wasn’t cute, but Raya has a cuteness factor of 11 with her adorable little girly face, little mitten paws, white haired nose and chest, and white tail tip. You can’t hold her or even look at her and not feel incredibly uplifted and overwhelmed with love. I think puppies, and dogs in general, are God’s gift to humans to help show us what true unconditional love and dedication looks like. Imagine a world where everybody treats you with the same love, affection, and dedication that your dog does. I think we all need more of that! Stressed about the sorry state of the world that we live in? Feeling down, demoralized, or depressed? Get a puppy! (Pro tip: You also won’t have time to be depressed about anything while you’re busy caring for one!)
We had to give Raya a bath because she had gotten stinky from rolling around in the yard. It was a bit cool in the house and I noticed she was shivering, and the poor baby was seemingly panicked and didn’t know what to do with herself, or to go curl up in her doggy bed or blanket to warm up. Aww, poor baby! I was more than happy to grab her blanket for her and wrap her up in it, and then hold her tightly for 15 minutes until she warmed up. Best feeling ever.
Seeing my kids bond with another puppy has been heartwarming also. When we got Puffles, my daughter had been begging us for a dog for two years, but quickly realized she was in over her head. And then my son never really wanted a dog at the time because he was afraid of them, so Puffles became “our dog”. Does that at all sound familiar with kids and dogs?
Anyhow, they’re older now and know full well what’s involved, and giving them another chance to bond with a puppy that loves and adores them has been great. I think both of my children will have pets of their own as adults. They know now that they’re a lot of work, but also a source of endless love and affection. Our kids are getting old enough now to know that a lot of humans are just plain crazy. No human can love you like a dog will, and it’s such a special feeling to have such an affectionate breed of dog that bonds so closely with their humans. You’ll never be alone or lacking for love with a dog!
From Only Doggy Child To Big Brother
What’s happened with Puffles has been the most amazing thing of all. The first few days were definitely awkward. There were more than a few angry barks, chasing her into corners and a bit of rough-housing, but he never hurt her and we stayed out of it as suggested! Most if not all of the initial hostility was done after the second full day, and he and Raya started bonding thereafter. Puffles quickly turned into a great big brother and started doing half of our work for us. He’s been great at disciplining Raya and showing her the ropes, scolding her and keeping her out of things she shouldn’t be into, and burning off tons of her energy for us after they started playing together in our yard on the third day we had her.
Letting them meet for the first time in the neutral territory of our yard definitely helped. Walking them together, treating them together while they sat or lied down also helped. Play time in the yard also really helped. I think Puffles was taking out some aggression in the yard at first, but quickly realized how much fun he was having with his new companion, and now they love to run and play in the yard together after getting back from every walk. A few puppy ice cream socials definitely helped also, but most of all just time! I’ve never heard of two goldendoodles co-habiting and not getting along. Puffles still likes his space and some alone time, but they’re getting along just fine in our home now, and have the best times together in our yard and now on road-trips.
Are They Fighting or Playing?
I’ve never seen Puffles having more fun than he has with now with his new baby sister. They love chasing and wrestling each other in the yard for an hour or more per day 10-15 minutes at a time. Puffles didn’t even really know how to play with dogs before and never had much interest in other dogs, but he loves playing with Raya and has a blast.
I grew up with a dog, but not two dogs, so this has all been new for me too. It’s tough to tell if dogs are fighting or playing if you’re not familiar, but managed to find this really helpful blog and chart below. There was really only one or two mildly hostile moments by Puffles the first time or two they played which I had to step in to referee, but after that it’s all been good natured fun and exercise for both of them!
From Puffles to “Buffles”
Puffles has gotten so BUFF from all of the exercise and play time that he wasn’t getting before, that we’re calling him “BUFFLES” now. He’s seriously transformed into one big hunk of muscle, and has probably gained a few pounds in muscle mass and a fair amount of girth too. We’re not kidding about this at all. We’ve all noticed the difference when we have to pick him up and carry him somewhere! He’s like one of those gym bros that has to walk with a wider stance or with their arms sticking out a bit, because their muscles are so big!
Raya was so energetic when we brought her home and when they first started playing, that she seemed to be getting the better of Puffles, and was able to out-play and out-maneuver him, and was shockingly quick. She caught him off-guard, but he quickly developed and doesn’t get taken advantage of nearly as much. It’s been hilarious seeing her “buzz his tower” and pulling moves straight out of Top Gun when she “hits the brakes and he flies right by”. LOL
It’s been a shocking physical transformation for Puffles, and underneath all of that fluff, Raya is a solid bit of muscle too! All of the physical activity and play is so great for both of them.
Verdict?
We’re all exhausted, but totally in love with our new addition to the family. Two dogs are great and just a natural thing, especially two of the same breed that will be similar in size to each other. Absolutely no regrets here. Crazy? Not at all. Just seeing how much fun Puffles is having that he never would have been having without Raya is reason enough for me. He deserves a furry companion to go through life with, and now he has one.
There’s also something really special about caring for a breeder’s litter pick as a Guardian family. In case you missed this little tidbit also, Raya isn’t actually our dog, she’s our breeder’s dog that we’re caring for (although she’ll eventually be ours fully). So Raya isn’t just cream of the crop, but cream of the cream, and hopefully the future mommy of a dozen or more other adorable little puppies that will bring so much joy and happiness to so many other families. It’s not about not having to shell out $4000 for one of these fully professionally bred and genetically tested out the wazoo dogs, although that’s nice too. It’s about being a part of the journey as “Raya’s family,” seeing her become a mommy, and hopefully bringing so much more joy into the world.
And the only thing better than one super loving dog excited to come greet you when you come home with their tail wagging furiously, are TWO dogs greeting you and two sets of wagging tails. Best feeling ever! :)
Puffles and Raya are a great pair, and we all couldn’t be happier.
Keep up with the latest on Puffles and Raya at their dedicated Doggos page below.
Raya Unleashed
There’s nothing like letting a puppy off leash in an open field for the first time. But before you even think about doing that, you have to know that you can trust them.
There’s nothing like letting a puppy off leash in an open field for the first time. It’s exhilarating to them seeing all of the open space, and wanting to see how fast they can go! But before you even think about doing that, you have to know that you can trust them.
With dogs it’s all about trust, and at 14 weeks old Raya is quickly proving herself to be a very trustworthy dog. Given how promptly and reliably she responds to recall commands with or without treats, inside or out of the house in our fenced in yard, I decided to take her to the large fields at our local neighborhood park over the weekend to see how she’d do with Puffles and some high-value treats at the ready (sliced non-preserved ham).
We’re very blessed to have one of the few properties in our densely packed neighborhood with a fenced in yard that’s just big enough for smaller to mid-sized dogs to get up to speed and run in a bit, but it still doesn’t compare to an open field.
Canon EOS R6 and EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
Lots of photos below. This blog best viewed on a large screen.
February 5, 2023
Although the weather was nicer for the dead of winter and in the mid-50’s, luckily the fields and the park were still virtually empty and distraction free. Raya did not disappoint! Just like Puffles when he was a puppy, she never wanted to stray too far from us. She only got a bit too far away or close to the street once, and immediately recalled with a “come!” command with that high-value reward, and when we needed to re-leash her if other dogs were approaching.
Both she and Puffles had fun blasting around the fields, chasing each other and being chased, and for Raya, exploring more of her area. Puffles hasn’t had much interest in going to this park in recent years, but he’ll be more interested now with a new little adopted sister to chase around, especially as the weather starts warming up.
I can’t tell you what a joy it’s been seeing Puffles and Raya play so much together. They both love their play time and have so much fun together. Letting them loose in a much more wide open field was a sight to behold. They were both super tired after this and slept well that night!
Canon EOS R6 and Canon RF 70-200mm f/4L IS lens.
February 8, 2023
Got them out again. I thought the warm weather was just a single day thing. Nope! It will actually be in the 60’s for the next few days, so have been cutting out of work a tad early making sure to get both Raya and Puffles out to the park to play.
Today was even more of a challenge for Raya with TONS of people and other dogs out to distract, but she still did great and was always responsive to recall commands. They’re both really enjoying the weather, wide open spaces, and play time.
(Note: From the photos I did happen to spot the bit of something-or-other sticky bit of gunk that happened to get stuck in her teeth, and managed to remove it after a bit of wrestling.)
Introducing Raya the Mini Goldendoodle (Boodles/Jax 10/22/22)
We adopted an adorable mini Goldendoodle with less than 48 hours notice on January 4th, 2023. Come meet the new addition to our family!
Meet Raya! (“Ray of Sunshine”)
“Lavender Girl” from THE Boodles-Jax 10/22 LITTER finally landed AT her furever home WITH US IN MARYLAND oN JANUARY 4th, 2023.
Raya’s 6-week puppy portrait from River Falls Goldendoodles.
We adopted Raya (“Ray of Sunshine”), a 10 week old petite-mini Goldendoodle, on January 4th, 2023 with less than 48 hours notice. She was “lavender” girl” from the Boodles/Jax litter born 10/22/22 at River Falls Goldendoodles in South Carolina. We adopted her by way of Fox Creek Farm Goldendoodles, in Berkeley Springs, WV, where we got our 5 year old mini-Goldendoodle, Puffles, from.
Confused yet? Read on…
But first…
Wait! What? The Pake’s Got Another Dog???
Yes we did! Truth be told, I had always kinda wanted another dog, just because I know dogs are really better off if they have another canine buddy to go through life with, but had never really been pushing for it, and didn’t expect it to ever happen. As much as dogs love their humans and vice versa, their humans often aren’t around or are busy, and it gets really lonely for them once kids are out of the house, which will be in the blink of an eye for us with two teenagers.
The week before Christmas, I happened to show my wife a picture of an available puppy from Fox Creek Farm Goldendoodles, not really being serious and not expecting much of a reaction. From that point forward, the entire family wouldn’t stop talking about getting another puppy, with my wife having the biggest crocodile tears of them all. Everybody wanted another puppy for their own reasons, and we spent half of our winter break road trip to Orlando and back talking about another dog and arguing about names for another dog, that I myself hadn’t truly commit to getting yet, because you know who will ultimately be responsible for another dog! ME!!!
We rolled back into town from Orlando on Monday, January 2nd, weary from our travels, with all of us having reached agreement to get another puppy. I had already touched base with Fox Creek Farm the week before Christmas about future mini litters for the spring and was ready to put a deposit down, and that’s when I saw her.
Oh dear God in heaven, a little princess needed rescuing!
I emailed Kelsey because she was absolutely adorable and the perfect size for us, and in less than 48 hours we picked her up in West Virginia.
So… not exactly unplanned, but definitely spur of the moment with only a single full day to prepare for her arrival before we brought her home.
Cue some of that “ToXiC mAsCuLiNTy”, madly tearing through the basement looking for gates, fences, crates, dividers, ramps, and other puppy items, while cleaning up the house and rearranging some furniture (and cleaning my guns), and then making a bee-line to the local pet store, road raging around idiot drivers who just needed to get out of my way. I’M COMING FOR YOU, BABY PRINCESS!!!!
Raya’s Whirlwind First Few Weeks Out In The World
I didn’t know much about her prior to agreeing to come pick her up, where she came from or who her doggy parents were, or why she was 10 weeks old and not 8, but at this level of fully professional genetically tested blue ribbon GANA bred puppies typically costing $3500-4500, you need not worry about the dog! It wasn’t until the day before we picked her up that I learned that she had already been adopted by a family that just wasn’t going to work out for some reason, and that we were actually re-homing her. Oh no… the poor baby!!!
As it turned out, Raya was Fox Creek Farm’s litter pick from River Falls Goldendoodle’s Boodles-Jax 10/22/22 litter, to use as a potential dam (mommy) for future puppy litters to be bred. So she’s actually Fox Creek Farm’s dog and we’ve become her Guardian family, as is common practice for GANA breeders. So Raya had travelled by car from South Carolina with a puppy travel nanny up to West Virginia, was placed with an area family presumably around Christmas time that just didn’t work out, was returned to West Virginia and Fox Creek Farm, and then finally went home with us to her furever home in Maryland on January 4th.
The plan for Raya is for her to deliver 4 litters of puppies over the next 4-5 years for future Fox Creek Farm dog owners, after which time she’ll officially be “retired” and signed over to us with full ownership. While she’s FREE to us, we cover all normal dog expenses including vet visits, Fox Creek Farm will cover everything relating to pregnancies, we especially need to learn about and watch out for “girl dog stuff”, and we have to get her back to West Virginia two dozen or so times over the next few years. It’s above and beyond normal dog ownership, but Raya is a very special dog and we’re very much looking forward to it! The best part of the whole deal is that we get to play with all of her puppies when we come to pick her up after she delivers a litter! How cool is that!?!?
Raya is a “petite-mini” and is expected to top out at around 20 lbs like Boodles and Jax, so she’ll be a little bit smaller than Puffles. We think the name Raya was given to her by her originally adoptive family. We had numerous other ideas in mind for a name, but ended up liking the name so much that we decided to keep it for her, and to at least give her a little bit of continuity. It was going to be on her paperwork either way, so why not?
Raya is as cute as can be with her wavy brown abstract coat, with four super cute and adorable white mitten paws, and then white fur on her chest, above and below her nose and on her neck, a little bit on top of her head, and then a white tail tip. She’s completely adorable and clearly princess grade, so yes, the world absolutely needs more dogs like her, and hopefully she’ll be able to provide some! :)
Why Did Baby Raya Need To Be Re-Homed?
I honestly have no idea, and it’s actually confidential. The impression I got was that our breeder might might have had some reservations about the family she was being placed with, but hoped it would work out and didn’t. I have no reason to believe the family was anything but loving and well-intentioned. I suspect they might have been first time dog owners and just had no idea what they were getting themselves into, or maybe they just weren’t going to be able to meet the obligations of the Guardian program. I really don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m glad the decision was made to return her from whatever the less than ideal situation was, and that she’s found a great home with us now.
Adjusting to Another New Place
Raya was beyond happy to be with her new family, and played with us for 30-40 minutes at Fox Creek Farm before we departed for home. She was definitely on the anxious side being in yet another new place, and especially about being fenced into a contained area for the first time. The poor baby princess panicked, but it had to be done to keep her safe during the day while we all go to work and school.
I took some time sitting with her inside the fence, holding her and talking to her before putting her inside, giving her some treats rewarding her for being there, and then sitting on the couch working just outside of her fenced area for her to be comfortable. The same with crate training, and her new Snuggle Puppy has been working great for puppies suffering separation anxiety. Dogs have absolutely amazing internal clocks, so a few days of getting to know our routine, and that we’ll be back to let her out and give her all of the attention she needs, has really helped her to feel a lot more comfortable.
She was also quite an aggressive nipper when we got her, but a few days of solid family-wide puppy biting inhibition countermeasures, and I’d say the issue is 75-80% better, and probably no different than any other puppy around 10-12 weeks of age at this point. All puppies nip as it’s all they know to do, and it takes time for them to learn that human beings don’t like to be nipped and to reprogram themselves, so long as they’re getting the proper responses to nipping from their humans. Hint: screaming “no!” isn’t it, and is likely to actually make things worse, which is what I suspect might have been happening.
Puffles and Raya
Our biggest concern about getting another dog was how well Puffles would do with another dog in the house, when he’s always been very dog shy, and never really wanted much if anything to do with other dogs! Even at his puppy training class when he was Raya’s age, he never really wanted to socialize with the other dogs, and just hid under our chairs or between our legs, and the same at dog parks. I was reassured by Amy Lane at Fox Creek Farm that it would be a huge benefit for him, and I can already see that. Plus, never in my life had I ever heard of doodles living together not getting along!
The first few days were definitely awkward, but the suggestions on the Fox Creek Farm Owners Group were great, to let them first meet in neutral territory in our yard before bringing her inside, and then so long as nobody was getting hurt to just let them work it out! There was definitely some angry barking by Puffles and chasing her into corners the first two days, and he’s semi-tackled her a few times also without hurting her, but after that they were fine! By Day 3-4 they were playing with each other in our yard, and I’ll let some of the photos do the talking on that.
Walking them together has helped a lot, along with treating them together while they sit inside, going to play outside, and a puppy ice cream social might have helped too. They’re still not exactly buddy-buddy inside, but they’re getting used to having the other around.
Welcome Home, Raya!
Overall we’re completely exhausted at this point, but couldn’t be happier after having her for a week. I still can’t believe that I went from making an initial inquiry with our breeder about another mini goldendoodle the week before Christmas, to bringing this sweet little angel home with less than 48 hours notice, all within a 2 week period. We had only made the final decision to get another dog the day it was announced she was available, and in less than 48 hours we had her.
I sense the hand of God at work, and that we were meant to have her for a reason! This is going to be quite an amazing journey being her Guardian family, and we’re all very much looking forward to it.
Other Boodles/Jax Litter Dog Owners?
Per my understanding, Boodles and Jax were quite busy in 2022 and actually had two litters together that year! If you have another Boodles/Jax dog, I would love to hear from you.
Raya Gotcha Week Photo Albums
Click on the album link below, or enjoy the slide show further down.
Raya’s and Puffles’ Pages
At one point I had a doggy Instagram for Puffles, but I just didn’t have the time for it and deleted it. Social media platforms are becoming more de-centralized, and with so many people on one platform or another, or not on any at all, I’ve gone back to good old-fashioned web-central doggy photo sharing.
Check out these pages below!
How Returning To Church For the First Time in 25 Years Changed My Life
I was raised in the Catholic church, but quickly fell away from the church after leaving home for college in 1996, and have never attended church as an adult. Despite having been baptized and confirmed and doing all of the things a good young Catholic boy ought to have done (except becoming an altar boy, which I refused), I never established a firm connection with either God or the church during my childhood, but have still largely lived a very moral and Christian life. This is the story of my return to Faith, the Church, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I was raised in the Catholic church, but quickly fell away from the church after leaving home for college in 1996, and have never attended church as an adult. Despite having been baptized and confirmed and doing all of the things a good young Catholic boy ought to have done (except becoming an altar boy, which I refused), I never established a firm connection with either God or the church during my childhood, but have still largely lived a very moral and Christian life.
This is the story of my return to Faith, the Church, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Blackpilled
I think we all reach a point in our lives when all of our accumulated traumas, tragedies, disasters, failures, disappointments, betrayals, and back-stabbings all seemingly reach a critical mass that serves to completely demoralize and black pill us. Being in your 40’s is certainly more than enough time for that. I had someone threatening to kill my entire family, kids included, for the better part of a decade. My own body betrayed me in the worst possible way and tried to kill itself, when I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer eleven years ago at only 33 years old. There were times I wanted to do it myself in the midst of PTSD and other mental health issues that developed after my brutal fight against cancer, thinking it might just be easier that way. Terrible tragedies have struck elsewhere in our families that have been unfathomable. Numerous people that I had cared about and thought were friends attempted to sabotage me both personally and professionally. I even had years of non-profit work that was benefiting thousands of fellow cancer fighters and survivors nonsensically destroyed, all done out of the goodness of my heart, for no reason whatsoever other than spite or jealousy, or who knows what. The end result of going above and beyond for the people that my wife and I have loved and cared about in this world has always been the same – daggers in our backs and spit in our faces. The world has truly been a thankless place, and it’s all taken a terrible toll on us spiritually.
I had come of age and went through most all of my 20’s as a perpetual optimist and upbeat person. There hadn’t been a single depressive ‘bone’ in my body, but truthfully I’d been on the start of a slow spiritual slide to oblivion for years throughout most of my 30’s, long before covid ever happened and the world collectively went insane. Cancer rocked my world, but it became just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, or more accurately just one of many icebergs that found their way into our lives. The sum of all that my family and I have been through over the past 10-15 years has been completely exhausting mentally, physically, and spiritually, to the point that I exited 2019 in my early-40’s at a spiritual zero, completely deflated and demoralized, and just had nothing left to give the world anymore. I wanted nothing more than a relatively peaceful, quiet, and uneventful 2020 and entire next decade, and I need not elaborate to anyone reading this blog on anything that’s happened since then. What we’ve all been witness to thus far in the 2020’s has been absolutely astonishing, incomprehensible, and downright evil and demonic in so many ways, and on top of so much personal pain from the past. But all that’s been happening in the world hasn’t even been the worst.
Fighting cancer in 2011, not the first and not the last of many terrifying turns in our lives. Very recently, I worried this is what my life would become again, possibly without a positive outcome.
My final “black pilling” came in October of 2021 when I was having the most serious second cancer scare that I’d ever had in all of my years as a cancer survivor. Unlike so many previous recurrence or second cancer scares that are mostly just head games, this time there was a real physical mass that I felt that was incredibly disconcerting, and actually had to book a scan for the first time in many years to get it checked out. I wondered if this was it for me finally, as I was on hold for 3 weeks to get it checked out.
The sheer insanity of the rest of the world tends to fade away when you’re worried if you’ll even be around in another month or not. And that’s when those old demons found their way back into my head, and I once again wondered if it would be easier to just end it all myself.
The Warm Hand of God and the Whisper In My Ear
And so there I sat in my basement alone late one night in November of 2021 after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, just allowing myself some private time to grieve ever so slightly a tiny fraction of all of the pain I had been keeping locked inside for so long. Tears began falling for my country, for all that humanity has had to face, and for all of the previously unthinkable levels of evil and wickedness that we’ve been witness to, while wondering how it could even be so? Tears fell for my children, horrified as a parent of the world they’re soon going to inherit, and wondering what I had done to fail them? And more tears fell as a cancer survivor, once again fearing for my life as my upcoming scan loomed, terrified that I wouldn’t even be around any more to help guide them.
My worst fears as a cancer fighter and survivor have never really been about death or dying, but rather leaving my children alone in this world without their father to help guide them and protect them. Children need their fathers, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
I did something I had never done before, and cried aloud to Jesus to save me from all that had been tormenting me inside, and that’s when it happened. I was alone in my cold basement, but all of a sudden felt warmth on my right shoulder as if a hand was reaching down to touch me, and a whisper in my ear that said, “it will be okay.” I was completely startled by this, and in that instant every last bit of my anxiety left me, replaced with an incredible sense of peace and calm. It was surreal and entirely external. In years past of fighting anxiety attacks, depression, and PTSD episodes mostly from my cancer aftermath that could last hours or even days, not once did I ever have anything stop inner pain dead in its tracks like this. I’m not even going to pretend to know whether what I experienced in that moment was truly the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit reaching into my mind, or an angel. All I know is that I cried aloud to Jesus for help, and actually heard and felt an answer.
In that moment there was complete peace in my soul, because I knew I wasn’t alone. I’ll never forget this moment, and that’s when I knew I had to get back to church.
It All Started With The Bible
Truth be told, I had been feeling closer and more connected to God than I ever had in my life throughout 2021 thanks to a friend that had gifted me a beautiful set of Bibles to read, after we had been talking about all that had been going on in the world. My friend served as yet another strong witness to Christ for me. I admired his confidence in God and in his beliefs, and knew this was what I needed. I felt the desire to truly learn the word for the first time in my life with all of my heart and soul. Never has it been more clear to me that evil doesn’t just exist in the world, it rules it. If Satan exists, then God absolutely exists also, and I needed to learn and know His word.
I never considered myself an atheist, but rather agnostic throughout much of my adult life, but now felt called to God. The Bible set my friend gifted me were absolutely gorgeous and just served as further encouragement to read the word, and did. I soon purchased an entire stack of Bibles for multiple rooms in my house, one for my truck, one for my office, and even a John MacArthur study Bible, because you quickly learn that the Bible isn’t something you could ever come close to fully comprehending on your own, and especially not as a beginner and first time reader of the Bible.
My Bible collection grew rather quickly. This isn’t all of them.
I had been given a Bible to read in Catholic Sunday school as a child, but where do you even begin? I was probably barely 10, but just didn’t have the guidance needed to even know. Perhaps I wasn’t ready for it all back then, but I was now, after all that life had put my family and I through.
What I’ve read in the Bible has been astonishing. The books of John in the New Testament in particular blew my mind. Those and so many of the books of Paul and even many Old Testament books all felt like they could have been written about today despite being thousands of years old. The Bible is truly timeless. I’ve learned so much about the history of humanity, how God works, the cycles that humanity goes through, the true nature of the world that we live in, and so much more. I know what the resurrection of Christ truly means, and that the end has already been written. I don’t feel like a single minute spent reading the Bible has ever been wasted. Everything that I’ve ever worried about or struggled with has all been answered in the Bible, and so much more that I couldn’t possibly have thought of on my own. It’s truly the greatest story ever told, the greatest history book ever written, and a wealth of knowledge for all time. The Bible is our owner’s manual for life, a blessing from our creator Himself.
Going To Church For The First Time in 25 Years
Sunday, November 14th, 2021 was the day, my first time going to church in 25 years.
I had been invited by two different friends to FCF Church (Frederick Christian Fellowship) in Frederick, MD during dark times in years past, but had always politely declined. “Religion wasn’t what I needed,” and I didn’t think the church could possibly have anything to offer me. Despite it being a 35 minute drive away with many dozens of closer churches, I felt called to this church somehow. I knew nothing of what the church was, didn’t know who its Pastors were, what denomination it was, had barely even seen its website, hadn’t watched a single livestream, and didn’t know it had a YouTube channel either. FCF Church was a complete blank slate to me, but somehow I knew I had to be there, and that this was the day.
Spiritual Defibrillation
Services at FCF Church are held in a large auditorium in the main building that seats around a thousand. A full band led by Associate Pastor Pete Gillott opened the service with a song called “The Church Is Alive” by River Valley Worship, and it most certainly felt alive. I had never heard such amazing Christian worship music in my entire life, and had no clue that such music even existed, none whatsoever! It was amazing and I loved it, and the atmosphere felt electric. I had never felt so much positive and uplifting energy, and I could feel it flowing right through my soul, and had tears welling up in my eyes as the band played several more songs. It was just beautiful, and unlike anything I had ever seen, felt, and heard. Imagine being at rock bottom spiritually and feeling completely dejected, but in an instant being cranked up to 11. That’s what it felt like, literally a spiritual defibrillation and being brought back to life.
Pastor Pete himself will joke that he’s not much of a singer (could have fooled me!) but that he can sing to lead a congregation. His wife, Jess, however, is truly gifted with an absolutely astonishing voice. The FCF band often sings music from Elevation Worship, Bethel Music, Hillsong Worship, James River, Phil Wickham, and more. My jaw hits the floor at every service that I attend just from the musical talent alone from Pastor Pete, his wife Jess, and the entire FCF band. When you have that much talent and energy on display, it can jolt one awake spiritually in a way that more traditional and softly sung worship hymns never could.
Pastor Pete describes the FCF music as “authentic love that’s freely expressed,” but for myself it’s even better and far more powerful than that. I know different people need different things, and have different expectations about what a church is and should be, but I need that energy. Everything is very tasteful, and not overdone or ‘rock concerty’ at all.
FCF Church had me at hello and in tears just from the opening music alone, and we hadn’t even gotten to the sermon yet.
The Sermon That Changed My Life
I don’t know how to explain how it is that I went to church for the first time in 25 years in such a deep state of distress about life and the world and everything that we’ve been facing, and wondering how such evil and wickedness could possibly even be allowed to the point that I’d had suicidal thoughts, and have that be the exact topic of the sermon.
I don’t think it’s possible for me to overstate how powerful FCF’s founder and lead Pastor Randy Goldenberg’s sermon was for me that day. This was the second of Pastor Randy’s sermons on “Earthquake Shakings” titled “What Are God’s Methods,” in which he discusses life changing events that we might face, while pulling various parts of scripture together that reference earthquakes.
The sermon centered around the Old Testament story of the prophet Elijah fleeing from Jezebel, and running hundreds of miles into the wilderness in 1 Kings 18-19. I had actually just read this passage and thought it interesting, but couldn’t bring it to life to truly comprehend it like Pastor Randy was about to. In the passage, Elijah had just killed all 450 of the Baal worshippers after a fiery display from the Lord. Thinking that such a display would turn Jezebel back to the Lord, instead she was more emboldened than ever in worshipping Baal, and vowed to kill Elijah the very next day. Fearing for his life, Elijah fled hundreds of miles into the wilderness.
The two key verses of the sermon were the following.
1 Kings 19:4
[4] But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” (ESV)1 Kings 19:11–12
[11] And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. [12] And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. (ESV)
What 1 Kings 19:4 illustrates is that even the prophet Elijah, with all of the power and influence that he was given, became so discouraged and depressed that he ran hundreds of miles in fear and wished for his life to end. Pastor Randy was very delicate in approaching the topic of someone being suicidal, and was aware that there could be someone in the congregation that had recently been in such a state. As it turns out that caution was well justified, as someone approached Randy after the first service which I attended, who apparently shared something private with Randy to that effect. Randy alluded to this in the second service, but there were more that day. I too had been in that state once again, even if just briefly.
The core point of the sermon was that God is not about massive displays of power. Many Christians and non-Christians alike all wonder why if God is all knowing and powerful, then how could He possibly allow such evil and wickedness in our world and just put a stop to it? As Randy explained, God knows that the human heart cannot be penetrated through fear, force, and bribery. God is trying to get Elijah to understand what God’s methods are to pull him out of this suicidal depression. God is about reaching into human hearts that can be reached, and not about forcing people to conform.
God was not in the wind that was so powerful that it was ripping mountains apart. He was not in the earthquake that was tearing the earth. Nor was he in the fire. He was the whisper in Elijah’s ear, teaching Elijah and all of us that God is often in the background working quietly, even when it’s not understood.
As Randy continued, he explained that this is an evil time that we live in, which started in heaven in eternity past, when Lucifer descended out of heaven and took a third of the angels in heaven with him. Evil was present in the garden of Eden when Eve was deceived. It was present when Jesus was nailed to a cross and killed. Paul served the Lord faithfully for 32 years, and was imprisoned, beaten, tortured, even shipwrecked, and eventually beheaded. Pastor Randy asked, is that not evil? And evil is just as present today, as it has always been, that so many of us see and are distressed by.
Randy explained repeatedly that evil is being allowed for a little while, until it’s abolished forever when Jesus returns in Revelation, and the new heaven and new earth are created free of evil. His methodology is not to intervene now and stop evil.
Acts 17:31
[31] because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (ESV)
There’s a fixed day in which the Lord will return and judge this world. As Randy continued, when that day comes, evil will be destroyed for a thousand years in Revelation 20. Evil will then be allowed again briefly, before being destroyed forever in the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21 and 22. As Randy put it, God is building skyscrapers and not sand castles, and that takes a little longer. God is building his eternal family, and wants those that will seek Him and stay close to Him, so close that He can whisper to us.
“Godpilled” And Reborn
FCF Church founder and lead Pastor, Randy Goldenberg
As Pastor Randy concluded and went to prayer, I was awestruck at how everything made complete sense, and in that moment I felt the peace in my soul that I had longed to feel for so long in the midst of this fallen world that we’ve found ourselves in.
I highly encourage you to listen to the full sermon linked above, as my brief summation here cannot possibly replace the full extent of Randy’s incredible hour long message.
Randy stated in the second service of the day that he felt like something was happening that day, and that he’d felt it in both services. Perhaps I was a part of that energy, and that it was God’s “whisper” to me that brought me into church that day for the first time. God clearly meant for me to hear this sermon, by this Pastor, in this church, and on that day, because it completely transformed me. The whole experience from start to finish spoke directly to what was in my soul. There’s no other possible explanation to me than the hand of God at work. Surely I was reborn on that day, and exited church for the first time in 25 years a changed man and a born again believer in Christ.
I didn’t think that Jesus was the answer or that His word had anything to offer me, when everything that I’ve ever wondered about or struggled with is explained in the Bible and His word. I didn’t think the church had anything to offer me, when in fact its offered me the connection to God and His followers that are my brothers and family that I’ve always needed, but have been without for all of my adult life. I didn’t think it was possible for a Pastor to interpret the word and pull so many parts of scripture together and bring them to life in such a relatable way, and completely relevant to the times, to help us all pull through this evil age of spiritual warfare that we’ve found ourselves in. Pastor Randy has had me in tears multiple times through his sermons in the short time that I’ve been attending FCF Church now, as though he knew every bit of my pain and so much of what I’d been feeling personally, while also teaching us how to patiently endure and overcome it all, while still living a Godly life.
The short and monotonous 15 minutes sermons in the Catholic church that I attended as a child never worked for me. Pastor Randy’s sermons are almost always over 50 minutes, and many are unforgettable with the way he brings so much Godly wisdom to life from the word, and the knack he has for approaching and talking about extremely difficult topics. Pastor Randy is truly blessed by God to bring the word alive into our hearts and souls like he can, and I always feel like I could keep listening all day.
I had never even heard of Pastor Randy before that day, but the man has my number. I didn’t think that was possible for anybody, let alone a priest that I hadn’t known previously. His sermon that day was exactly what I needed to hear, and exactly when I needed to hear it. It rescued me from something awful, and surely I was transformed and reborn on that day.
It’s Never Too Late To Find God and the Church
Photo Credit: Pete Gillott / Kaché Woods, FCF Church at the FCF Men’s Breakfast, Saturday February 26th. You can find me center left kneeling in the front row.
Whether you’re a current or former “lost sheep” Christian like myself or even a non-Christian, it’s never too late to find God and to return to the church after many years, or even for the first time. Never for a moment should you doubt how big and profound a difference the right church, the right congregation, the right Pastor, and complete trust and faith in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ can make in your life. I’m living proof of that right now as a changed man, and now in the midst of the greatest of transformation in my lifetime.
If you’re feeling lost or hopeless in this fallen world as I had been, I could not encourage you more strongly to seek God and the church. Yes, there are unfortunately bad and woke “churches of the world” out there that you’ll want to avoid, that have been subverted and don’t actually preach the word of God. I can assure you, FCF Church is absolutely not such a church. We’re blessed that Pastor Randy has the courage to speak the hard Biblical truths, and to speak out forcefully against the contentious issues of our time. You might have to church shop a bit, or possibly even drive out of your area as I do. Ask around and ask friends that you trust, but don’t give up hope. It’s worth the effort to find a good church not just to receive the word and the spiritual backing and empowerment that we all need in this demonic world that we live in, but to find and build fellowship with other like minded and God fearing Christians.
If you don’t even know where to begin, by all means tune into FCF Church’s livestreams to get started which have very high production quality, or attend if you’re in the area. But half the purpose of the church is to build Christian fellowship, and so I highly encourage you to find an excellent local church.
If you’re within an hour of Frederick, MD (it’s worth it), click the button below to get in touch.
I felt absolutely hopeless in finding a good church living where I do, in the next county south and a bit too close to the swamp. I’ve felt so alienated for years in my area, like a sojourner living in a strange land, but as it turns out I didn’t have to look for a church at all. God led me straight to where I needed to be at FCF Church, and I feel very blessed and fortunate to have found exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it, and the hand of God that I felt working quietly throughout, exactly like the whispering described in Randy’s sermon.
Correcting My Biggest Mistake In Life
Pastor Randy shared this verse in the closing of his sermon that day, which also spoke volumes to me.
Isaiah 48:17–18
[17] Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. [18] Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; (ESV)
God knows what’s best for all of us. He is the light and the way and has a plan for all, and that couldn’t be more clear to me now. I deeply regret ever leaving the church, and having been away for 25 years. It was a terrible mistake, and now one of my few regrets in life. There’s so much I’ve missed, and so many things in life that would have been so much easier to bear had I never left, or sought Jesus and the church so much sooner.
But it’s never too late to put your faith in Christ. This was the day I put my full faith in Christ, and that He won my trust. The more I learn to lean on God and the word, the more my worries of the world dissipate, just as had been shown to me so many times in the past. All of my anxiety and depression has been fading because now I know the end of this story, and that He has already won.
It’s my hope that hearing my testimony might help others find their own faith and trust in Christ as well, and the inner peace it will bring.
You can be saved too.
And after all that, my cancer scan turned out fine, just like I was told it would be. What I’d felt was a lymphocele that had formed, which is actually very easily explained given my complicated medical history, and not a cause for concern. Praise God!
The full livestream from the November 14th 2nd service at FCF Church. I attended the first, but Pastor Randy had some interesting additional comments in this one.
Special Thanks
I wanted to take a moment to thank all of my friends that led me back to Christ.
To Gab.com Founder and CEO, Andrew Torba for your bold and unapologetically Christian leadership, which planted the seed when I joined the Gab platform back in 2018. Weak men create hard times. Torba is tip of the spear among the new generation of strong Christian men that will help lead us back to good times. And can you name another tech CEO that reposts and offers words of encouragement to people like myself going back to church for the first time? Thank you.
To my friend Neil Sederburg, for our campsite fireside chats throughout 2021, for being such a strong witness to Christ for me, and for the beautiful set of Bibles he gifted me which further inspired me to read the word. I could not have asked for a better friend or a more beautiful gift in such a dark time. I will never forget this gesture and will cherish these gifts forever.
To my friend Steve Barr, fellow engineer and photographer friend, for our friendship and the church invites over the years, and for always thinking of me.
To my friend Claudia Ritchey, someone who recognized who and what I was and what I needed long before I did, and that I would have trusted my life to. If only I had listened and found FCF Church nearly 10 years earlier when you had invited me, so many things I had been facing in life would have been so much easier. God has a plan for everyone!
To Pastor Pete Gillott, for being so approachable and taking the time to speak with me about my return to church after so long, about FCF, and for your prayer that God might work through me on this project to help other lost souls and lost Christians such as myself find their way back to church and the Lord. It’s not possible for Pastors to know everyone in their churches, especially larger congregations like FCF, but I appreciate you getting to know me and making the effort. Mission Complete, but also just the beginning!
Lastly, to everyone who makes FCF Church happen, from founder and lead Pastor Randy Goldenberg, Pastor Kim Kesecker, Pastor Pete all of whose sermons are excellent. To Matt Hull who leads the men’s message group that I’ve been attending, and to so many others that run many other church groups, down to every volunteer, staff, the production team, and especially the FCF band, thank you. God is truly in this house, and I’ve felt so welcomed and loved here. It‘s a great blessing to finally be a part of a church, and to have a church family for the first time in my life. This is what I’ve always needed.
My Decade Long Journey as a Testicular Cancer Survivor
I originally wrote this blog for my friend, Justin Birkbichler’s, ABallsySenseofTumor website back in March 2020 as one of his Band of Ballers feature. I had intended to cross-post it here at my own website after a month or so, but with COVID-19 in full swing and a whole lot of disruption in ours and everyone else’s lives, I just burned out and never got around to it. It’s been a year since I’ve done anything on my website, so here it finally is with a few little tweaks and updates to get it up to date! I hope you enjoy this as the first of my 10 years after cancer series of blogs.
Note: I originally wrote this blog for my friend, Justin Birkbichler’s, ABallsySenseofTumor website back in March 2020 as one of his Band of Ballers feature. You can see it below.
I had intended to cross-post it here at my own website after a month or so, but with COVID-19 going full swing and a whole lot of disruption in ours and everyone else’s lives, I just burned out and never got around to it. It’s been a year since I’ve done anything on my website, so here it finally is with a few little updates and tweaks to get it up to date! I hope you enjoy this as the first of my 10 years after cancer series of blogs.
This year I’m 10 years out from my testicular cancer fight. Back when I was 33, I had some pain in “Righty” for a few months, but I just assumed that one of my toddlers at the time (who are now 12 and 14!) had run into me. Yet the pain kept getting worse and worse. A few more superficial checks, including by my wife who is a doctor, didn’t find anything.
Finally, in the middle of the night before Valentine’s Day in 2011 (of all the days), the pain was so bad that I couldn’t even sleep anymore. It was then that I finally copped a total and complete “what the hell is going on here feel” that I finally found it – a solid mass in the upper rear of my right testicle, exactly where it would have been missed via the superficial checks I had done before.
I Didn’t Open Up Right Away, Though
However, I wasn’t compelled to start sharing my full story publicly until 3 years after my diagnosis, and long after treatments and surgeries had ended. I had a CaringBridge site, posted updates on the TC-Cancer.com Forum, and friends and family knew what I was going through on social media as well. But that was all just the mechanics of fighting the cancer itself. Going through chemotherapy and highly invasive surgeries were things that people could understand, but the true “battle” didn’t begin until long after all of this. Fighting cancer is the “easy” part.
I remember being in my oncologist’s office for a follow-up visit in 2012, the year after my cancer fight, and was reading an article in an oncology magazine about how a lot of cancer survivors can experience depression and other mental health issues. I thought of how fortunate I was to be doing so well and that I hadn’t experienced any of that, but the truth was, I still hadn’t even realized what had hit me yet.
I think that especially when you’re a father, and when you have two young children at home that you had only just brought into this world, that it adds another dimension to the cancer fight and to survivorship and what’s at stake.
Fighting For More Than Yourself
As a young adult cancer fighter with a family, you’re not just fighting for yourself and your own future, but for your family’s and your children’s future as well. Going into cancer treatments, I cast all of my fears and emotions aside without realizing that’s what I was doing, and became a warrior hell bent on eradicating every last cancer cell in my body no matter what it took, because my family and my children needed me.
After the shock of my diagnosis wore off, I hardly blinked through 4 rounds of chemotherapy and the RPLND surgery, and always thought it was strange that I wasn’t the least bit afraid of that surgery at all. I was actually terrified inside, but just didn’t realize it until long after everything was over.
My Long and Slow Slide To Rock Bottom
My first year after cancer, I was still actually in a warrior mindset not fighting against cancer, but rather with a body that was battered and heavily listing from multiple secondary health issues as a result of treatments. I also had to endure terrible neuropathy pain and chronic fatigue that had developed from the chemotherapy, and struggled just to have enough energy to make it through a day. It wasn’t easy, but all things considered I thought I was doing well and just happy to be alive, until I came off the rails.
Around two years after my testicular cancer diagnosis was when friends I had made in the cancer community started to leave this world. This is cancer. Not everybody is going to make it, and I watched in complete horror as several friends passed, and then seeing their families torn apart with grief.
I had a terrible recurrence scare myself right as this was happening, and thought for sure that my cancer had returned and that I was next.
The Proverbial Dam Within Me Bursts
I had unknowingly been holding so much inside of me that started pouring out. I was suddenly terrified of the brutal chemotherapy that I had already been through and of having to go through that again, and was terrified of the RPLND surgery that I’d already had 18 months prior and of having to go through that again as well. I was terrified of my future and of not having one, of seeing my family ripped apart by cancer as it was doing to my friends, and I just lost control and completely came off the tracks like I never had before in my life.
Every day in January of 2013, nearly two full years after my cancer diagnosis, I was in tears for hours and just overwhelmed with every bit of pain, fear, and grief that had been locked inside of me for so long and that I had never processed. I couldn’t sleep and had terrible nightmares often. PTSD was ravaging my mind, and every dark moment from my treatments and surgeries replayed inside of my head like the trailer for some horror flick that I didn’t know how to stop watching. Mentally, it felt like I was trapped inside of a burning house, with no windows and no escape.
What I was feeling inside was so bad that I became suicidal as a means to an end, but my wife saved me. She got inside of my head to fight along with me in the way that only a soulmate could, and beat away these mental demons that had been ravaging me. It was from this point forward in the first months of 2013, two years after my cancer diagnosis, that I began my long crawl back up from absolute rock bottom as a young adult cancer survivor.
The Mission Of My Writing
Most people in the testicular cancer community came to know me from all of the blogs and longer form essays that I’ve written about the challenges of life after testicular cancer and as a young adult cancer survivor. There were almost no young adult male cancer bloggers out there that I could find that were open about any of the mental health issues I had faced such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and yes, even suicidal thoughts. And so I became one of the first young adult male cancer survivors to write about these topics.
My writing started out in those dark days of early 2013 as private journaling, just trying to find my way again. A cancer mentor had been writing for a cancer association, so I figured I would give it a try as a form of therapy, and it just stuck and the words kept on flowing.
By 2014, I was finally able to start approaching cancer survivorship from a position of strength, and published my first public cancer essay on Facebook to a viral response in April of 2014, after being encouraged by a friend to do so.
My Commitment to Writing Expands
Steve and Dr. Einhorn, another Band of Ballers alum
Over the next few years I would publish dozens of blogs about testicular cancer and young adult cancer survivorship as I took people in the community along with me on my healing journey and advocacy mission.
Per the encouragement of many friends who told me my writing applied to far more than just the small testicular cancer corner of the Internet and social media, I expanded my reach to even larger organizations such as the huge community of IHadCancer.com and others, and also established my own website at StevePake.com as a repository for all of my writing, which was awarded as IHadCancer’s Top Cancer Blog of 2016.
I can’t even begin to tell you what it feels like to have an article really hit home, and see it reach over a thousand shares on social media with literally hundreds if not thousands of comments about how much something I had written helped others. Across all of the platforms my writing has been published on, I’ve managed to reach hundreds of thousands if not millions of people across the world. My writing has also saved lives, as it has helped to pull people out of the same suicidal downward spirals of despair that I had found myself in. That’s a very powerful life experience to have, and one that I’ll be forever proud of.
About Mental Health And What You Can Do
The best thing you can do, especially a male cancer survivor, is to just be open about what you feel, and to never be ashamed of anything. Just because we’re men and have different anatomy between our legs than women doesn’t mean that we don’t have the same human feelings. As someone that’s written to an audience of hundreds of thousands, believe me when I say that gender, race, class, caste, whether we’re red, blue, or purple, or any other so-called differences we can think up, all matters not. We all feel the same “human” things after cancer, and have the same fears and worries.
I spent several weeks last year (in 2020) trying to help an extremely poor and disadvantaged young black man from one of the poorest countries in Africa find help for what was most likely testicular cancer. Based on the demographics of the country he was from, he was probably Muslim as well, and could not have been more different from me. You know what? He had the same exact fears, worries, and concerns as any of the thousands of other people that I’d interacted with over the years. We’re far more alike as human beings than most could possibly imagine, once you strip all of these social constructs away and just look at the core of our humanity. We’re all so much the same inside.
Men and Cancer
What men feel after cancer is no different from anybody else, but typically just don’t know how to handle them, or are ashamed of what they feel. Everybody else holds all of their pain inside as well, and so we feel alone as a result and like we’re the only ones suffering, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Men are just socially conditioned to hold it all inside, to “man up” and “be strong” and to never show any fear or pain. But that’s just not really how it works, and the male suicide rate is 4 times that of women. Men going through especially tough times in their lives, whether cancer or not, are far more prone to suicide. I would know, I’ve talked to more than a few men over the years that have contemplated, but never any women who have been suicidal when I have more female readers!
Don’t let yourselves get to this point. Just be open about what you feel, and never be ashamed. We’re all human, after all.
A Decade of Cancer Survivorship Experience In One Section
Steve and Justin Birckbichler, and his majestic beard of 2019. (You’ll note we are not on a tropical vacation here!)
After a full decade as a testicular cancer survivor, life has largely moved on for me, and has also made a lot of other big asks and demands of my family and I. Testicular cancer is just a tiny speck in the rear view mirror for me at this point, but there’s much I’ve yet to write about it. I’ll share with you here my top tips after nearly a decade of cancer survivorship.
Allow yourself to grieve
Yes, we need to grieve as young adult cancer survivors, the loss of our lives as we once knew them, and of all the expectations that we might have had for ourselves. Acknowledge and respect what you feel inside without apology or beating yourself up for it, as processing and releasing all of the pain we can experience after having cancer in our lives is what helps us to move on from it.
Pay It Forward
Next, we’re all going to have a ton of nervous and anxious energy as cancer survivors. Do something productive with that energy. Run a marathon for the first time in your life. Write your hearts out and share it with the world. Volunteer at a non-profit organization and make a difference for others, or start a new cancer mission or non-profit organization yourself. Play an active role in support groups. Be a mentor. Create a first of its kind event for the community and invite the entire planet. There’s nothing worse than being consumed by anxiety while you’re stuck in Park. Keep those wheels moving and get after things.
As men, it’s important to build something meaningful and to have a legacy to leave behind, when we feel like we might already be at the end. Live your best life, go amazing places, do amazing things, meet amazing people, and have a great time. Life after cancer is no time to be sitting still and letting life pass you by because you’re worried about what might not ever happen.
Never Stop Believing in Yourself
No matter how much pain you’re in, and no matter how far you fall, never stop believing that you’ll crawl your way back up and emerge better and stronger than ever. This is what drives us to keep getting back up, to try new things, and to open doors we might not have otherwise, that will ultimately allow us to thrive after cancer rather than to just survive it. You have to believe in yourself and should never stop, but we’re only human, and there’s going to be times when we’re going to fall short of that. None of us can do all of this alone, and that’s why it’s so important to find the right support and the right people who will continue to fight for you, believe in you, and stand by your side in times of weakness.
No one fights alone. Now get after it!
StevePake.com
10 Mental Health Tips for the COVID-19 Pandemic
Nine years ago this month, I had just finished 4 brutal rounds of chemotherapy fighting testicular cancer, and was on deck for a highly invasive surgery the next month in June. You might be surprised to learn that this was all the “easy” part of my cancer fight. What was hard was overcoming all of the mental health issues that many cancer survivors experience in the aftermath, such as anxiety, depression, and even PTSD symptoms. Learning to overcome all of this at a younger age has perhaps left me better prepared for other challenges in life, including the COVID-19 pandemic, so here are some mental health pointers for Mental Health Awareness Month.
Nine years ago this month, I had just finished 4 brutal rounds of chemotherapy fighting testicular cancer, and was on deck for a highly invasive surgery the next month in June. You might be surprised to learn that this was all the “easy” part of my cancer fight. What was hard was overcoming all of the mental health issues that many cancer survivors experience in the aftermath, such as anxiety, depression, and even PTSD symptoms. Learning to overcome all of this at a younger age has perhaps left me better prepared for other challenges in life, including the COVID-19 pandemic, so here are some mental health pointers for Mental Health Awareness Month.
The first step in overcoming a painful situation is acceptance. Just like my cancer diagnosis so long ago, there’s no sense in asking how or why it was all happening. “These things can happen” is as good of an answer as one is ever going to get. Years ago it was cancer. This year it’s a global pandemic. Okay then…
Next, accept whatever it is that you’re feeling inside. “It’s okay to not be okay.” This is a painful situation for many, especially for those that may have lost someone. Be your own best friend and advocate, and allow whatever it is that you’re feeling to process, without beating yourself up for it. Never be ashamed of what you feel. We’re all human and feel so many of the same things inside.
Just turn off the news, or if you must, stick with your local news once per day as a maximum. Local news tends to be more grounded and relevant for situations like these, far less sensationalized, and thus better for one’s mental health and managing your local situation.
Be present in your lives. Don’t allow yourself to be haunted by what happened yesterday, nor worry about what might not ever happen tomorrow. Focus on the here and now, and do your best to make today as productive and enjoyable as you can. Deal with tomorrow when it comes.
Do something that will put a smile on your face every day. This is a year to truly appreciate the little things and small moments in life. We might not be able to go everywhere, nor do everything we want this year, but it doesn’t mean we can’t find other ways to enjoy our lives, and often they’re right under our noses. This won’t just uplift yourself, but others around you as well.
Get some fresh air and exercise at least once per day. Go for a walk, a run, or a bike ride, and keep your body moving. Fresh air, the wind on your face, and a change of scenery will all work wonders not just physically, but mentally as well.
Keeping busy with healthy and productive hobbies and outlets are important. Especially during my earlier years after cancer, an idle mind was an extremely dangerous thing in that it allowed all of the anxieties and worries to creep back in. I continue to enjoy my photography hobby, long bike rides with my kids, more time with my family, my backyard fire pit, doing a little writing, and a road trip here and there when we can manage one. I don’t give myself time to worry, and no amount of worrying about cancer ever truly helped my situation. Worrying just made me miserable in the present, and it’s no different for COVID-19.
Socially distance yourselves from toxic people as well. There are some people, especially on social media, who just can’t help but go on and on about how awful everything is. Our attitudes and beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies in many ways, and so these negative thoughts are often reflections of what’s inside of these individuals. Choose to believe positive things, and surround yourselves with more positive people, and distance yourselves from those that are less than that. You deserve better.
Take some time off when you need it. It’s not a good thing that we’ve all been stressed out and worried, while also working ourselves into the ground in remote or home “office” setups that are often far less than ideal, and unable to take the vacations that many of us had planned. Take some time off anyway. We all need mental breaks and some down time to avoid mental burnout, and you can do that no matter where you are physically.
Breathe. There are all sorts of numbers out there, but the bottom line is this. While the coronavirus is definitely much worse than the common flu, the vast majority of people are not going to get it, and the vast majority of those who do are going to be fine in the end, especially if you’re aged 60 or under and have no chronic underlying health conditions. Be smart, follow the latest guidelines, live a healthy lifestyle, and believe and have faith that things will all work out in the end.
Best,
Steve Pake
THE U.S. COULD BE MISSING 25,000 CANCER DIAGNOSIS PER WEEK DUE TO COVID19
Based on an estimate out of the UK that cancer diagnosis are down by 75% due to coronavirus lockdowns, the U.S. could easily be missing 25,000 cancer diagnosis per week. At the same time, evidence from antibody testing has emerged showing that the coronavirus is at least an order of magnitude more prevalent than believed, which also brings the estimated fatality rates down as well. Are lockdown policies really correct? How many otherwise healthy people are being saved from COVID19 lockdowns, only to lose other lives elsewhere from cancers that aren’t detected or are detected too late, along with other health screenings that are being missed. Robust public policy debate is needed, but isn’t happening.
THE U.S. COULD BE MISSING 25,000 CANCER DIAGNOSIS PER WEEK DUE TO COVID19
But apparently most people are too obsessed with whether Trump said to inject Clorox or not to even notice or care about this massive elephant in the room.
I’ve had multiple people reach out to me over the past few weeks with worrying symptoms that they might have testicular cancer, but have been unable to find doctors to see them with everything being locked down from the COVID19 pandemic. These have mainly been from outside of the U.S., but combined with a report out of the UK that cancer diagnosis have dropped 75% in the midst of the pandemic when we know cancer doesn’t stop happening because of this, this is a very big problem.
Granted, much of this has to do with people just being afraid to go see their doctors and skipping cancer screenings out of fear, and perhaps a bit less because of availability of doctors to check them, but I’m hearing a lot of different things and this is worrying nonetheless. I have a lot of readers reach out to me from far away places, where finding a good doctor that can successfully treat cancers such as testicular can be a challenge even in ordinary times, and these are far from ordinary times.
Delayed Cancer Diagnosis is a problem
From an article in the Daily Mail:
2,700 cancers MISSED every week: Coronavirus crisis causes urgent GP hospital referrals to plummet as patients are reluctant to visit their doctor
“Cancer Research UK said the numbers being referred by doctors for urgent hospital appointments or checks had dropped by 75 per cent since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
Sarah Woolnough, from the charity, said about 2,300 cancers were being missed every week as a result, and many patients' operable cancers would become inoperable if they remained undetected.
Separate figures estimate that another 400 cancers a week are being missed because screening for breast, cervical and bowel cancer has been suspended.”
2,700 missed cancer diagnosis per week is a lot, and that’s just the UK. What about the rest of Europe? What about the U.S.? What about the rest of the world? Cancer doesn’t care whether someone is too afraid to go see their doctors because of the pandemic, or if they can’t find doctors that are able to see them and screen them appropriately with the needed tests or scans.
Via another story in the The Sunday Times, Richard Sullivan, professor of cancer and global health at King’s College London, says: “Deaths due to the disruption of cancer services likely to outweigh deaths from the coronavirus itself over the next five years.” He added that, “The cessation and delay of cancer care will cause considerable avoidable suffering. Cancer screening services have stopped, which means we will miss our chance to catch many cancers when they are treatable and curable, such as cervical, bowel and breast.” (See a bit more here.)
The same applies to testicular cancer. Although no official screenings are recommended, a point of contention with both testicular cancer advocates and experts, it’s crucially important to get prompt medical attention when testicular cancer is suspected, because of the fact that it’s a fast and aggressive type of cancer.
People will die not just from COVID19, but because they’re missing cancer diagnosis
Per the National Cancer Institute, there are 1.7 million cancers diagnosed every year in the U.S., and around 600,000 people will die from cancer annually. If we assume for the sake of argument that a similar 75% drop in appointments for cancer diagnostics aren’t happening here as well, that’s around 25,000 cancers that could be missed per week here in the U.S. I don’t see why conditions would be drastically different here versus the UK, and I know for a fact that it’s happening from what I’m seeing in my Inbox.
Around 25,000 cancers could be missed per week in the U.S. due to skipped screenings or delayed diagnosis, because of either patient fears and COVID19 lockdowns, or inability to timely access medical care.
Missed or delayed cancer diagnosis are going to cause excess cancer deaths. At the same time, evidence has been emerging that suggests that the coronavirus is not nearly as deadly as had been thought. What are we truly achieving with these lockdowns, and will we just end up with more deaths elsewhere? I don’t know the answers, but I’m asking the questions, and pointing out that secondary costs considerations such as these need to be factored into public policy.
What’s Really Happening on the Ground in the U.S.
Nobody is really reporting on this so it’s tough to know, so I’ve done some of my own investigating.
Surgeon friends of mine tell me, and it’s been widely reported that elective surgeries are all on hold. In some cases, tumors that are discovered in patients may have been present for years, and so can be perfectly safe to monitor for another few months as the COVID situation stabilizes. Dr. Phil Pierorazio, a testicular cancer expert at Johns Hopkins University, said that: “Most ‘diagnoses’ are coded with pathology from an orchiectomy [referring to testicular cancer.] If surgery is being postponed (safely), you will see a lag in the # of diagnoses... may not be a bad or dangerous thing at all.”
So it’s likely there will be a surge in new cancer diagnosis that have simply been backlogged in the coming months but had been monitored, and this doesn’t necessarily mean outcomes will be any different. Cases that are deemed safe to monitor or postpone surgeries for will be punted down the road a few months, but nobody presenting with a testicular cancer or other aggressive tumor is going to be denied surgery for several months, as a cancer that’s known to be very fast growing and aggressive is allowed to spread.
The trouble is, getting people to their doctors in the first place! What is actually coming into oncology practices? I asked my former oncologist, Dr. Paul Thambi at Maryland Oncology Hematology, who treated me 9 years ago in 2011 for his feedback.
“In terms of new cancer patients, there has been a decline although this is from my observations, [but] have not seen our monthly numbers yet. My experience is closer to 50%, but this is just a guess.
Elective procedures are on hold (ie colonoscopies, screening mammograms, pap smears, etc.), so this is not surprising. Urgent procedures such as colonoscopies done for patients with bleeding, are being done.
Your concerns about delays in diagnoses causing increased mortality is well founded.” (emphasis mine)
Whatever the drop is in new cancers being treated, there is certainly a drop happening in the U.S. because of COVID19 lockdowns.
The last time I saw Dr Thambi in 2016, and I hope to keep it that way!
As for the approximately 50% drop in new patient referrals for a local group oncology practice, Montgomery County, Maryland where this practice is located is a very affluent area. It has a high concentration of households with at least one Federal government employee, or employees of large government contractors and associated businesses, and so is generally more sheltered from economic downturns. If there’s a 50% drop in new cancer patient referrals at a major group oncology and hematology practice here, I think it’s probably a safe assumption to make that the drop could be far worse in many other areas of the country where there’s been far more severe economic devastation and job loss, and that the 75% drop reported in the UK could easily apply across much of the U.S. as well.
While we’d like to think that the cancer surgeries and treatments that are deemed safe to delay are being delayed, and that the ones that need immediate attention are being taken care of, the truth is that when screenings aren’t happening, new cancers aren’t being found, and this is going to cause delays in diagnosis, and possibly outcomes.
The lives of either undiagnosed or untreated cancer patient lives are on the line here.
Is this Virus Really As Deadly As They Say?
Months into this crisis, we still don’t know what we don’t know about this novel coronavirus, but it’s not hard to find reports of antibody testing showing that the true number of infections versus the number of reported cases are easily orders of magnitude higher than what’s been understood. Most people know when they get the common flu because they have symptoms, but many people are getting SARS-CoV-2 without ever realizing they’d had it!
In Santa Clara County, CA, the true infection rate from antibody tests suggests that the number of cases has been underreported by a factor of 50 to 85, which drops the corresponding mortality rate to 0.12 to 0.20%.
In New York City, it’s estimated that 25% of the city currently already has antibodies for the coronavirus. In a city of 8.55 million, that means 2.1 million already have antibodies, but with only 160,000 cases reported that represents an 11-fold increase in true number of infections. This drops the mortality rate from 7.4% down to just 0.5% in a city with an extremely high population density.
Nobody is going to argue that the novel coronavirus clearly isn’t something above and beyond the common flu, which has a mortality rate of around 0.1%, but the true mortality rates and hospitalization rates of the novel coronavirus are nowhere close to what models had predicted. This is incurring a real and potentially deadly cost against other people that have life-threatening health conditions, while the world is forced to stop to deal only with COVID-19.
The Hill: The Data Is In — Stop The Panic and End The Total Isolation
Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.
Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped “nonessential” procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed. Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability.
But WE Still Don’t KNow What We Don’t KNow Yet Part “Eleventy Seventy-Three”
I’m NOT arguing that what’s been done to date hasn’t been necessary but is it still necessary, and for how much longer? I’m well aware that silent morbidities are a concern, as are concerns about just how immune people testing positive for antibodies are. Still, these questions need to be asked, and public policies, re-evaluated, challenged, or even protested if warranted, as it’s our right to do, because people don’t stop getting cancer or developing other health problems just because COVID19 is here.
Thanks to Big Tech and social media, that debate is not happening to the extent it should, when anything that questions the status quo is deemed “harmful disinformation” and removed! Although the coronavirus is most certainly being politicized, the right to speak out about policies that people feel are wrong is not a left versus right issue. Tucker Carlson’s segment on this very issue is worth watching for all.
The message is very clear that Big Tech companies like Facebook and YouTube (Google) are NOT our friends. Obey or else, while other people’s lives are on the line from not being able to get cancer and other health screenings done, while the authoritative sources they say cannot be questioned have been wrong plenty of times throughout this. This is totally unacceptable, and just one of many reasons why I’m abandoning platforms such as Facebook for the free and open-source Gab, which actually respects our 1st Amendment rights and our values here in America.
Nobody gets to tell Americans what they can and can’t protest period. Full stop. I don’t necessarily agree with what exactly is being protested in some cases, but these lockdowns are creating huge secondary issues, massive economic loss, and will start to cause excess cancer deaths. We have a right to question and protest our government at all levels. It is our 1st Amendment right, and this is non-negotiable in American life.
Excess cancer deaths due to covid19 are going to be a thing — Please Do Not Skip Your Cancer and Other Health Screenings
While it’s difficult if not impossible to predict what the numbers will be, some of the estimated 25,000 missed cancer diagnosis per week in the U.S. are going to translate into excess cancer deaths, rather than cancer survivors. For many others, it could be far more intensive treatments in order to be cured, with additional post-cancer morbidities (side-effects, dysfunction, etc.) that might have been avoided otherwise.
Please follow through with cancer and other health screenings as soon as possible, especially if you’re in a range for elevated risk. Don’t just blow them off or skip them, which is what I think many people are going to do this year. Nobody ever wants to believe that they’re going to get cancer, but that’s not how it works. Nobody ever thinks they’re going to get cancer until it happens to them. How do you know you’re not going to be one of them? Please don’t skip your screenings.
If you have signs or symptoms of cancer, or strange things going on with your bodies such as lumps, bumps, or other strange symptoms or pain, please do not let this go or brush it off as nothing. Please follow through, be your own advocate, and keep making calls if necessary in order to get yourselves checked.
Skipping screenings and delaying getting checked when there are signs and symptoms of cancer can all lead to a poorer outcomes. Early detection is important not just for survival, but for maintaining quality of life after cancer by minimizing the amount of treatments needed. As a survivor of a Stage II cancer who had signs and symptoms for at least two months prior to being diagnosed, I could have spared my body significant exposure to extremely toxic treatments and post-cancer morbidities had I been able to detect my cancer a month or two prior when it might have still been at Stage I.
Skipped screenings or delayed diagnosis could cost you your life, or your quality of life down the road. We all might have to delay a bit, but please do make sure you get those cancer and health screenings done. I know we’re going to start hearing about terminal cancer cases where if only cancers had been detected a few months earlier. Please don’t be one of them, and do everything that you can to avoid this.
StevePake.com
Information about Coronavirus COVID-19 for Testicular Cancer Patients and Survivors
Community guidance and thoughts about SAR-CoV-2 / COVID19 from a number of testicular cancer experts and health care professionals, and how it could impact testicular cancer fighters and survivors, and a little advice for everybody else as well from someone that’s been there before. In many ways, so much of what I experienced as a cancer fighter and survivor has been coming back in the face of this global pandemic.
Important Disclaimer: I’m a 9 year survivor of Testicular Cancer, and a long-time advocate for this disease and young adult cancers as a whole. This is my personal website and blog, where my area of focus has been mainly on the handling of all of the mental health challenges in life after having a young adult cancer. While I’m very knowledgable about different treatment options for testicular cancer, I am neither a doctor nor an oncologist, nor am I a medical professional or scientist. In the process of writing this blog, I have reached out to many friends of mine who are, and have incorporated much of their feedback into this blog in the hopes of providing some guidance and reassurance to the testicular cancer community in the midst of this global health emergency.
Please discuss any concerns you have relating to treatments or follow-up care with your doctors. If you feel that there’s anything that should be added to this blog, or that’s inaccurate, has become outdated, or should be corrected, please CONTACT ME.
REVISION HISTORY
March 13th, 2020: Soft-published draft for invite-only review.
March 29th, 2020: Completely re-written and fully live. PM: Numerous minor edits for clarity, typo corrections, and other minor clarifications and enhancements.
March 30th, 2020: Added feedback from Dr. Phil Pierorazio from Johns Hopkins on considerations for the RPLND surgery in the midst of COVID19, and significantly re-wrote the RPLND section. PM: Added section for those going through second-line therapies for VIP or TIP protocol. Restructured the bottom half of the blog for mental health and coping strategies, and broke out the analysis section. Miscellaneous clean-up and formatting.
March 31, 2020: Numerous minor edits and clarifications, fixed a few typos. PM: Added links to interesting articles and blogs about COVID19.
April 15-16, 2020: Added considerations for Stage IB and IIA non-seminoma patients, updated the RPLND section, and added a summary of best options for newly diagnosed patients at each stage. Some typo corrections and other minor updates.
April 23, 2020: The Experts Have No Idea How Many COVID-19 Cases There Are. I’ve needed a break from writing or thinking about this this week, but I’ve added this to the article list at the bottom. There are widespread reports based on multiple studies that COVID-19 is far more widespread than anyone has thought. A Santa Clara County antibody test has shown that number of cases is being understated by at least a factor of 50, and possibly more. This also means that SARS-CoV-2 is far more transmissive than it is deadly. This should be good news for most, but makes it that much harder to protect those at risk.
I’ve now been writing and completely re-writing this blog as time has allowed for the past two weeks, and finally just need to hit publish. Despite how much I’d wanted to write some super informative guide about the Coronavirus — aka SARS-CoV-2 / COVID19 — that’s been steadily making its way across the planet for the past several months now and how this might affect testicular cancer patients and survivors, the truth is that this is a “novel” (new) virus, and we just don’t know so much about it.
We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know About Coronavirus
Painfully, this is the truth at this point in time. We don’t know what we don’t know about the novel coronavirus, and even what we think we know can easily be questioned. For every piece of seemingly authoritative information out there, nothing can truly be certain, and there’s often contradictory evidence at various levels that’s a long way from being resolved. The authoritative information out there are all educated guesses “based on what we know”, very much of which is subject to change as more is learned.
The CDC initially said that N95 masks were recommended, but then reversed course saying they weren’t, and are now widely rumored to soon be reversing course yet again and will be back to recommending masks. The initial data out of China looked promising and like they were ultimately able to contain this, but there’s also a growing consensus that China has completely fabricated their data and number of deaths at this point as well, throwing all of this data into doubt. We don’t know what’s really happened in China, and foreign reporters have been expelled. Seeing hospitals fill up with COVID19 patients has been alarming, but it’s also being said that for every positive COVID19 tested patient, there are possibly several times more who have it, but are either completely asymptomatic or who only have mild symptoms. Many of these people never require treatment, and thus are never tested, and therefore aren’t counted. This is actually good news in various ways, as it could mean that the true hospitalization rates and lethality are all much lower, but we unfortunately won’t know the truth about COVID19 until long after the dust has mostly settled, and formal peer-reviewed medical and scientific papers are all published.
Just these few points in a sea of them help to illustrate all of the uncertainty around the coronavirus. We don’t really know what we know, and we don’t know what we don’t know, either. We’re all just along for the ride at this point.
Do Not Underestimate The Coronavirus
One thing we do know is the reality on the ground. Don’t chance it. You do not want to get this virus and should do everything you can to avoid becoming infected. Work from home if you can, maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet from others, avoid large groups, wash your hands frequently for at least 20 seconds, and avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth directly. Stay home and self-isolate if you’re sick, and clean touch surfaces in your home daily, and wear a mask if you’re sick or caring for someone who is.
This is a virus that has been making a lot of people very sick very quickly, and it’s also been overwhelming health care systems around the world that simply don’t have the capacity to handle everyone that might require treatment to get through it. Although people 65 and older, or those who have one or more underlying chronic health conditions including extreme obesity (BMI>40), are the most at risk based on what we think we know, much younger and healthy people can require hospitalization or even die from this virus.
Everybody is potentially at risk, and everybody needs to pay attention and maintain best practices to avoid becoming infected. ”The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus”, which is straight from the CDC.
This Isn’t a Bunch of MEdia Hype
I don’t blame people for being confused based on media reports, or not knowing what to believe about all of this, especially when our media here in the U.S. has done nothing but “cry Russia” for the past three years. How could you not be at least a bit cynical? I’ve long pointed out the dangers of a totally dishonest media, and that eventually something serious that we all really need to tune into will come along, and people won’t believe them. And now here we are. This is truly no joke. This is not yet another partisan attack on our President, and we all need to heed the warnings and start paying attention fast, or else many more people will die.
Although this coronavirus does seem to have a 98-99% recovery rate, per the U.S. Surgeon General looking at the data from around the world, it’s the nearly 20% hospitalization rate associated with this virus (based on number of positive test results) that is the real cause for concern. There aren’t enough hospital beds and ICU equipment in the world to treat everybody that might get sick from this all in a short period of time with how quickly COVID-19 is spreading. This virus can’t be contained. This is why we all need to pull together and self-isolate and socially distance ourselves to slow this virus down as much as possible, so that our limited medical resources have the ability to treat all those that might need treatment to get through this. That’s what will keep the total number of global deaths from this virus hopefully still in the thousands.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has stated that he’s hoping that deaths from coronavirus in the U.S. won’t exceed 100,000 to 200,000, with several million cases, and that’s with the extreme measures being taken. For reference, a really bad flu season can claim as many as 80,000 lives under normal circumstances. If we don’t all pull together, we’ll be looking at millions of lives lost in the U.S. alone.
We all need to do this, right now, and keep doing it for the foreseeable future.
Considerations for Testicular Cancer Patients in the midst of the COVID19 Pandemic
Summary of Best Options at Each Stage During COVID19
Updated 4/15/2020: This blog started out as relaying information from Dr. Einhorn about potential risk factors Testicular Cancer survivors might have with COVID19 if they’d been exposed to Bleomycin, but has obviously become much more than that. Before we get into things below, here’s a quick summary of the recommendations for newly diagnosed testicular cancer patients at each stage in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic.
For Non-Seminoma
Just do surveillance at Stage IA and IB if you can, or BEPx1 for Stage IB if you absolutely feel you must. For Stage IIA, they’re favoring either BEPx3, or continued surveillance if teratoma is suspected. They’re not really doing primary RPLND’s as of March/April 2020. Otherwise, BEPx3 over EPx4 when chemotherapy is needed, and BEPx4 over VIP/TIP for advanced stage cases.
Stage IA (without risk factors): Just do surveillance
Stage IB (with risk factors): Just do surveillance, or BEPx1 if you feel you must.
Stage IS: Defaults to BEPx3.
Stage IIA: Either BEPx3, or continued surveillance if highly suspect for teratoma. Probably no RPLND.
Stage IIB: BEPx3 over EPx4, as one less week of suppressed immune system.
Stage IIC: BEPx3 over EPx4, ditto
Stage IIIA: BEPx3 for Good Risk Stage IIIa
Stage IIIB/C: BEPx4 over TIP/VIP, as BEP can be done out-patient vs. in-patient for the other protocols, and thus is safer with less risk to in-patient COVID19 exposure.
For Pure Seminoma
I have not consulted with a radiation oncologist, but radiation therapy (RT) has generally fallen out of favor for pure seminoma testicular cancer patients because of elevated risks of secondary cancers. For pure semionma, just do surveillance for Stage I, or BEPx3 primary chemo if needed over EPx4 for Stage II, as it avoids an extra week of immunosuppression, same as for non-seminoma.
Stage IA/B: Just do surveillance.
Stage IS: Repeat CT scans and bloodwork
Stage IIA: BEPx3 over EPx4 (one less week of immunosuppression)
Stage IIB: BEPx3 over EPx4, ditto
Stage IIC/III Good Risk: BEPx3, ditto
Stage IIC/III Intermediate Risk: BEPx4
More details and discussion in each section below.
Bleomycin and BEPx3 vs EPx4 For Good Risk Disease
While the common flu often attacks the nervous system, the novel coronavirus is a viral pneumonia that mainly attacks the lungs. Many in the testicular cancer community have been wondering if this virus might be of any additional concern for testicular cancer patients and survivors who have had exposure to the Bleomycin drug as part of their treatments? I’ve also been asking if patients receiving BEPx3 should perhaps consider EPx4 for good risk disease, or other chemotherapy protocols that avoid this drug.
I asked, and Dr. Lawrence Einhorn had the following to offer via email:
“Testis cancer patients postchemo are normal immunologically and have same risk as age matched cases. Virtually all patients getting bleo, especially just BEP X 3 , will have no pulmonary issues. I would be more concerned with a 4 th course of EP and an extra week of low white blood counts.” - Dr E
It’s comforting to know that Dr. Einhorn, the father of the cure for testicular cancer, didn’t have any real concerns about those that have had Bleomycin and that we “perform with our age groups” with respect to respiratory borne illnesses like these. However, caution is still urged.
Dr. Mark Ball is an Assistant Research Physician and Staff Clinician in the Urologic Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute at NIH, with whom I had discussed this prior to hearing from Dr. Einhorn. He specializes in the surgical treatment of all urologic malignancies and performs open, laparoscopic and robotic surgery and offered these comments:
"For full disclosure, my practice focus is on kidney cancer, but I would tell patients with Bleomycin exposure to treat themselves as being in a high-risk group out of an abundance of precaution — just like patients with lung disease, smoking exposure, etc. There are so many unknowns with this virus, but given the decreased functional reserve of many Bleomycin patients, I would definitely err of the side of caution." Dr. Mark W. Ball. M.D., Assistant Research Physician, Urological Oncology, NIH
Dr Ball was reassured by Dr Einhorn as well, but I think think that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure this case, and that we all should be extra cautious. We don’t know what we don’t know about the novel coronavirus.
Options For Stage IB NSGCT Patients
UPDATE 4/15/2020: Over the past several days, I’ve discussed options for several Stage IB non-seminoma patients. Honestly, your best bet is probably going to be SURVEILLANCE right now, in most cases.
A primary RPLND is not a good idea at this point when the hospitals are "hot". This is technically an "optional" surgery for Stage IB, and many doctors probably won't do them as they’re not worth the risk.
Adjuvant BEPx1 chemotherapy definitely is on the table, but you still have to be in an oncology infusion room for a few hours per day for a week with other people in there, plus Bleomycin on weeks 2-3, and then your immune system will crash for a week. They're going to take every precaution, but nothing can be guaranteed, so probably not the best, either. It’s up to the patient, but why risk it?
50-70% odds of already being cured just from the orchiectomy alone depending on pathology sounds pretty good. Go on surveillance and hopefully all will be fine. If not and you end up needing treatment down the road, most of this should have blown over, and then either a primary RPLND or primary BEPx3 will presumably be a much safer option than it is right now...........
These are crazy times. A lot of people justifiably have anxiety and just want to "do something" in these cases, but there are risks to all of that when you can just do surveillance, and may already be completely cured.
For Stage IA NSGCT, just do surveillance.
For Stage IIA NSGCT
Update 4/16/2020: In theory, the primary RPLND is a good option at this stage, but not right now. Either BEPx3, or continued surveillance especially if the retroperitoneal mass is small and teratoma is suspected, are your best bets.
Dr. Phil Pierorazio is an Associate Professor of Urology and Oncology in the Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and also a world renowned testicular cancer expert and a huge friend to our community. Dr. Pierorazio is one of a rare breed of doctors that handles both the chemotherapy and surgical (RPLND) ends up testicular cancer treatments, and had the following advice to offer:
“For IIA NSGCT, depending on the story we would favor either chemo or continued surveillance. If a small RP mass and high suspicion of teratoma, totally safe to watch for months. Even if viable germ cell tumor, probably ok to wait several weeks without any adverse outcome. Right now primary RPLND very hard to justify. I expect those restrictions to loosen in the upcoming weeks, definitely by July.” - Dr. Pierorazio, April 16, 2020
BEPx4 vs VIP or TIP x4 for Intermediate and Poor Risk Patients
Another question is if intermediate or poor risk patients should perhaps opt for VIP or TIP protocol treatments rather than BEPx4, and the best advice at this point is to stay the course with BEPx4. The main reason is because the VIP and TIP protocol treatments have higher toxicities and have to be done in-patient as a result, when hospitals could become hot beds for COVID19 as cancer patient immune systems are crashing. This is not a good situation to be in. Thus, with Dr. Einhorn not having any significant concerns about Bleomycin exposure, the advice at this point is to stay the course with BEPx4, as it’s a very standard treatment that can be administered out-patient, which presumably should be safer than having to be in-patient at hospitals that could become hot spots for the coronavirus.
VIP/TIP Second-Line Treatment for recurrences
This is for those that have already been through primary chemotherapy treatments such as BEPx3/x4, or EPx4, but have had recurrences and are now on second-line therapies such as VIP or TIP. Because of the higher toxicities of these protocols, VIP and TIP both need to be done on an in-patient basis, as opposed to out-patient for the primary protocols. Yes, this is definitely a less than ideal situation to be in needing in-patient chemotherapy in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic
Healthcare providers are aware of the fact that those in treatment for cancer are going to have crashing immune systems, and be extremely vulnerable to inadvertent infection by COVID19. This is something that would have to be managed at the local or regional level, possibly with support from the Federal government and FEMA, with area hospitals funneling surge COVID19 cases to one particular hospital or temporary surge facilities.
In New York City, they’re setting up the Javits Convention Center as one such COVID19 field hospital, and the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort has been pulled into NYC from Norfolk to handle non-COVID19 needs. The same is true for its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, which has pulled into Los Angeles on a similar mission. Here in Maryland, they’re using the Baltimore Convention Center as another COVID19 field hospital. Arrangements will vary by state.
You need to be your own advocate here, as a lot of people’s minds are in a lot of different places. If you need to be in-patient for second-line chemotherapy treatments, ask your healthcare providers what arrangements are being made to protect you from COVID19. Ideally, you should never be in the same general facility where others are being treated for COVID19, but in a separate facility.
If you’re in the know with how this is being managed in your area, please contact me and I’ll be happy to add this information here, even as just an example to help guide patients for what to look for.
Bleomycin Concerns on receiving oxygen
Mike Craycraft from the Testicular Cancer Society had the following additional thoughts:
“I have been receiving a bunch of inquiries as patients are afraid they are at higher risk for mortality simply because they have received bleomycin and that they “can’t receive oxygen.” I’ve simply been trying to reassure them that the concerns of high FiO2 leading to late bleomycin toxicity is a bit of an older school of thought that is not well elucidated and that if they need oxygen that they should expect that they will be treated. I’ve been advising that it is obviously best to avoid infection but that most guys receiving bleomycin have recovery of their pulmonary function after BEP but if they have pulmonary fibrosis or even are on meds to manage their airway disease then even more precautions to avoid infection seems reasonable.”
Thanks Mike!
Don’t Forget ABOUT THE RPLND Option
Updated 4/16/2020: This section is partially obsolete at this point, but I’m leaving it up as local situations and restrictions are likely to vary. While the RPLND might be on the table for some, they really don’t want testicular cancer patients in hospitals for primary RPLND’s at this point. Situations are changing rapidly here.
For Stage I patients with risk factors, and Stage IIA/IIB patients facing chemotherapy, it might be worth considering having a primary RPLND surgery instead primary chemotherapy, or adjuvant chemotherapy for Stage I disease. What many tend to not realize about testicular cancer is that it can be cured very successfully with surgery in many cases as well, or reduce the amount of chemotherapy that’s needed. Having your immune system down for a week at a time through each round of chemotherapy is already a hazard as it is, but is orders of magnitude more dangerous in the midst of this global pandemic.
If you’re in the right stage range where the RPLND is an option for primary treatment, this is something to consider and discuss with your doctor. Avoiding chemotherapy and the immune system being down takes away some risk, but this also typically means a hospital stay of at least several days, which could elevate your risk of becoming unintentionally exposed if the hospital itself becomes a hot spot for the coronavirus. All of this should be discussed with your doctor, who will best be able to assess risk based on local conditions.
Also via Dr. Pierorazio:
“I think the better advice is to stay out of the hospital... period. So for Stage I disease, surveillance for the next couple of months until things are figured out. If there is an imperative indication for surgery (Stage II primary RPLND or post chemo), most of us can find OR time; but I am delaying most surgeries that can be delayed. As you know from your chemo experience, people going through chemo are isolated and quarantined anyway, so chemo is just as safe now as it was... in my opinion.” Dr. Pierorazio, March 29, 2020
I think this is great advice and valuable perspective, but that there’s a lot to consider here, such as living arrangements and if any family members, or apartment or flatmates have been exposed or could be exposed, and how “quarantined” you can reasonably expect to keep yourself for weeks at a time while going through chemotherapy. There’s a huge difference between someone living in a single family home or townhome that can pretty much completely quarantine themselves from all others for a week or two if needed, and from someone that might be sharing an apartment with others, some of whom might need to keep coming and going depending on their job roles, especially if they’re healthcare professionals or staff and working in hospitals!
I think whether primary chemotherapy or a primary RPLND would be “safer” at this point in time depends on a lot of factors such as these, and that all of this should be weighed very carefully on a case-by-case basis, and in close consultation with your doctors.
For pure seminoma patients. While the RPLND surgery has long been an option for many non-seminoma testicular cancer patients, it’s now an “off the books” option for pure seminoma patients as well. A clinical trial that’s now closed looked at the RPLND surgery for pure seminoma patients, and I’m told on authority that the initial data looked very good and promising. Although not part of the official 2020 NCCN Guidelines for Testicular Cancer yet, I’m told that many surgeons are now offering this surgery for pure seminoma patients at the high volume centers (Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Indiana University, etc.)
Don’t Delay Treating Testicular Cancer
I know there’s never a good time to get cancer, but….
My heart goes out to everybody having to deal with any sort of cancer in the midst of this global pandemic. Please support these people and their caregivers in any way that you can. I’m sorry to say that metastatic testicular cancer doesn’t wait around for anything or anybody, including coronavirus, and that you should try to avoid having treatments delayed if at all possible. I have seen doctors asking colleagues on Twitter (not specifically for testicular cancer) what their thoughts are on delaying treatments for some of their cancer patients in the face of coronavirus outbreaks. I wouldn’t advise trying to delay treatments. Testicular cancer is one of those cancers that can progress very rapidly, and thus needs prompt attention and treatment.
If you happen to drag your feet on making a treatment decision, just remember that treatments generally need to be started (or not if surveillance is an option) within 4-6 weeks of your last CT scans. If you fall outside of that window, either you’re on surveillance by default, or need to get another set of scans done to re-stage your cancer if you decide to move forward with treatments. What can happen is that a Stage I cancer that had already recurred beneath the radar can progress to a Stage II by the time you reach that 4-6 week window, and thus a Stage I treatment would now be underpowered for what’s now a Stage II cancer. So be careful here. Testicular cancer experts are all well aware of this, but many are not, and might not necessarily be tuned into the timing recommendations.
Obviously, if there’s a chance that you or a family member have been exposed to coronavirus and you’re in the middle of treatments, please let your healthcare providers know immediately, and take every possible precaution.
Impacts to Testosterone Levels and Fertility After Infection
There’s evidence out of China that COVID19 infection can possibly hamper testosterone levels and potentially fertility. Although no conclusions have been made, this is just pointing to a need to study this that we in the testicular cancer community especially need to keep our eyes on. Although testicular cancer survivors generally maintain fertility, testosterone levels can be more hit and miss. This is another reason for survivors to assume a higher risk level of some sort out of an abundance of caution, and to take every precaution one can to avoid becoming infected. I’ve been doing okay without TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) for the most part since my testicular cancer diagnosis 9 years ago. If I happen to become infected with COVID19, will that put me at a permanent deficit and force me into TRT for the rest of my life that somebody else with two fully functioning testicles would be able to withstand? Nobody knows, and I’d rather not find out. We just don’t know what we don’t know about this virus yet.
Coping and Mental Health Considerations for Survivors, and Everybody Else
As I’ve long written, overcoming a health crisis such as a disease or cancer, or even this virus, is about far more than eradicating the physical disease, but also the mental one.
RELATED BLOG: CANCER IS NOT JUST ROGUE CELLS - AND NOT JUST INSIDE THE PATIENT
I had to take a break from furiously editing and trying to re-write this blog for a week, because I unfortunately reached meltdown stage. I know what it’s like to be facing months of uncertainty and feeling like I’m looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, and wondering if I’m going to live or die. It’s the same as I felt when I was diagnosed with cancer, and perhaps everybody knows what that feels like now in a way. But I also know what it feels like when your body is getting ready to pack up and die because it couldn’t take what it was going through anymore, and I also know what it feels like to be on a ventilator. They were supposed to have pulled that before I woke up from my RPLND surgery, but guess what?
These are all incredibly painful memories from my fight against testicular cancer so long ago that I’d hoped to never remember or think about again, only for all of them and more to come back and haunt me once again. I wouldn’t wish memories like these on anyone, but perhaps if more people had them, they’d all take this a lot more seriously than some are.
That said, here’s a little advice from someone that’s “been there”, and is once again finding themselves in a lot of the same places again in the midst of this global pandemic.
It’s Okay To Not Be Okay
I made the mistake of finding and then trying to read a more detailed lab report about all of the ways in which mice can die from this virus, who have very similar immune systems to humans, trying to learn if those of us that have more central nervous system damage from treatments (typically following with the additional round of Cisplatin treatment, whether EPx4 or BEPx4) might be more susceptible to this virus. That’s when I was no longer “okay” and had to turn off the Internet and just stop. It’s what brought back all of the painful memories above, triggered a bit of PTSD which I initially tried suppressing by first becoming very distant, and then with a bit of alcohol, but finally had to retreat into a quiet corner of my basement and let it all out for a bit.
Take Care Of Yourself
Don’t deny yourselves the above. We’re all human, and we’re all afraid and feeling the same things right now, wondering what’s going to happen, wondering if we’re going to live or die, if our families will be okay or not, and we can never truly know. It’s just like being diagnosed with cancer, wondering if treatments are going to work or not, and then being scared to death worrying if our cancers will come back or not through the months and years of scans and follow-ups. In a way, everybody worrying about COVID19 now understands much of what cancer fighters and survivors go through, and just how much it sucks.
After I let all of these worries and a bit of cancer-related PTSD flashbacks out, I was able to be far more positive and engaged with my family than I had been. And now I’m doing far more positive and productive things, like finishing this blog, spending time with my family, going for runs and doing a bit of weight training in our basement, and watching fun movies and TV shows with my kids. All of that matters, but you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others. Don’t forget that.
TUrn Off The News, the Internet, and that Damned Map
I’m serious. Turn off the news, turn off the Internet, turn off social media, and stop repeatedly clicking on that now infamous map with all of the red circles that keep on multiplying and getting bigger. I can’t go anywhere online now without reading about the coronavirus when I think we all just need a break.
The latest large bold font daily death count and case count headlines from every country in the world and their steady increases aren’t helping anybody at this point. Yes, it matters and is worth being reported, but for the vast majority of us that are not in charge of managing this in any way, it’s irrelevant. All we can do is our best to avoid becoming infected, and to just focus on ourselves and our own mental and physical health, and of our families and loved ones.
Stick With Local News
I would strongly suggest turning OFF all but local news sources at this point. Local news sources tend to be a little less sensationalistic and a little more relevant, but try not to read it more than once per day, or twice if you really must. Try your hardest to make sure that you glaze over the bold headlines with the “numbers”, and just go in, find out what you need to know as far as the latest restrictions or CDC guidance, and then get out and just take care of yourselves and your families.
Find Distractions
Hobbies are a good thing for times like these. I’ve been posting landscape and other cool photos on Gab, which started off as a fun thing to do at the start of the year before anybody was tuned into this, but has evolved into a form of therapy now that we’re all in lockdown and discouraged from going anywhere! That’s a far better thing to be flooding social media with than seeing wall to wall COVID19 posts that we’re all tired of. Perhaps I’ve inspired this, because I see people doing it now! :)
Click or tap on the image for a nice distraction and break from all of this! I’m going to keep going!
Worrying Doesn’t Accomplish Anything
Fun fact. I worried myself straight into a full-fledged PTSD meltdown as a cancer survivor. I couldn’t handle the uncertainty and not knowing, all while a few of the cancer fighter friends that I had made died. I feared I was next, and look where all of us are today as we read about the latest celebrity or person of interest that has either tested positive for COVID19 or has died of it? Same shit, different day!
Anybody who knew me in the first half of 2013 might not have known just what a dark and precarious place I was in, two years after my cancer fight. My mind was being ravaged by PTSD, I had been suicidal, and I was just hanging on by a thread for much of that year. I came to realize that worrying never accomplished anything for me other than making me miserable, and just learned to let it go and that we can never know when our time is going to come.
Related Blog: The Best Way to Survive Cancer, Is to LIVE!
Give that blog a read, and I have a hunch that’s where many of you are in attempting to process coronavirus information right about now. Guess what? Just as with cancer where you can’t possibly predict the future or know your future outcome, the best way to survive coronavirus is to “LIVE” as well. If you read that blog, you’ll know what I mean.
Be Present in your lives
Get in with whatever news or social media you need to catch up on, and then get the hell out and get back to your life. You’re not “being present” in your world when you’re reading the news or social media. That’s being present in the Internet world, which isn’t the same thing as the real world and the actual lives that we live. Just like I learned to stop worrying about if my cancer was going to come back or not, now I’m using the same lessons to teach myself to stop worrying about if I’m going to get COVID19 or not.
The best thing you can do is to just be present in your life, take care of yourself, take care of your family, and stay engaged with whomever you have around you, even if it’s just a dog or pet! Read some good books, watch some fun movies, and do some fun things. Get outside, go for a nice walk everyday, get some fresh air and a change of scenery. You can still do things like going hiking and going for bike rides, just maintain that social distance.
Last night I watched the latest Grand Tour episode (Clarkson, Hammond, May) with my kids, and we laughed so hard that we cried at various points, which is exactly what we all needed. More of that, and less time obsessively worrying about what might not ever happen. I’d rather spend these days laughing with my kids and doing fun things, than worrying myself to tears in my basement.
Take A Deep Breath (A Bit of Analysis)
Not everybody is going to get this, and the fatality rate is only around 1-2% if you do.
Breathe a little.
I know it’s easier said than done, but in the midst of all of this mayhem and panic of a global pandemic with a novel virus, let’s be rational and look at some real numbers.
If we all do our part, the current estimates are that we’ll be able to limit the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. to only several million cases in a country of 330 million, and 100,000 to 200,000 total deaths. For comparison, a bad flu season typically claims around 80,000 lives. So we can estimate the risk of getting coronavirus as being anywhere from 1 in 33 to 1 in 330 overall with current mitigation.
If we all do our part, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re going to get the coronavirus in the first place, and even if you do, you have a 98-99% chance of overcoming it without risk factors.
A significant number of people are getting this and don’t even have symptoms.
If you happen to get the coronavirus, many people that get COVID19 might be completely asymptomatic and might not ever realize they had it. It’s totally unknown at this point how big this group is, but it’s being acknowledged that it could be one-third or even one-half of all cases or more! Next, of the people that are tested positive for COVID19, the sample for which to date has possibly been biased by people showing symptoms, around 80% have mild symptoms not unlike the regular flu and just need to self-isolate at home. Of those that have symptoms, less than 20% require hospitalization, and only about 5% might require an ICU bed.
The Bigger Picture
Let’s present a bigger picture and make the math easy by assuming that half of all COVID19 cases are either not tested or are completely asymptomatic. 20% of the half that require hospitalization is only a 10% hospitalization rate overall, and ~4-5% of the half that have symptoms requiring an ICU bed is about a ~2% overall ICU rate. I’ve been privy to some emails from regional ER doctors in the U.S. sharing what they know so far with other medical professionals, and I’ll just say that if one requires ICU level care on a ventilator for this, that the prognosis is not particularly favorable. Some will recover at this stage and some won’t, and that’s what gets us down to the approximately 1-2% fatality rate, or 98-99% recovery rate that’s currently being estimated for COVID19. And remember, not everybody is going to get this! It’s easy to get lost in all of the media reports, and start to believe that this virus is killing everything in its path and putting everybody on ventilators and ICU critical care, when that’s absolutely not the case. This virus should not be underestimated, but it’s not the virtual death sentence like Ebola was.
Compared to Testicular Cancer
I know this is apples to oranges, but to put this all into perspective, I had a 1 in 250 lifetime chance of being diagnosed with testicular cancer and happened to get it. My Stage IIB diagnosis back in 2011 was quoted with a 90-95% cure rate, which freaked the f*** out, and who wouldn’t be? It’s a little more likely that people are going to get COVID19, but then you have even better odds of beating it, and as a bonus you don’t have to have a body part chopped off to beat it.
So then I shouldn’t be afraid of COVID19 with a 98-99% recovery rate, right? LOL
Numbers are always nice, but that’s now how they work.
It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid
Nobody likes uncertainty like this. As I look back on the wisdom that I’ve gained as a cancer survivor for 9 years, it’s all of the uncertainty surrounding it and the loss of the feeling of control, which drives the fear, drives the anxiety, and all of the mental health issues, that cumulatively ended up being so much worse than the cancer itself ever was. The same thing is happening here with COVID19. Nobody likes having their lives turned upside down and losing their feelings of control in life, whether it’s cancer or some crazy virus.
It’s the uncertainty about the virus in the broader population, and about many of our jobs and economic plight that’s fueling everything as much if not more so than the virus itself is. When it’s your ass and life that’s on the line, we never feel like we have anything better than 50/50 odds no matter how good the numbers look.
Having another sense of deja vu. Lookie here.
Related Blog: HOW TO OVERCOME YOUR FEARS AFTER CANCER
Read the above blog and replace “cancer” with “COVID19”, and it’s all the same.
All of these fears and uncertainties are absolutely no different than when I was facing my “good risk” cancer both during treatment and the years after. These odds are even better, but nobody likes having their lives come down to a “coin toss”. Needless to say, when this dust settles, and it will, we need to be thinking ahead about mental health resources including many who will probably have PTSD symptoms from all of this. Been there and done that, too.
The Bottom Line — Do Everything You Can To Avoid Coronavirus
The bottom line is that cancer survivor or not, you do not want to get the coronavirus, and we should all be self-isolating and social distancing right now to help prevent its spread. Among the many things we don’t know about the novel coronavirus is how significant asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic transmission is contributing to the spread of this virus. If we all do our best to self-isolate and socially distance ourselves now and just assume that we already have it and could be spreading it, that’s how we’ll stop spreading it, and we’ll all get through this together a lot faster.
As reassuring as it was to hear from Dr Einhorn that he doesn’t personally believe that the testicular cancer community has any elevated risk to respiratory borne illnesses such as these especially from Bleomycin exposure, we don’t know what we don’t know and how exposure to this virus might affect our bodies in other ways. My body has already been through hell and back fighting cancer, and so I really don’t want to get this virus. Who would argue with that? We young adult cancer fighters and survivors have been through way too much in our lives already to play the betting game like this with some crazy virus.
I hope this blog has helped people to wrap their heads around this a bit better, and that it provides at least a bit of guidance for those facing cancer today.
God speed everyone! Stay safe and healthy, and God bless all of our front line doctors, nurses, staff, and medical professionals that are out there fighting for us. Pray for them, and pray for their families and loved ones as well. They need them.
Best,
Steve
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about all of this and would like to discuss. If I can’t answer your question, I might know people who can!
Helpful Links and Resources
Government, NGO, and Medical Sources
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE (that snazzy map)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
World Health Organization — Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 Outbreak
National Institute of Health — Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Interesting Blogs and Articles
The Experts Have No Idea How Many COVID-19 Cases There Are
Coronavirus - The Hammer and the Dance (Great blog that really spells it all out.)
Masks Save Lives (This is anecdotal at this point, but I agree and they have a point.)
N95 Mask Re-Use Instructions (Supposedly via the inventor of the N95 masks.)
99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illnesses, Italy Says
The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 (Nature Medicine)
Debunking Nature Magazine's "COVID-19 Definitely Didn't Come From A Lab" China Propaganda (ZeroHedge: A rebuttal to the above)
COVID-19 - Evidence Over Hysteria (Originally on Medium but censored. There was a lot of interesting information in here, but I personally thought the conclusions were dangerous and BS. It was wrong to censor the article, though.)
COVID: Stop Pretending We Know Things (a rebuttal to the above)
Carl T. Bergstrom Tweet Thread Response to Evidence Over Hysteria (another rebuttal)
As Long As Communist China Controls The World Health Organization, It’s Completely Unreliable (Why Freedom of Speech and the Press, and transparency and accountability are all so important. You never know who you can trust, and sometimes supposedly authoritative sources of information aren’t, are compromised, or allow politics to get in the way of potentially valuable or life-saving information!!!)
If you read one of the above blogs or articles, just read “The Hammer and the Dance”. It really spells out what’s going on, and why it needs to happen the way it is. The CDC has told us that N95 masks aren’t needed, yet countries with heavy mask usage are seeing much slower spreads of this. Anecdotal, yes, considering these countries have been doing a lot more than other, but it’s an interesting point. It’s been said that COVID19 couldn’t possibly have “come from a lab”, but there’s a rebuttal to that as well calling bullshit, and that it very well could have. The ‘Evidence Over Hysteria’ article had a lot of interesting information in it. I thought the conclusions were BS though, and others seemed to agree with their own rebuttal articles and Tweet threads.
As you can see, it’s difficult to find solid information, we don’t know if what we think we know is really true or not, and we don’t know what we don’t know, either!!!!!
The following Information Is Beautiful graphic (below) can help to put things in perspective, which I’m going to present here as-is with two warnings.
The first warning is that a PhD microbiologist friend of mine with familiarity in this area and whom I very deeply admire and respect had some very serious issues with earlier versions of this infographic, some of which have been corrected and some of which have not. They felt that the graphic was minimizing the danger of the coronavirus and giving people reason to not take it seriously, that information was not being presented as it should be, and that all of the saturation media coverage was warranted. However, they also said that there was no need for people to panic or hoard supplies, which is precisely what the saturation media coverage has fueled.
The other warning I’ll give is that there’s a growing consensus that China has been extremely dishonest about the data they’ve reported to the world, and has probably had far more COVID19 cases than what they’ve claimed. Even countries with extremely strict epidemiological authority such as South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan (not pictured below) are still seeing slower but steady marches of this virus, whereas China claims to have completely flattened it, thus being at odds with the rest of the world. Italy also has the oldest population in Europe, and already tends to have horrifically bad flu seasons as far as annual number of deaths on a per capita basis, for whatever reason. Just realize that there can be far more to these numbers than meets the eye, so don’t read into them too much. Despite its potential to possibly mislead or misinform, I still find this infographic useful and worth sharing.
How Seasonal Depression and Low Testosterone Can Cause Suicidal Episodes in Testicular Cancer Survivors
I’ve been pretty quiet and basically AWOL on social media for the past few weeks because I had a really rough go at the end of the year. A grueling work schedule drove me straight into the ground towards the end of 2019, and unfortunately I wasn’t doing myself any favors either, all of which put me into an end of year winter solstice tailspin combined with a complete testosterone level collapse, and a suicidal episode. You can read all about it here. Maybe now I’ll finally learn, and practice what I preach.
I’m unfortunately writing this PSA out of personal experience. As much as I might have hoped to just have a clean getaway from the 2010’s after all my family and I had been through in this decade, they weren’t done with me yet. Yes, I had a suicidal episode of all things over the Christmas holiday of 2019. What a wonderful way to end 2019 and the entire decade, right? It wasn’t all palm trees and sunshine.
[Note: This is one of those blogs where literally everything ties together. Mental health, physical health and wellness, proper diet and eating right, getting enough exercise, taking proper care of yourself, and then what can happen when you do none of the above and allow for the possibility that your body (and mind) gets into a very serious tailspin. It took me an extra day just to add links to all of the related blogs and add a few photos. Take your time, definitely check out all of the linked and related blogs, and get in touch if you want to talk about anything. Although not present on social media much, I’m always in the background for the testicular cancer and broader AYA cancer communities, and am just a click away. - Steve]
Related Blog: TESTOSTERONE CHALLENGES AFTER TESTICULAR CANCER
For testicular cancer survivors adjusting to their new lives after treatments, many doctors like to think that the other testicle will “pick up the slack” as far as our testosterone levels go, but it’s not nearly that simple, and this has merely been an assumption by many doctors that hasn’t been backed up by any formal data. Hormonal peaks and valleys are common, which I’ve most certainly experienced over the years, along with a general ‘irregularity’. The best way to describe how a man can feel when having a testosterone level dropout, is like Superman without his powers — weak, lethargic, depressed, afraid, directionless, and completely lacking any confidence about anything. Very manly, right? With a single testicle, we’re not like a twin-engined aircraft that can still fly almost as normal with a single engine out. As I wrote in my above blog, for the most part I don’t have any ongoing symptoms of low-testosterone, and my body managed to figure things out after a few years. I’ve decided to forego any testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) so long as I’ve remained asymptomatic, but I’m not always asymptomatic, and the bottom fell out on me over the holidays.
The end of the year, and in particular right around the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year — has always been a problematic time for me. It was on one of the first winter solstices that I experienced after my cancer fight, that I noticed just how out of it I felt, almost as though my body wanted to shut down and hibernate. I was experiencing extreme fatigue and felt very depressed, had zero libido, and noticed around the same time that I didn’t even need to shave along with the loss of some body hair. All of this was a dead giveaway for low-testosterone, which a subsequent visit with an endocrinologist confirmed. I’ve managed to minimize these seasonal hormonal troughs so long as I’ve kept myself in pretty good shape and hit the gym regularly, while also maintaining a reasonable diet.
So of course, I hadn’t been doing any of this lately. A brutal work travel schedule the entire last third of 2019 obliterated any fitness routine I might have attempted, exacerbated my chronic fatigue issues, and my diet regressed as well. In hindsight, it’s almost entirely predictable that something like this was bound to happen, because I’d been doing absolutely nothing that I should have been. And there I was.
A Suicidal Episode at Disney World Due to Seasonal Depression And a Hormonal Dropout
We trekked all the way down to Orlando from our D.C. area home base for a week at Disney World over the holidays. With 5 human beings and a dog and all of the expense and logistical complications that come with flying a family of that size anywhere, we decided to drive in our land yacht all the way down. This saved us a few thousand dollars in airfare and car rentals, which is a big part of why we bought it. We split up the drive over two days, but it’s still a long friggin drive, and I was seriously fatigued from my work schedule in the preceding few months. I couldn’t catch even a single friggin break, because right on cue our alarm system acted up the night before we were leaving, which disrupted my sleep and made things even worse. Our first day at Disney World was Monday, December 23rd 2019, the exact date of the winter solstice, and almost like clockwork I couldn’t have been more out of it.
Here I was at the “happiest place on earth”, and I didn’t want to be there at all. Heavy feelings of depression hit me out of nowhere, I wanted out but felt trapped, and that’s when the suicidal thoughts hit me. None of it made any sense to me. Why on Earth was I having such godawful thoughts over Christmas, with my family, in the warmth of Florida, and out of the cold, miserable, and swampy sh*t hole of D.C. while at Disney World of all places? I was afraid and confused and definitely feeling very lost.
Do I look suicidal here? Fooled you! Not literally right in this very moment, but around this time is when it was hitting.
Related Blog: PROTECT YOUR ENERGY FROM THE CRINGE AND JUST DO YOU
I think I must have felt it coming somehow, because I decided to go totally ‘dark’ once again. I logged out of all social media accounts, never looked at the news, and didn’t even put up any Merry Christmas or Happy New Year greetings on social for family or friends. When you’re having really awful thoughts like these, do you really need to be reading about all of the twisted sh*t going on in the world, or seeing yet another friend blowing a gasket over the latest thing they’re outraged about in the news, which probably isn’t even true? I just focused on staying in the moment with my family, put all external worries and concerns out of my mind, and luckily whatever spell this was faded by the middle of Christmas Day.
It saddens me that I have a bit of experience with suicidal episodes, but it can most certainly come with the territory of being a cancer survivor, and really speaks volumes about just how badly hormones being out of whack can mess with your head. The first time I’d ever been suicidal in my life was just short of two years after my cancer diagnosis, when PTSD was ravaging me from the inside out and burning my mind to the ground. It was the same feelings of feeling trapped with no way out, and just wanting to end it all as a means of escaping the pain that you can feel from PTSD. I was terrified of my body and couldn’t bear to live another moment in it, but how do you escape your own body? Well…
Don’t do it.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Call the above number any time in the U.S. Reach out for help. Call a friend. You can even try the GRTY Health Chatbot. You can CONTACT ME and I’m happy to talk people through these situations, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be immediately available. Things will get better. Everybody is entitled to a “bad day”, especially as cancer survivors. The next one will be better, I promise. Believe in yourself, don’t give up, and keep getting back up. You will find ways to make it through whatever’s been haunting you, just as I and many others have.
At Disney, I took a deep breathe, told myself that this wasn’t what I wanted and had no idea where these thoughts were coming from, and just fully immersed myself in the moment, enjoying each and every second with my family at Disney. I didn’t give myself time to think or my mind the ability to wander, and that’s what turning off you phone, social media, the news, and all of those other distractions is all about. When you’re immersed in these external things, you’re not in your moment; you’re in someone else’s, and potentially someone else’s pain and misery, which there’s been no shortage of on the Internet! Stay in the moment — your moment. How “clean” is your social media feed? How clean is the news? Everybody’s experiences are likely to be a bit different, but I personally can’t go on social media or read the news without wanting to throw up. This is why when I’m feeling vulnerable or have dark thoughts going through my mind, I just switch all of this garbage off. At Disney where you pay by the minute, running around like crazy and hitting 20,000 steps per day probably did a lot to jerk my body out of whatever hormonal slump I was in, and I perked right back up.
Different Causes Require Different Responses
Of course, nobody wants to keep feeling this way. It can be tough to decipher where deeply depressive states or suicidal thoughts are coming from. I’ve been in depressive states because young adult cancer is a terrible life situation to have to deal with and adapt to, having nothing to do with hormones at all. Cancer sucks and there is no easy cancer, period. PTSD after cancer definitely caused some suicidal thoughts, but I’ve also had them from other seemingly impossible and completely unfair situations that life has thrown at us as well. The 2010’s were a rough decade for my family in far more ways than just cancer. It can be tough to know what to do, as each cause requires a different response.
Related Blog: PTSD After Cancer
There’s plenty of reasons to be justifiably upset, depressed, or distressed as cancer survivors, which could possibly lead to suicidal thoughts. Life doesn’t tend to let up after cancer either, and the rest of the world doesn’t care that we had cancer, either. The point is, don’t discount or forget about hormones and their potential to wreak havoc on our minds when they’re out of whack. Plenty of my other blogs might help you to work through many of the other sources of pain and distress after cancer, but keep testosterone levels on your radar screens, especially if something seemingly comes out of nowhere and you’re not even sure why you’re feeling the way you are.
Much of my off-and-on depression over the years has been situational based from serially bad and traumatic situations that my family and I have been forced to bear going far beyond just cancer, and not because of chemical imbalances, hormones, or other things. But testosterone dropouts like these from cancer can still rear their ugly head even 9 years out, if I’ve been doing a terrible job of taking care of myself, as had been the case over the last few months of 2019.
What I’m Doing Now
I can blame a grueling work schedule all I want, being 50% travel and hardly being home, and then having to work two full-time jobs at my full time job, too. None of that helped, but did I ever hit the hotel gym while on business travel? I did exactly one time, the entire year. Did I maintain healthy eating habits, or did I allow myself to completely fall off the bus on that too? Did I make an effort to get back into the gym when I was home? Not really. I just kinda gave up for awhile and hoped for the best, and ended up with the worst. No, my work schedule wasn’t forgiving at all, but I also wasn’t doing jack shit for myself, and paid a terrible price.
The moral of my story is that if I had even been attempting to do what I know I need to do to take care of myself, this most certainly wouldn’t have happened. I need to do a much better and more consistent job of taking proper care of myself, and can’t allow anything to get in the way of that. I’m doing the same things now that I’ve known I’ve needed to do all along, which is to get my ass into the gym at least a few times per week, clean up my diet and lay off of all of the caffeine and ‘boba’ and other garbage, and make sure I’m getting enough rest, and I already feel a zillion times better. It’s one thing to just expect to feel a bit of seasonal depression, a semi-predictable hormonal dropout, and feeling totally wasted for a few days, but it’s something entirely different when it devolves into suicidal thoughts to go along with it.
Related Blog: HAVE I MENTIONED HOW IMPORTANT REGULAR EXERCISE IS FOR CANCER SURVIVORS?
Read the above blog published almost exactly a year ago where I said the same goddamned thing. Too bad I didn’t listen to myself! Maybe this suicidal episode is the wake-up call and motivation that I need to finally start taking consistently good care of myself, and to stop making excuses.
Rescued By Disney World Again
Disney was, of course, fantastic. The new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge attraction at Hollywood Studios which had literally just opened two weeks before was amazing, and the new rides were mind blowing and unlike anything you’ve ever been on before. We all had a great time even if I was shaken up a bit, and now I can say with authority that Disney has rescued me from some truly awful things not once but twice.
Related Blogs: Overcoming Post-Cancer Depression
The first time I went to Disney World with my family in April of 2013, I was just a few months out of the first time I had been suicidal due to heavy PTSD for over a month. While my suicidal thoughts have never been anything more than brief moments, it’s enough to leave a mark on you, and the depression can linger. Here I was just over two years out from my cancer diagnosis thinking I should have been through it all, only to realize that I was merely at the start of a far greater challenge adapting mentally. I also felt like if something was going to happen to me, it was going to happen sooner rather than later, and that I just needed to truly live every moment that I had. Most testicular cancer recurrences occur within two years from the end of treatments for non-seminoma patients (5 years for pure seminoma), and towards the end of this window is definitely a very nerve-wracking time.
That week at Disney back in 2013 was truly magical in that I didn’t think of cancer even once, never had a single depressive thought, and just cherished every magical moment with my family. Here I was feeling so lost and directionless, but Disney taught me exactly what I needed to do. Just live and enjoy every moment of your life, and never let a second of it go to waste.
Related Blog: The Best Way to Survive Cancer, Is to LIVE!
And then here I was again nearly 9 years out from my cancer diagnosis, in the midst of something awful once again due to a perfect storm of internal and external factors, combined with the winter solstice and a testosterone level dropout. Disney World and in particular the new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge attraction was so amazing that I literally didn’t have time to be depressed or anything else, but instead found myself in awe. And then the fast pace of Disney (paying by the minute!!) snapped my body out of whatever physiological or hormonal slump it was in.
The depressive and suicidal thoughts vanished at Disney, just like the money in our wallets!
Magic!!! (LOL!)
Cancer Can Affect People For Their Entire Lives
The last thing I want to point out is just how illustrative this episode has been of the fact that AYA (adolescent and young adult) cancers can affect people for their entire lives. If you thought that because I’m 9 years out from my cancer diagnosis that everything is okay, that I’ve been through everything, that it’s all in the distant past, and that everything is fine and good, you’d be wrong. I’d like to think that too, but my young adult cancer experience as a whole is still something that I have to manage, as a whole.
I have to keep myself physically active and exercise regularly, especially in these winter months in order to keep myself ‘perked up’ hormonally. Although it’s a fraction of what it used to be, I still have chronic fatigue issues. I can push it for awhile and far more than I could in the early years, but there’s still a line that once crossed, my body will basically shut down and I can’t really do anything for a day or two. I still have to watch what I eat and eat a well-balanced diet, to help maximize my potential and the energy that my body does have available. I still have neuropathy related pain and shooting nerve pain just about every day. And I can’t have toxic people in my life at all, and my tolerance for BS is basically zero, which is something that many, many cancer survivors will tell you.
If you understand how hard I’ve had to work and fight just to overcome depression, all of the anxiety issues I’ve faced, the PTSD, and the suicidal episodes, then you’d understand why other people causing issues in any way are just a non-starter. It’s an all hands on deck ordeal just to keep my own mind afloat and on an even keel at times, hence not having any tolerance for other people that might rock my boat with their bullshit, whether they realize it or not.
As I write this, there’s someone in my life who’s just had some pathological need to bring up the fact that my childhood best friend commit suicide every time I see them, among other things. The more they brought him up, the more I tried to suppress these painful memories until one time I wasn’t able to do so, and spent the next six months re-grieving this loss, re-experiencing all of the pain, and just being depressed again at the childhood best friend that I lost very early in life. They were finally called out for this behavior and were disinvited from visiting us for the past year for more reasons than that, and not only were they completely unapologetic, but were offended and called me ungrateful and more.
With a history of mental health issues from cancer and a few suicidal episodes myself, do you think this sort of behavior is something that I really need in my life? I should neither have to explain any of this, nor should I have to provide an answer to the above question, and yet I’m having to do so. I haven’t given up on this person yet because of how much I care about them, but I’m close. Some people are just truly unbelievable.
Related Blog: Steve Pake's Top 10 Guide to Surviving a Young Adult Cancer (In particular, read the section on removing toxic elements from your life.)
you have To Cure The Whole Patient
Related Blog: CANCER IS NOT JUST ROGUE CELLS - AND NOT JUST INSIDE THE PATIENT
As I wrote in the above blog, “curing cancer” is about a lot more than just eradicating some rogue cells from someone’s body. Cancer becomes as much a disease of our minds in the way it can haunt us, as it is of our bodies. If you want to cure a patient of cancer, that means curing the entire patient and not just removing the rogue cells. Although this episode was merely from a hormonal dropout (and a bit of seasonal depression) and not from some broader core psychological issue, it’s enough to show me that this “disease” is still present, and something that I need to keep managing much better than I had been. I’ve failed plenty of times as a cancer survivor, in understanding what I’d even been through, in managing my body, in managing my mind, and in managing the people around me. It’s important to learn from your mistakes, and so I hope sharing this bit of darkness from my life as a teaching moment can continue to help others that have faced the same.
I hope to never find myself here again in my life, and I hope you don’t either.
Onwards and upwards for 2020!
Steve
Two things before you go. If you’re struggling with any of this and want to talk, please do get in touch. I’m happy to talk with anyone about any of this to help people find their way through the dark times, but if you’re actively contemplating or attempting, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) right now, as I can’t guarantee that I’ll be immediately available.
You’re also more than welcomed to check out all of our fun photos from Disney World below, and we also swung by Kennedy Space Center as well, which was amazing albeit slightly rained out. Despite all of my and our struggles, the point of sharing fun photos of our adventures of the year is to illustrate lives well-lived, and that we’re not just sitting around and sulking and feeling sorry for ourselves. I’m sorry, but fuck that. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed, despite whatever hardships you might face.
Keep on keeping on!
First Look at the 2021 Chevy Suburban and Tahoe from a Recent Owner
Steve plays auto journo and offers his thoughts on the latest sheetmetal out of Detroit with the newly announced 2021 Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, as a recent first-time 2018 Suburban owner.
Thoughts On The New Metal From A RECENT Suburban Owner
As a recent first-time domestic vehicle owner, first-time truck owner, and first-time Chevy owner with my 2018 Suburban, I was keenly interested in the new 2021 Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, and what changes and improvements they might make. It’s funny how I’m digesting all of the facts and figures about these trucks, but couldn’t tell you the first thing about the latest BMW 3-series or ///M cars. My, how times have changed, but that’s a story for another day.
I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the new full-sized SUVs from GM, and that there’s a lot to like. You can read from my previous two blogs about my 2018 Suburban, which I’ve found to be an overall very well thought out and engineered vehicle. The 2021 Suburban and Tahoe will be even better.
CHEVY SUBURBAN LYFE - ONE YEAR REVIEW - November 15, 2019
FULL REVIEW: HOW THE HELL DO YOU GO FROM DRIVING A BMW 335I TO A 2018 CHEVY SUBURBAN - February 2, 2019
Big Gets Bigger
The Tahoe is now a Suburban Lite
Both the Suburban and the smaller Tahoe have grown in size, but the biggest difference is actually with the Tahoe, which has seen a substantial lengthening of 6.7 inches, and a wheelbase stretch of 4.9 inches. 2nd row legroom improves by 3 inches to 42.0 inches, and 3rd row legroom is improved by a whopping 10.1 inches to 34.9 in, finally giving the Tahoe a 3rd row of seating that’s fully usable by most adults. But wait, there’s more. The rear cargo area behind the 3rd row of seats is also hugely improved from a skimpy 15.3 to a generous 25.5 cubic-feet. Maximum cargo area (with all seats folded) is also improved from 94.7 cubic feet to 122.9, giving the new Tahoe as much total cargo area as the outgoing Suburban! This is thanks mostly to a cargo floor that appears to be around 6 inches lower than before, but is also due to the additional length. The new Hoe almost really is a Suburban-lite, and is now also a more proper big brother to the Traverse large crossover SUV, with more space, more capability, and more performance.
If Only THe Suburban Were a Bit bigger…
The Suburban really can’t get much bigger, or else it will start to reach a size where even the better than average drivers who buy them won’t want to deal with them anymore, so fortunately the biggest changes are inside of the Suburban and not with its exterior dimensions. The Suburban picks up a gargantuan 23 cubic-feet of additional total cargo space, up to 144.7 cubic-feet from 121.7, due to the same lowered cargo floor as the new Tahoe. This will make loading bulky cargo into the Burban a good bit easier than before, which has been one of my few complaints with my 2018 Suburban.
Other than that, dimensional changes to the Burban are minor. It stretches in overall length just 1.3 inches, and gets a wheelbase stretch of 4.1 inches. Inside, the 2nd and 3rd rows of seating each get about 2 inches of additional legroom, and the rear cargo area behind the 3rd row of seats gains about 2 cubic feet of space, thanks mostly to the lower cargo floor.
I’m not going to say that any of the Burb’s increase in size is going to fundamentally change its maneuverability, but that one Trader Joe’s parking lot that has already tended to be a skin of your teeth affair with my 2018 Burb, might finally be out with the new one. It’s amazing how maneuverable the big Burban is in tight parking lots, but I really hope that GM engineers have somehow been able to keep the turning circle in check!
Updated and Entirely New Powertrains
You can still get V-8 Engines!
Praise the Lord that GM stuck to their senses and kept their excellent small-block V8 engines in the lineup that just keep getting better and better. The 355hp 5.3L and 420hp 6.2L V8 engines are back with the same outputs as before, and with the same updates as on the Silverado pickup line. The biggest difference is that the new engines have a dozen or so different cylinder deactivation modes versus just V-8 or V-4 on the outgoing engines. Hallelujah for no peaky DOHC V6 engines (GM’s 3.6L is actually pretty good), and heaven forbid not their turbocharged 2.7L 4-cylinder.
The GM-Ford jointly developed 10-speed automatic is now standard across the board, so the solid but basic GM Hydramatic 6-speed 6L80E is gone, as is the clunky 8-speed 8L90E that never seemed to work as it should. It’s also been reported that a 3.23 axle ratio will be the sole available rear-end ratio. This might be somewhat disappointing for those that hoped to get the 3.42 axle ratio with the 5.3L V8, which had been a really nice combination when opting for the Max Towing package. Hopefully the additional cogs in the 10-speed automatic will even things out.
A Duramax 3.0L Inline-6 Turbodiesel
The biggest news of all with the new trucks is the addition of a segment first diesel option, in the form of GM’s new 3.0L Inline-6 Duramax engine, with 277 hp and 460 ft-lbs of torque. I’ve been saying that these full-sized SUVs have been screaming for a diesel engine for ages, and now they finally have one.
My wife and I both loved our 2012 BMW E70 X5d, which also had a 3.0L Inline-6 turbodiesel engine with a bit lower output. All of the torque provided very zippy performance around town, and it easily achieved 26-28 mpg highway on long trips. With my current Suburban managing around 23-24 mpg on the highway with its 5.3L V8 and 6-speed automatic, I have no doubt that the new Suburban and Tahoe ought to be able to achieve 25-26 mpg highway if not a tad more depending on configuration, and probably 16-17 mpg city with the new Duramax. These would be pretty significant improvements for such large vehicles.
Thoughts from a former 3.0L Turbodiesel Inline-6 SUV Onwer
Since I’ve actually owned an SUV with a turbodiesel Inline-6 engine, here are some thoughts on what to expect from the Duramax Hoe and Burban.
Our diesel X5 had a curb weight of 5200 lbs and had 265 hp and 425 ft-lbs of torque. Considering the regular gasser X5 had 300 hp and 300 torques at the time, losing 35 hp but gaining over a hundred torques was a bit of a no-brainer. For the most part, you could just fling yourself around with that massive wall of torque. It felt pretty zippy and even light on its feet for most local driving, but definitely lacked top-end passing power when you really needed it — think country two-lane passing maneuvers.
I expect that the newly stretched Tahoe is going to come in at around 5800 lbs equipped considering its increase in size, and that the Suburban will probably be just as heavy as before also. Not one word of GM’s press release said anything about weight, weight reduction, or weight savings, so I think whatever platform weight savings there might have been in going from the K2xx to the T1xx platform has likely been gobbled up in the vehicles themselves being larger, especially with the Tahoe, and from all of the content that’s been added. While I considered the wheezy 265hp top-end of our diesel X5 to be just barely enough when you really needed maximum horsepower, these GM SUVs are going to be quite a bit heavier for only 12 additional ponies to be handling.
I think the Duramax will make for an excellent pairing with the lighter Tahoe, especially if 2WD, but if you’re talking about a fully loaded 6000 or more pound 4WD Suburban loaded to the max with people and gear, I expect that the Duramax is going to come up a bit short. Going from 355hp with the base 5.3L gasser V-8 to only 277 hp with the Duramax diesel is a lot of power to lose in such a large vehicle — we’re talking barely any more highway passing power than a Toyota Yaris, and probably getting smoked by a base Corolla. You can do the math yourself (peak horsepower per ton of vehicle is a useful metric), and the results aren’t pretty.
Yes, all of “dat torq” is great most of the time, but peak horsepower still matters when you need it, and these Duramax SUVs are definitely going to leave a lot to be desired here. So unless you absolutely don’t care at all about tricky highway merges, passing performance, or “get yourself out of trouble power”, most will probably be better served by the standard and updated 5.3L V8. Regular fuel does tend to be a bit cheaper than diesel as well. I’m sure some performance chips will be available for the Duramax practically as soon as the vehicles themselves are on the lots to rectify the issue, but that also involves tossing warranties out the windows of brand new $50-80k SUVs.
What these full-sized SUVs really needed was that baby 4.5L Duramax V8 that GM never made. Its 310hp and 510 ft-lbs of torque would have made it just about perfect for these 5600-6000 lb SUVs, but I’m happy to have the any Duramax as an option. The diesel they have to offer at a reasonable cost (around $2500 in the Silverado pickup line) is better than no diesel at all. While the engine’s power might be better suited to the lighter Silverado pickup trucks, I’m glad that GM product managers didn’t try to put the 310 hp turbocharged 4-cylinder engine in these beasts, which would have been sacrilege, and have gotten very mixed to negative reviews. Just no to that.
It’ll be interesting to see what the take rate is with the Duramax in these full-sizers, and I look forward to reading about them and possibly sampling one in a Tahoe myself.
ALl The Other new Stuff
Independent Rear Suspension
The “antiquated low-tech donkey cart live-axle rear suspension” is finally gone. GM and auto journos will hype the improved ride quality and how much better it is, but the truth is that there hasn’t been even a single ride quality complaint from any family member in my 2018 Suburban. The ride is definitely a bit jittery when empty when they’re not in the truck, but that tends to be the case with heavier truck suspensions that are designed to haul things. The 22” wheels don’t help anything either, but neither of those two have anything to do with the live-axle rear end. GM has stuck with the live-axle for so long because it’s simple, effective, and also very rugged, and because they’ve actually managed to make them ride pretty well. GM didn’t come to dominate the full-size SUV market because nobody could stand the ride.
I can think of exactly one time in a year and 15,000 miles of driving my 2018 Suburban where I managed to run over a bump that upset the rear-end in a way that an independent suspension would have handled better. I do live in an area where the roads are relatively well maintained, so take that for what it’s worth. I’m more about the big picture and what will get the job done, and less about which specific ingredients are involved to make it happen. Claims about improved ride and handling when I don’t have any real complaints about ride and handling relating to the live-axle doesn’t sell me.
What does sell me is below.
Massively Lower Load Floor
The biggest thing the independent rear suspension will do for buyers of these trucks is lower the load floor to make loading bulky cargo a bit easier, because of the space that’s cleared out in the floor plan of the vehicle. Depending on how exactly you calculate it, the outgoing Suburban has about 40-45 square-feet of cargo floor. Without any significant change in length or width, GM is claiming that the new Suburban has gained 23 cubic-feet of cargo space. To gain that much additional cargo space in a vehicle that’s not really any taller, wider, or longer, means the new load floor is about 6 or so inches lower than the old. Indeed, this is about what it looks like from these comparison photos with my own Suburban on the left, and the new Suburban on the right. You can see that the load floor of the outgoing Burban falls at about the middle of the seat back, whereas it’s down at seat cushion level with the new one. That’s a huge difference, and will make loading bulky items a whole lot easier than before.
I couldn’t line up the angle exactly, but pay close attention to where the seat backs of the 2nd row lands against the front seats, and especially the arm rests of the second row. The new load floor is much lower! That’s my 2018 Suburban on the left, and the new 2021 on the right.
Here’s another view of the Tahoe at a slight angle.
I’m guessing that the vertical opening of the rear hatch is now tall enough, and the load floor short enough, that maybe you don’t have to take the legs of couches off before stuffing them inside. Then again, furniture legs will snag on and scrape up various interior pieces anyway, so you’d still probably want to take them off. We’ve now had more than a few couches in the back of our Suburban, and they’ve all fit one way or another, even without a lower load floor. I think furniture designers take these dimensions in mind when designing their furniture. “Has to fit inside a Chevy Suburban.” Check. Lol
Lights, Cameras, Action, and Screens Galore
There’s now a zillion different camera angles and “Surround HD vision” or whatever they’re calling it for parking [HD Suround Vision, I was close]. There’s more displays in the interior, and they’re bigger, the HUD is fancier and has more colors, and blah, blah, blah. I’m personally not a fan of the “iPad stuck into the dashboard look”, but it’s just how they’re doing things these days. This stuff doesn’t really sell me. I just drive.
On the outgoing SUVs, the rear backup camera and auto tilt-down on both side view mirrors while using your “Mark I Eyeballs” gives you 270 degree coverage to the sides and rear while parking, which I’ve found more than good enough for me, and then there’s front parking sensors which help also. I specifically didn’t opt for any of the interior entertainment options in my own Suburban not just because it kills head space, but because both of my kids are more than happy to keep their eyes glued to their iPads all day long if we let them.
Call me weird, but as an Electrical Engineer I already spend my days fiddling with electronics that don’t work, and strongly prefer to just drive when I’m in vehicle and not be fiddling with screens and electronic doo-dads. And as a former BMW driver, I’ll say that BMW killed my enthusiasm for many of their cars by making them overly electronic and fake feeling, isolating drivers that know the difference from the glorious mechanical engineering that resides underneath! Why pay premium money for a BMW when they don’t feel any better to drive than a Toyota? I realize I’m getting off on a tangent, but you feel more “connected” to the vehicle and road driving my 2018 Suburban than you do with most BMW’s these days, which is really sad! I hope that these new SUVs maintain that level of feel and the confidence that it gives you, and that they don’t become ‘electronically white-washed’ like so many other vehicles have been!
Moving on… /tangent /rant
Air Suspension
The new trucks will now have an optional and adjustable air suspension on higher level models that can raise and lower the ride height through a total range of 4 inches. This will let the trucks squat while on the highway for better aerodynamics, and allow them to rise up if additional clearance is needed for off-roading or snow. On the existing trucks, you get a rear self-leveling air suspension with the Max Towing package, but not a 4-corner air suspension that adjusts ride height. Existing Suburbans and Tahoes just have a fixed ride height and a big chin spoiler to direct the airflow away from the wheels and undercarriage.
The trick air suspension will probably be more useful in the Tahoe, where you can still do a bit of off-roading especially with the Z71 package. Air suspension or not, the Suburban is still going to get owned by its terrible break-over angle limitations because of the huge wheelbase, so the air suspension is more for convenience and tweaking a few tenths of a mile per gallon out of it. I’m not sure that it’s worth the added expense and complexity, but then again you already get a rear self-leveling air suspension in Max Towing equipped vehicles on the outgoing SUVs, so perhaps it’s not that big of a deal to have it at all four corners.
Electronic Shift Buttons
The totally old school steering column mounted shifter is finally gone, having been replaced with a push button arrangement on the dashboard. The steering column shifter never bothered me, but I know it irked plenty and gave them flashbacks to the bad old days of GM, so I say good riddance.
Unlike a lot of these push-button or rotary shifter arrangements, it seems as though GM has put some solid human factors engineering efforts into this with what appears to be an anchor point for your middle finger such that your hand doesn’t slip, and so that you don’t confuse buttons while maneuvering. It looks like you can anchor your hand with your middle finger, and then use your pointer finger to hit Reverse or Park, and then probably your Thumb to punch it into Drive. It seems like it should work pretty well, and it looks a whole lot better than some competitors new shifter arrangements that look like they’d either be an awkward reach, or would easily be confused.
Sliding Second Row Seats
The second row seats will now slide fore and aft through a range of 10 inches, which is definitely handy and allows for a bit more flexible passenger space. The fixed second and third row seating positions on the outgoing Suburban have seemed just about right for my family, although the third row seats definitely aren’t for larger adults. 6-footers will fit back there so long as they’re thinner framed people, and not giant 6’3” 260-pounders like myself. With the sliding second row seats, now larger people will be able to sit in the third row if needed.
Verdict: NEW OR OLD?
So what’s the verdict? Should you or I buy one or upgrade?
New
Old
The New Burban
If you’re in the market for a Suburban, the new one will be the best one yet for sure, but you could also get a screaming good deal on the outgoing 2020 that’s long had all of the bugs worked out through the middle of the year, and before the 2021’s are hitting the lots. Tough call. I guess if you’re planning on moving a lot of bulky furniture around and really need the lower load floor, or if you’re hung up on fuel economy and are open to a diesel (and don’t care about performance so much), those would be the two biggest reasons to wait around for the 2021’s. It’s not like the outgoing Suburban lack space in any way (lol!) I imagine that for-hire service folks would probably do pretty well with Duramax Suburbans also. Imagine getting in excess of 700 miles per tank of fuel. Otherwise, the outgoing 2020’s are still awesome trucks that you’ll be able to get great deals on.
My family and I love our 2018 Suburban, and we’ll probably stick with that. This was always planned to be a buy it and then drive it into the ground for 10+ years type of vehicle for us, and we’re not fundamentally displeased with it in any way to warrant a trade, nor are we hung up on not having the latest metal. In fact, our expectations have been more than exceeded in almost every area with our existing Suburban, so we’re happy to keep plowing ahead.
The New Hoe
If you need three rows of seating from time to time or even all the time, clearly wait for the 2021 Tahoe, as it has so much more space in the 3rd row, and a much improved cargo area. And unlike the Suburban, I think the new Tahoe will be just light enough to make for a pretty nice pairing with the Duramax diesel. You’ll have a far more versatile truck than before that can also get much better fuel economy, while still having a reasonable level of performance. If 3rd row seating isn’t a factor for you, it might be worth it to get a great deal on the outgoing 2020 models.
If I were to make any move at all, I might try to see if I could downsize a tad to the new Tahoe, and just hook up a hitch mounted locking cargo box to the rear for those summer road trips. That would leave me with a smaller, more manageable, and more efficient vehicle the rest of the time, although I have to say, once you have a nearly 9-foot long cargo area to haul stuff and shove couches into, it’s tough to want to give that up! Suburbans are definitely handy in ways that Tahoe’s aren’t!
For the needs of my own family, the large crossover Chevy Traverse was a bit too small. The Suburban has been amazing, but definitely leans more towards the overkill side of things. The new 2021 Tahoe could finally be the “just right” for our needs, even if it won’t swallow couches whole.
Steve’s Final “First Look” Word For now
I think Chevy knocked it out of the park with the new SUVs. Given these are GM’s prime money makers, they have to get these trucks right especially in the face of emerging competition, and I definitely feel that they’ve done that. The Suburban has seen very nice and meaningful improvements to it, and the not-that-much-shorter-anymore Tahoe now makes a much stronger case for itself than it did before. The underpinnings for success are all there, and I have no doubt that both of these new Chevy’s and their more upmarket GMC and Cadillac versions will be very impressive also, once they’re announced. (Spy Photos: The new Escalade looks fantastic!) Whether you want to wait for the latest, or if you want to get a screaming good deal on the outgoing models, I think you’ll be getting top notch products either way.
All photos credit GM in this blog.
GM’s Press Release
CHEVROLET INTRODUCES ALL-NEW 2021 TAHOE AND SUBURBAN: https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/suburban-tahoe.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2019/dec/1210-tahoe-suburban.html
See the 2021 Chevy Suburban & Tahoe Announcement Site here: https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/suburban-tahoe.html
I Still Have Nightmares About Cancer Nearly A Decade Later
I can still have nightmares about cancer now and again even nearly a decade after my diagnosis, but I don’t let them bother me.
I started off this decade with my testicular cancer diagnosis back in February of 2011, so it’s only fitting that I close the decade out in November of 2019 still having nightmares about the whole ordeal. It just goes to show that a cancer diagnosis is something that can affect you for your entire life, even when it’s a “good cancer.”
I think it was hauling all of these landscaping stones to build our new fire pit that really did me in.
I’ve been working my tail off lately doing a lot of lifting and hauling of things both for home projects and an office move. It’s involved a lot of squatting and lifting with my legs especially, which has once again aggravated my inguinal (groinal) area. On top of having had a few surgeries for cancer “down below”, I’ve also had bi-lateral inguinal hernia repair surgery in this same area, which is a very common issue for big and tall dudes like myself. Fortunately there’s no new issues there, but my body has very clearly been attempting to rip itself in half once again from all of the pain I’ve been having. It can be really disconcerting and feel a lot like “ball pain”, due to how all of the nerves in this area are interconnected. It doesn’t help that I favor my left leg (I’m left-handed) and that this is also the side where I “still have one”. I was concerned enough to give myself a very thorough testicular self-exam and all felt fine, but it also led to a horrible dream.
I think pretty much every cancer survivor has nightmares about their experiences. We fear day and night that our cancers are going to come back and then having to go through brutal treatments and surgeries again, and then have nightmares about recurrences, too. This was another of the same, the first in a long while, and this time nearly 9 years from diagnosis. A spot in my upper lung had been found in the dream, and all presumptions were that it was a late-recurrence and inoperable due to spread. Late recurrences of testicular cancer aren’t typically responsive to chemotherapy and can usually only be cured by surgical resection. So if something isn’t just a single site or it has spread, the prognosis is usually poor. The writing was pretty much on the wall for me in the dream. This was it — and then I woke up.
The dream was as real as could be, and after I had awoken I wasn’t quite sure what had happened, and what was real and what wasn’t. What was shocking about this nightmare to me wasn’t the dream itself, but rather how I had responded to the news both in the dream and after. In the dream and facing what was pretty much a terminal cancer recurrence, I wasn’t actually afraid. I just had this peaceful and knowing acceptance that something like this could always have happened, and that this was just my time. Yes, it was upsetting to all and wasn’t what I or anybody else wanted, but we don’t have control over things like this, and I had simply accepted that my physical life and existence would soon be moving on.
Life is precious. Anything can happen to anyone at any time, and we have no real control. In an instant life can change and will never be the same again, and here in my nightmare was another one of those moments, this time leading to the end of my physical life. All we really have and have ever had is right now. There’s no guarantees for the future or of our health for anyone, and having to give up on that illusion of control in life as a young and invincible 33 year-old was one of the hardest things I had to do after cancer.
“The best way to survive cancer is to LIVE”. This was the motto that I came up with after spending a year almost literally worrying myself to death after a terrible recurrence scare I’d had the year before, and then fighting hard every day trying to stay one step ahead of PTSD. Just get out there and live your best life, go amazing places, do amazing things, have the best time that you can, make a difference for others, and stop worrying about what happened yesterday and what might happen tomorrow. I've lived my life on this premise for many years now, and each of my years since cancer has been filled with more life than all 33 of them combined prior to cancer. That’s a whole lot of living in this decade, and it’s also helped to bring me peace after cancer. I’ve also come to believe that we’re so much more than our physical existence here in this world, which has helped take the wind out of the sails of my fears of death and of dying as well. We’re all going to die someday. Death is a part of life — it’s simply inevitable, and I’ve learned to stop being afraid.
The worst thing that you can do as a cancer survivor is to just sit around waiting for something to happen. Go take a look at my yearly photo album page above, and you’ll see that we’ve always tried to do the exact opposite of that.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” - Mark Twain
I’ve been talking the talk and walking the walk for years, and now I’m finally dreaming the dreams, too! After I woke up, I wasn’t panicked or hyperventilating, nor was I in tears or disturbed in even the slightest way, and went right back to sleep! I’ve long accepted that I could go at any moment, to the point that bad dreams and nightmares no longer faze me. I suppose if I can have a recurrence scare or a nightmare like this and not even bat an eye, that that's a pretty powerful and evolved position to be in as a cancer survivor.
I won’t lie that time and experience does help, too. I’m almost 9 years out from my cancer diagnosis now. It could be that after having had 500 nightmares about cancer over the years, that the 501st just doesn’t budge the needle anymore. So there’s that, but without a doubt, a lot of evolving and spiritual growth went into all this to get me where I am today. I’m just not afraid of cancer or even dreams about cancer anymore.
I claim no expertise — I’m just some guy trying to find his way through this mess called “life” and also life after young adult cancer like everybody else, and helping others along the way. Please do give my many blogs about testicular cancer and young adult cancer a read and a share, and maybe they can help yourself and others find your way and make all of this a little easier as well.
Blessings to all and a Happy Thanksgiving!
Steve
Chevy Suburban Lyfe - One Year Review
Here’s an in-depth review of our Chevy Suburban at one year and just short of 15,000 miles. We love this thing!
It’s hard to believe it, but we’ve already had our 2018 Chevy Suburban for a year, so I figured I’d give it a one year review blog. TL;DR — we love it!
RELATED: FULL REVIEW: HOW THE HELL DO YOU GO FROM DRIVING A BMW 335I TO A 2018 CHEVY SUBURBAN
The Good Stuff
It Drives Awesome
Everything is subjective, but I really like how the Suburban drives, which is strangely very BMW like! If BMW ever wanted to make a super-sized North American only market SUV called the “X9” while partnering with either GM or Ford, the Suburban would be a great starting place. The Suburban already has a 50/50 weight distribution which is where its balanced feel comes from, it already feels smaller to drive than it is, the Magnetic Ride Control suspension is amazing and is already used in very high-end and even exotic cars, and the steering is already on-point with a great feel and weighting that gives you a lot of confidence while driving, unlike a lot of the newer BMWs! Just add in the BMW twin-turbo V8 mill, the world standard ZF8HP automatic transmission, and the independent rear suspension coming on the next-gen SUVs, and you’re pretty much there as far as the overall drive goes.
It was sad to leave the BMW brand and that the X7 just wasn’t what we needed, but it hasn’t felt like I’ve needed to go all that far. That’s how good the Suburban is.
5.3L + 3.42 + Mag Ride = Sweetness
The standard 5.3L 355hp V8 with the optional 3.42 axle ratio in the Max Towing package is the sweet spot in the lineup that helps the truck feel lighter on its feet and more than able to keep up in traffic and then some, while saving you the expense of the bigger 6.2L V8 and technically being required to put premium fuel in. If you don’t care about 0-60 in 7ish seconds versus around 8 then feel free to skip, but my brain is hard-wired to be happy with any vehicle that can hit 60 mph around this range or better, and not once have I ever felt like it hasn’t been enough and that I should have sprung for the 6.2, even fully loaded.
It turns out that the shorter 3.42 axle ratio is greater than the 10% paper difference suggested versus the standard 3.08 gearing. They’re just short enough to have the engine ‘on-cam’ on the highway at 70 mph and in a significantly meatier part of the engine’s torque curve, whereas the 3.08 gears land just below that. Based on GM’s published power curve for the L83 engine, you have about 200hp available in top gear at 70 mph and 1750 rpm with the 3.42 gearing, versus only about 160hp available at the same speed with the 3.08 gearing and 1550rpm, a 25% difference! It’s hard to believe that only 200rpm more in cruise can make that much of a difference, but it does. That’s huge for going up highway grades while remaining in top gear, lets the engine better utilize the V-4 cylinder shutoff mode for better efficiency, and the shorter gearing is also more responsive around town and while pulling out of slower 2nd and 3rd gear corners. There’s literally no way to lose with the 3.42 gearing. They’re a win-win and a must-have option.
Combine the better responsiveness of the shorter optional gearing with the Magnetic Ride Control suspension on the LTZ/Premier trim trucks, and you really have a crisp handling and driving truck. I’ll stop short of saying that it feels “agile or “light on its feet”, but with the Mag Ride, there’s no nose diving during hard braking, and hardly any body roll in turns, all of which helps to keep my motion sickness prone family members from puking. If you’re not a former a—hole BMW driver that demands a vehicle actually turn well, and don’t have family members prone to motion sickness, you can probably save a big bundle of cash with an LT spec truck with the standard suspension.
The Ultimate Road Trip Machine
The Suburban is without a doubt the ultimate road trip machine. It’s supremely comfortable on the highway and rides great, you always have a commanding view of what’s going on, it has plenty of passing power when needed, and it’s super quiet with a physics defying lack of wind noise. It will get a no joke 23-24 mpg on straight highway runs, everybody has plenty of space in the cabin, our kids have never fought (hallelujah!) and we have all the room we need for whatever cargo we’ve needed to haul along with us. All of the windows from the 2nd row on back have very deep tints with excellent solar rejection, so there’s never any issues with the cabin becoming an oven, and the air-conditioning system is powerful and quiet. And last but not least, GM’s infotainment and navigation system works pretty darned good, and is easy to use. It’s just amazing.
We arrived in Virginia Beach early before we could check into our AirBnB, but no problem. We all just hung out in the lounge!
One of my favorite trips of the year, taking William all the way down to VIR (Virginia International Raceway) for Hyper Fest 2019!
Up in Shenandoah National Park over Memorial Day. We cruised the entire length of Skyline Drive from top to bottom.
On a Cub Scouts Camping trip with William.
On a week long trip to Virginia Beach this past summer with 5 humans plus a dog, we packed all of the luggage you’d need for said 5 humans for a week at the beach, plus two extra bags of bedding for the AirBnB rental, folding dog crate, folding dog fence, dog food, supplies, and toys, two boogie boards, folding 10x10 beach canopy, beach chairs, beach toys, camera bags, backpacks, folding “large wheel” beach wagon, and several bags of food. It all fit while only needing to fold down a single rear seat, leaving room for 6 passengers. We could have brought one more!
The photos below show the two-thirds side of the third row folded down just because it shows all of the stuff we brought better, but I actually figured out how to get all of this to fit with just the single right side seat folded.
I actually figured out how to get all of this to fit with just a single seat folded down in the 3rd row.
I’ve Never Been More Relaxed Driving
Nobody f—-ing “misses” a Suburban, and nobody in their right mind wants to f—- with one either, and I like that quite a bit at this point in my life.
As much as I loved blasting around in my beloved BMW 335i for years, I’m sad to say it got tiring driving the car. I could never relax driving it, not just because it’s a smaller car that nobody wanted to see especially with the top down, but because it was a target for all of people’s aggression. I literally could not go more than a day or two without some moron nearly running me off the road, either because they were Toyota driver style oblivious and just didn’t see the car, or deliberately because everybody wants to run a BMW 335i off the road if given the opportunity, “because BMW drivers are a—holes and deserve it”, right?
It’s been a bit more forgiving for my wife as a female 335i driver, but as a male 335i driver, you have to drive the car in a kill or be killed manner, or else. If we don’t drive “assertively”, people will go well out of their way to run us off the road, but we BMW drivers are the a—holes? I’m sorry but if you’re going well out of your way to run me off the road while I’m cruising along in my BMW, I’m not the a—hole, okay? Not once have I ever tried to intentionally run someone off the road, and I also use my turn signals properly every time, but yup, BMW drivers are the jerks. :)
I think that the human behavioral sciences folks could have a field day analyzing all of this, but at 42 I’ve long since grown out of the phase of life of wanting to compete or “race” or otherwise “play with” or do stupid things on the roadway around other cars. I’ve had 99 problems in my life already and just want to chill when I drive, and I can finally do that in the Suburban.
It Haulz Allz
This really needed to be its own section. The Suburban has enormous hauling capacity. There’s 39.3 cubic feet of cargo space with all three rows deployed, 76.7 cubic feet with the third row folded, and a whopping 121.7 cubic feet with second and third rows both folded. What’s more, there’s also an incredible 102 inches (8.5 feet) of bed length with second and third rows folded, which is longer than a long bed Chevy Silverado pickup truck at 98 inches, and way freaking longer than the “CCSB” (Crew Cab Short Bed) configurations that many truck owners are purchasing these days, at a mere 70 inches in length. You are limited somewhat by the high load floor of the Suburban, but other than that this thing is just a beast at hauling stuff.
The following is a sampling of what the Suburban has hauled for us just in the past year.
The Burb backed in unloading its latest ‘kill’ is a very common sighting at our house.
In addition to road tripping, the Suburban has hauled a few couches, leather chairs, ottomans, deck furniture pieces, and even bed frames. It’s also hauled several tons of replacement soil for landscaping repairs (not all at once), several tons of mulch (not all at once), a thousand pounds of landscaping stones for a new fire pit, and a 24’ extension ladder, in addition to hauling volumes of trash away from several home renovation projects, and so many other things that I’ve honestly lost track. If you routinely need to haul lots of cargo, but also need to routinely haul 5 or more people and a dog, sometimes at the same time, the Suburban is the perfect vehicle for you.
The Burb hauled this entire living room set, but not all at once, and from different locations. We’ve easily saved over a thousand dollars in delivery fees for furniture from various places just in the past year alone.
The Burb swallowed our new 70” TV and brought it home from Costco, no sweat.
It’s also really saved my —s for work by hauling this “erector set” around.
Bringing home a bunch of new deck furniture!
Hauling away a set of cabinets from our old kitchen. Our entire old kitchen cabinetry set was donated to the local Re-Store, which definitely took a few trips!
It also brought this 24-foot extension ladder home.
And a thousand pounds of landscaping stone for our new fire pit.
Our new fire pit is awesome, and actually put out enough heat to keep us warm!
Our Suburban’s biggest haul yet has been this Air Hockey table from Costco measuring 92” x 50” and weighing a freaking ton. It would not have laid flat without it sticking out of the bed in anything other than a long bed pickup truck, but the Suburban swallowed it whole, and its cargo area was exactly wide enough to accommodate the box.
Friends of ours lost a few trees on their property and now have a lifetime supply of firewood, and said to help ourselves! I had hoped to back the Burb down their property to the bottom of their hill where the big stacks of firewood are, but they weren’t actually there when we swung by and didn’t want to drive on their grass without asking first. Also, I’m not even sure if I could have made it.
And of course, a big load of firewood from some friends who lost a few trees and have basically an unlimited supply of firewood. There are three rows of firewood stacked in the back, and still room for two rows of passengers.
One thing the Suburban really can’t do is go off-road. The chin spoiler helps improve fuel mileage by about 1 mpg on the highway, but it totally kills the approach angle. The maximum break-over angle of a Suburban is also a big LOL. Just no. It’s funny, but as capable as the Suburban is, most crossover SUVs are more adept off-road simply because of better approach and break-over angles. I probably could have backed down their hill, but would have had to back up it also, to avoid the highly likely possibility of getting hung up on or ripping off the chin spoiler. Didn’t want to chance it, so we just three-person relayed all of this up the hill and into the back of the Suburban, and that counted as our workout for the day! :)
May 2020 Update
My son and I got new mountain bikes, so the Suburban’s latest trick is hauling all of our bikes around. I was dreading having to pickup a bike rack of some sort because of the expense, only to realize I didn’t even need to. Although there’s only three bikes in the back here (my wife doesn’t ride), it can no joke haul 4 bikes in the back with the 3rd row of seats folded down separated by furniture pads, and still has plenty of room for 4 people and a dog.
The Less Than Good
True grips are few and far between, but in the interest of full objectivity, here are a few.
Nitpicks
The enhanced 8” driver information display is gorgeous and even has accurate shadowing rendered for the digitally rendered quad analog gauges, but ends up wasting a lot of space and potential because GM largely just re-used the information screens from the lower-tier clusters without giving everything the proper reworking that it needed. A lot of screens could easily be combined, and there’s no single screen that shows everything you might want. This leads to a lot of pointless flipping and becomes somewhat of a distraction, and so is a bit of a let down.
The adaptive cruise works well, but is far too aggressive at trying to recover speed than it ever needs to be. Dude, it’s a Suburban — it’s okay if it takes a few seconds longer to get back to the set speed. GM probably has a one-size fits most type of calibration, but misses the mark here with totally unnecessary multi-gear kickdowns and a roaring engine just to get back to 75 mph from 65.
I’ve never really figured out the exterior lighting modes, and the manual is vague all around. By default they just stay on Auto and do their thing, but that’s not the problem. The issue is that the Auto lights tend to switch on pretty aggressively and especially in high contrast situations with a lot of glare. When it does this, it also dims the interior instrument and navigation lighting down to about nothing, which is precisely when you still need them to be at full brightness. They almost become unreadable, which is a major pain if you’re in the middle of using the navigation screen. Turning the exterior light control to off then kills all the exterior lights including the daytime running lights, which are precisely the lights you want left ON in high-contrast roadway lighting conditions. This also doesn’t reset the interior lighting back to normal daytime levels, and the interior lighting adjustment dial doesn’t have a notch to manually reset interior instrument lighting back to full brightness, as many cars do. This just doesn’t make any sense. Luckily this condition doesn’t last for more than about a minute when it happens, and often it’s less than that.
None of these are huge deals — just various annoyances and things that clearly weren’t thought through quite as well as they should have been. No car is perfect.
Nature Of the Beast Issues
The following could be genuine complaints, but because I did my homework before buying (for 2 years!) expectations were properly set and there were no surprises.
Expect about 12-14 mpg during local driving, but at least it only needs regular grade fuel. You don’t want to buy one of these trucks unless you know you’re going to need and use it.
Yes, the high load floor from the truck frame and live rear axle does inhibit the loading of some bulkier items compared to a minivan. It’s only been an issue for me once, but what I was loading was so oddly shaped that I’m not even sure it would have fit in a minivan, either. Keep a tool kit handy so that you can do partial tear downs of bulkier items before loading.
Body on frame trucks do have more or “different” vibrations over the road than the unibody cars and SUVs that many are used to. While this generation of “K2xx” GM trucks have been problematic here, it was really only an issue on 2015-2016 model year Suburbans, especially with 22” wheels. My 2018 definitely makes more noises than your typical unibody vehicle, but again no complaints from anyone, it’s just something that will take a little getting used to. It was nice and quiet on the highway except at 63 mph, and swapping out the factory Bridgestone tires for Michelins resolved what few issues there were. Definitely take any of these trucks for a thorough test drive before buying, especially up to full highway speed.
Lastly, since this is a truck based SUV, it also has a truck based 4WD system, which is much more rugged and capable than the AWD systems in many crossover SUVs. Leaving the 4WD system engaged on dry pavement can damage the drivetrain. It does have an Auto mode that you can use and leave on when there’s a mix of slippery and dry conditions, but it’s noisier and less efficient. The 4WD system is really intended to be left in 2WD mode in normal conditions. I know this is a big step for a lot of people, but you’ll actually need to be conscious and think about something while driving, and if perhaps you should be in one 4WD mode or the other. God help us all if you’re piloting a 6000 pound SUV, but aren’t really “there”.
See here: https://www.gmc.com/gmc-life/how-to/when-to-use-four-wheel-drive
Part of my job as an engineer is to find faults and deficiencies in new products before they find their ways to customers. Although I don’t work in the automotive industry, it’s actually a huge compliment if the biggest fault I can find in a truck with a $74,000 MSRP is wasted space and potential in an optional display, and some relatively minor human factors engineering grievances.
Believe me, I’ve had far bigger complaints in some other vehicles I’ve owned, including a Honda and a Toyota, neither of which I could stand to drive after a year because they were so freaking awful and poorly thought out in various ways. The Suburban is nothing of the sort, and is an overall very well engineered and thought out product.
Snow
On the topic of snow, we didn’t get a whole lot of snow in the D.C. area last year, but the one time we got a good couple of inches of snow, I took the Burb out at night when no one was really on the roads just to see how it handled. I put it in 4HI mode, which is only for “off pavement” or slippery conditions and NOT dry pavement ever, and it was a beast. The chin spoiler still gives you 8” of clearance, but pull that off and put a set of winter tires on, and these things are basically unstoppable.
A big part of the Suburban’s prowess in slippery conditions is from its G80 auto-locking rear differential, which gives it an incredible amount of traction even in 2WD mode. When roads are merely wet or slushy, you can leave it in 2WD mode and you’ll still have plenty of traction. (Click here for a cool video).
Everybody asks about two things — fuel mileage and parking — so I’ll address these in the next two sections below.
About Parking
Here’s the litmus test. If you already have a mid to large-sized SUV or a minivan, and you don’t have long scrapes down the side of it, you’re going to be just fine. If you do have long scrapes down the side of your vehicle, then maybe buying a nearly 20 foot long vehicle isn’t such a good idea, not just for your own sake, but for whomever or whatever you might end up hitting to cause more of those long scrapes!
If you don’t have long scrapes down the side of your vehicle, but maybe you’ve hopped a few curbs and scraped up wheels, pay close attention. You’ll need to make some adjustments, or else these minor things can and will escalate to the big long scrapes!
Believe me when I say that it’s just better, overall easier, and safer for all involved if you back this thing into a parking space most of the time.
Unless you’re going to need to load a significant amount of cargo into the rear, or the parking lot is big enough to make head in parking doable, like at Costco or many grocery stores, just back in. It’s better, easier, and safer for everyone.
You wouldn’t believe how sharply these things can turn. They’re far more maneuverable in crammed parking lots than you’d think possible. That said, they are still nearly 20 feet long, so here’s what to expect.
Head-In Parking is usually a 3-point maneuver
Pulling head into a parking space is easy when the outside parking space isn’t occupied. You can just let the nose of the truck swing wide through the outside space, and then you can pull straight in. As tight as the Suburban turns, it’s still really long, and it’s generally not possible to pull head into a parking space with another vehicle parked in the space to the outside in a single maneuver, as the nose will smash into the outside car.
For head in parking when the outside adjacent space is occupied, you’re generally looking at a 3-point turn. Go about a full parking space past your intended space while going full lock on the steering, turning in to complete the first third of the turn. Then go opposite lock and reverse while getting the next third of the turn, and then you should be able to pull into the space while completing the last bit of the turn without the Suburban’s large ass hanging out to the side at a weird angle. Even people with regular length SUVs and minivans ought to be doing this from time to time, but get lazy and don’t, and this is how they end up with long scrapes down the sides of their vehicles!!! This is NOT a vehicle you want to half-ass your parking maneuvers with.
Reverse-In Parking is Usually just a 2-point Maneuver
To reverse in, start from the same side as the intended parking space if possible (so if the parking space is on your left, you’ll want to dive to the opposite side of the parking lane first), and then go full lock on the steering turning away from the parking space while pulling about two parking spaces beyond. Remember, this is a much longer vehicle than most, and you need the tail of your Burb lined up to enter the spot. Now you should be able to reverse straight in while going opposite lock on steering. The combination of the backup camera, which is excellent, and the auto tilt-down on the side view mirrors giving you a clear look at the parking space lines and how well aligned you are, makes this a piece of cake and usually only a 2-point turn.
Why Reversing In Is Better
The reason why reversing into a parking space is generally easier is because the front wheels that steer remain in the clear the whole time. Once the front wheels are buried between two cars while head in parking, you’re extremely limited on steering angles and overall maneuverability. This is why you can usually back into a space in a quick 2-point maneuver, whereas head-in parking usually requires a 3-point. You can keep the steering at the bump stops half way into a space while reversing in, whereas with head-in parking you need to be pretty much lined up already as soon as the nose is between two cars. That forces you to complete the required turn in less space, hence needing an extra point for your turn.
If you think head-in parking is going to be “easier”, you’ll probably change your mind the first few times you try reversing out a nearly 20-foot long truck with limited maneuverability due to the front wheels being buried deep in your parking space, and limited visibility behind you for both other cars and pedestrians. The camera is great, but not as good as your own two eyes. It’s far easier and safer to be able to pull out of a parking space going forwards rather than reversing.
Plus, when you back in with a grassy area behind you, you can let the Suburban’s long ass hang out over the curb, and you’ll effectively consume less of the parking space than the bozo next to you who half-assed their parking job with a car half the size. Backing in also means that the person exiting a parking space next to you only has to peer over your hood, as opposed to the much taller and tough to see through rear glass, so it’s safer and easier for others to egress from a parking space next to you if you back in as well.
Plan Your Ingress For Your Egress
This is one of those vehicles where you really ought to think about how you’re going to get out of a spot before you enter it. The best example is if you need to make a sharp turn when exiting a parking space in a garage. Whichever direction you need to turn in, make sure there’s not a large structural support column for the garage in the front of your space and in the direction you need to turn in, as it will cut into your turning radius and make exiting your space a total pain. Been there, done that, and had to have my family members get out and spot me because it was that close, and the garage was really tight. Choose another spot if possible. In that case it wasn’t because it was literally the last space in the garage, but we made it.
Watch Out For Parking Garage Clearance
YES! You need to start paying attention to the maximum vehicle heights for parking garages. The Suburban is 74.4” tall, or just round up to 6’-3”. I don’t like going into garages that are any less than 6’-6” tall. MOST of the time you’ll have enough clearance, but once in awhile you won’t, which is why you need to pay attention at all times! There’s definitely some shorter garages that you can NOT park in with one of these, and you definitely don’t want to find out the hard way!
It’s not just the vertical clearance either, but also the sharp turns and narrow ramps that can really be problematic, and are tougher to gauge.
It’s a freaking miracle that I made it out of this garage without anything more than a little curb rash on the right front wheel. There’s a reason why there was no surcharge for oversized vehicles in this parking garage, because they don’t actually fit! LOL! So it’s not just vertical clearance that matters, but also the tight and narrow turns. Umm, we won’t be parking in this garage again, and my wife is fired from SpotHero. :)
SQUARE OFF YOUR TURNS
Remember, this is a nearly 20 foot long vehicle. What you can get away with in a Toyota Corolla or even many SUV’s, you can’t in one of these. When you pull out onto the street with a 90 degree turn, you need to pull out a little bit further, and then turn a little bit more sharply to avoid hopping curbs. In general, you need to turn a little bit later and then a little more sharply during slow speed maneuvers (or as late as possible and then as sharply as possible in tight garages), as you need to let the extra six feet of vehicle behind you that you’re not used to, clear an obstacle such as a curb or another car before you start cutting your turn.
When you’re in a tight spot, you also need to be looking behind you on the inside of your turn in addition to looking in front of you, to make sure the back half of your vehicle is clearing any obstacles!
There are many, many, many vehicles in the D.C. area that have long scrapes down their sides because their drivers failed to do this, even with far smaller vehicles. You definitely need to pay the <bleep> attention when maneuvering a large vehicle in a tight space like this.
For Kids used To Minivan Doors
If you’re worried about your kids that are used to sliding minivan doors flinging their doors and smashing the cars next to you, well, that’s going to be a problem with any vehicle, and not just a Suburban. As long as you park centered in a reasonably sized parking space and the idiots adjacent to you are also reasonably well parked, you’ll always have enough space to open the doors “one notch” and get out. The doors opened one notch is going to be plenty for most people, and especially for kids. Just be sure to remind them before getting out. And come on, paying attention to surroundings and not slamming into other people’s thing is kinda a life skill anyway!! They’ll be fine with proper guidance!
Don’t Worry, YOU’ll BE FINE TOO
As long as you meet the litmus test above and have only merely been guilty of hopping some curbs or perhaps scuffed a few wheels, you can do this. If you’re the long scrapes down the side of the vehicle type, just don’t. Do us all a favor and just stick with your beat to sh*t Toyotas.
Debbie can park it!
My “car brain” has no problems driving whatever I need to. I hadn’t driven a stick-shift car in 12 years, but rented a little turbodiesel Renault Clio while we were in Italy with a 5-speed manual, and it was like I’d never stopped driving a stick. There was never any question of if I could drive a Suburban, but rather of just how big of a pain it might be to drive and park one of these in the crammed D.C. suburbs. It wasn’t until I really started looking for them that I realized just how many of these full-sized GM SUVs are on the road of all generations, driven by both men and women, plenty of which don’t have backup or 360 degree cameras, or even “self-parking” systems, but are pristine with no scrapes on them at all! Reality check. If these things were really that bad to drive and park, would sooo many people be driving them? No.
Yes, it’s an adjustment, and yes it can be a little intimidating at first, but trust me you’ll be fine. If you’re worried, just find an open parking lot to practice in as soon as you bring one home, and your brain will very quickly re-calibrate itself. I don’t even really have to think about parking anymore, and just do it.
About Fuel Economy
Awwww, a puuuuuppppy!!!! Lol
The bottom line is that if you find yourself in a place in life where you’re routinely hauling around 5 or more people, and if you have a dog, and if you’re an active family that goes places and does things, and if you sometimes have one or two more along with you as well, and if you have a home and property that you’re doing a lot of renovations on and are constantly needing to haul things for, and if you’re often needing to haul both people and piles of cargo or gear at the same time, it’s pretty much one of these or a minivan. And a minivan won’t typically haul bulky or larger cargo while also hauling three rows of people, so that can definitely help narrow it down!
A legit 24 mpg straight highway absolutely fully loaded.
20.5 mpg combined on an 880 total mile road trip.
23-24 mpg on straight highway runs absolutely loaded to the max with two vehicles worth of people and stuff is actually pretty freaking good, and you’re still usually looking at just over 20 mpg for full road-trip combined fuel mileage including all local driving. If you’re to the point where you’d have to take two cars everywhere, two separate vehicles would both have to be getting 48 mpg highway and 40 mpg combined each to match this, so that’s pretty efficient.
One fully loaded Chevy Suburban is as efficient as two Toyota RAV4 Hybrids. These are efficient vehicles within the proper context.
While the highway efficiency can be considered impressive, 16 mpg combined and 14 mpg city can be a little tough to swallow. The Suburban will definitely be doing a lot of that, as the (revised) EPA mileage estimates more or less match up with reality. You have to make these trucks work for you to really make sense. According to the EPA, my Suburban cost me about $500 more to drive over the past year than the Chevy Traverse that I almost bought. It’s easily paid its own fuel bill many times over in terms of the delivery services we haven’t had to pay for, trucks or vans that we haven’t had to rent, and from the convenience of being able to haul everything or everyone in one trip or with a single vehicle rather than multiple, saving both time and fuel.
You don’t buy a Suburban because fuel consumption is your top priority. You buy one because you’re an active family like us that goes places and does things, because you need to haul things, and because you need the capability that lesser vehicles don’t offer. Yes, minivans and large crossover SUVs are more fuel efficient, but have less capability. As soon as you start talking about bulky cargo like dog crates and fences, folding cots for glamping, and large coolers and other bulky items, you have to start folding seats down and compromising on passenger space in a minivan, whereas you can keep using all rows of seating completely with a Suburban.
And do you know how many minivans and even mid-sized SUVs I’ve seen with completely bottomed out suspensions that look like their wheels are going to fall off? The Suburban is a truck based vehicle with an actual frame. It’s designed to haul stuff, and tow too. In the photos below, there’s 1400 pounds of replacement soil loaded into it. There’s hardly any suspension squat due to the air-leveling suspension, and when driving it home it barely felt like anything was there at all. Nice.
If you can’t make one of these things work for you like that, there might be better options. My truck most definitely works for me.
We Love Our Burb
Swish! The Suburban has been a slam dunk for us.
Buying a car is always tough and pretty nerve wracking. The automotive press is completely bought out which can lead to ridiculously biased and misleading reviews, plenty of things can mask themselves on short test drives that are usually only a few miles long, and I’ve ended up buying some cars in the past that I’ve ended up hating as a result. Vehicles tend to be long-term investments for us, so we try to get things exactly right. You can tell after a year if something is going to be a “keeper” or not, and the Suburban is definitely one of the big winners.
“The poor man always pays twice!” I was worried that if I didn’t buy a Suburban, I’d just end up kicking myself, and sure enough there have been more than a few occasions over the past year where we’ve managed to fill this baby up completely with gear and people and stuff that a lesser vehicle wouldn’t have been able to swallow. Even Debbie — who swore up and down that I was crazy and that we’d “never need anything this big”, and who came home from the Chevy dealership all pouty faced because it wasn’t an X7 — has really come to appreciate everything our Suburban has been able to do for her that an X7 could only dream of.
Near Misses
As for the BMW X7, we didn’t get to see one until after we had already bought our Suburban. Cargo space numbers and online photos don’t process for Debbie, but as soon as she saw it in person she knew it hadn’t a prayer. The gap between the second row captain’s chairs is so tiny that even our 20 pound mini Goldendoodle wouldn’t have been able to hang out there. And while the third row of seats are more adult-sized, there’s virtually no cargo space left at all at less than 10 cubic feet. By the time you fill an X7 up with six passengers and a dog, there’s no room left for anything else, whereas you can still bring half of your house with you with a Suburban.
Vehicles like the X7 and the Mercedes GLS aren’t at all designed to do what the Suburban can do. They’re designed to haul a regular-sized family around, for taking friends out to a swanky dinner in the city when you don’t need any cargo space except for your leftovers, and for impressing professional and business clients, and that’s it. Nobody in their right mind is going to be loading over a thousand pounds of mulch or landscaping stones into one of these. These things are clearly built to impress and coddle, and not to do actual work.
The most shocking thing about seeing the X7 wasn’t the X7 itself, but rather seeing Annamarie Pistone, who had sold us both of our BMWs down at Passport BMW years ago, sitting in the office right behind the X7 at Rockville BMW! It was short-lived and she was only there for a few months, but we just happened to catch her and it was nice to see her again. Annamarie is the only “good” car salesperson I’ve ever had!
The Kia Telluride has also come out and looks really nice, but it’s a competitor for the Chevy Traverse and Volkswagen Atlas, and definitely not a Suburban replacement or alternative, either. The only thing like the Suburban on the road is the Ford Expedition Max, but the shockingly inadequate cargo space for even 5 people without starting to fold down the third row of seating in the Expedition Max was an instant disqualifier for us. Reviews that state that the Expedition Max has “similar” or “matching” cargo space to the Suburban, of which there are many, are just flat out lying.
I’m not surprised that the Chevy Suburban and all of its Tahoe and Yukon / Yukon XL platform mates continue to outsell the much newer Ford Expedition by a 3-to-1 margin even in the GM platform’s last year, and excluding all of the Escalades. Pardon the pun, but Ford really missed the boat, and since it has to do with hard points in their design, they’ll never be able to fix it in a refresh. I’m not sure what Ford was thinking designing a vehicle with enough space for 7-8 people, but not even enough cargo space for 5.
If I Had To Do It All Over Again
If I had to do it all over again, there’s a couple of things I would change.
First, I’m still not overly crazy about the Pepperdust Metallic exterior color, but when you’re trying to find a really good deal on a closeout “on the lot” 2018 model as the 2019’s are rolling in and you want very specific features, you have to be flexible somewhere, and exterior color ended up being it. It hides dirt and grime well, and it’s a lighter color so stays much cooler in the sun and will never be mistaken for an UberXL. I much prefer the looks of the pearl and cream colors, and the dark blue looks stunning. I do get a bit jealous when I see them, but the Pepperdust is okay — it’s just not a very exciting color.
A near twin spotted at Costco — 22” vs 20” wheels.
I’d also skip the 22” dubs. They look cool, but are more trouble than they’re worth, and contribute to a lot of the body noises and vibrations, since having been minimized by swapping to Michelin tires. I had actually intended to buy an identical model with the 20” wheels like the above instead, but it had just been sold the day before. The problem is that most Suburban LTZ/Premiers already come with 22” wheels from the factory, so it can actually be tough to find one with only the 20” wheels. If you’re getting a GMC Yukon Denali or a Cadillac Escalade, then yeah you “need” the 22’s as it completes the look. Denalis and Sclades look a bit barren with the 20” wheels, but the lowly Chevy looks just fine.
No Sun & Entertainment package in ours (moonroof and flip-down TV screens). Nobody has ever missed not having a moonroof, it cuts down on the potential for body vibration issues and leaks being parked outside 24/7, and our kids are more than happy to stare at their iPads all day. We’d just assume have a bit more vertical headroom for some taller family members, so no regrets not getting this stuff.
Last Call for the “K2xx” GM SUVs
The next generation Chevy Tahoe
The new “T1xx” generation of GM’s large SUVs based on the latest Silverado pickup trucks are due as early as the Spring of 2020 as 2021 models, so now is the last call for these outgoing “K2xx” models. I’m sure the new trucks will all be great (eventually), and they’re supposed to have independent rear suspensions with a bit better ride as well. Good luck.
I’d never buy a first year model of a brand new vehicle from any manufacturer, including from Toyota, and especially not from GM. Yeah. No! The best vehicles to buy have always been at least third year models after all of the kinks are ironed out and major issues addresses, and especially the mid-cycle refresh models with all of the planned feature and styling upgrades having been made. Some people just love having the latest sheet metal, but I need my vehicles to work for me and not become yet another “problem child”, so no thanks.
The worst car I’ve ever owned as far as overall quality and reliability was a second year model that I thought would be safe enough. It had a never ending stream of recalls, had to have the transmission replaced, was terrible to drive and had the most atrocious road manners and behavior, and it even left me stranded in my driveway once and had to get towed — and it was a Toyota! Go figure. I’m certainly not knocking GM or Chevy as it’s just the nature of buying a brand spanking new vehicle in its first year of production, but I’m sure Chevy will get their new generation of SUVs right by about the 2023 model year!
The End
That’s it! I hope you enjoyed this blog, the photos and the story, and find them useful. We love our Suburban and it’s definitely been the 100% correct choice for my family. They drive, handle, and perform well, are far easier to drive and park than you’d ever expect, are more fuel efficient than ever before, pretty darned reliable, and will haul 7 full-sized adults and your dog in comfort while also hauling all of your luggage and bulky cargo for a road trip. It’s also my first American built vehicle, and I’ve found it to be a very well engineered and well-rounded product of good overall quality. We couldn’t be happier with it, look forward to driving it for many more years to come, and know that it will be able to handle whatever life throws at us next.
STAY TUNED…
When you have a family that’s reached “critical mass” as ours has, one thing that happens is that it just becomes a major pain and prohibitively expensive to fly places for shorter duration trips. And do dogs really like getting shoved in crates and put into the bellies of aircraft, or having to get boarded? Nah bruh. We’ve all enjoyed traveling in our Suburban so much and have found it so pleasant to drive, that we have some true long-haul road trips planned that we’re very much looking forward to. So there will definitely be some Suburban road trip blogs in the future!
Our Second Honeymoon to Italy
As pressed for time as I tend to be on a day to day basis, I can’t not do a photography blog about our recent trip to Italy. By all means, check out the full photo albums, but here I just wanted to share the “wow” photos that I thought were the most interesting or beautiful.
As pressed for time as I tend to be on a day to day basis, I can’t not do a photography blog about our recent trip to Italy. By all means, check out the full photo albums, but here I just wanted to share the “wow” photos that I thought were the most interesting or beautiful. I’m not going to comment on settings and gear used for each photo, because honestly these are all vacation mode “f/8 and be there” type photos for the most part, that aren’t going to be beyond the realm of even the latest iPhones. Any DSLR within the past 10 years and any dual camera smartphone (iPhone 7 and up) are going to be more than good enough to get you tons of great photos, so long as you understand the basics and know how to use them, which I’ll cover at the bottom.
Firenze
We took a redeye from Washington-Dulles to Florence via Brussels, Belgium and Brussels airlines, and luckily were able to rest up enough that we were able to walk around and enjoy the city after we landed. Of course you have to swing by the Duomo in Florence, which is spectacular.
Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and refers to a string of five ancient Meditteranean coastal cities along Italy’s western coast. We drove from Florence to our next hotel in La Spezia, and then took a local train that runs through Cinque Terre, since it’s not practical to access by car. Sadly, we drove right by Pisa and the famous leaning tower, but didn’t have time to stop, so we’ll have to do that on another trip someday. Cinque Terre was gorgeous and is definitely worth at least a full day stop.
Milano
I’ll be honest that we weren’t big on Milan. It’s too “modern”, when we strongly prefer the ancient towns and countrysides of Italy, but the shopping was great (for Debbie), and the Duomo was absolutely incredible. Be sure to check the bigger photo albums (Part 1) for many more interior photos, but like most things of this nature, you really just have to be there to experience it and take it all in, as even photos from a professional grade camera and lenses don’t do it justice. We went on a guided tour of the Milan Duomo, and can’t believe that it took 450 years to build. It’s incredible what they were able to build so long ago, but how do you put 450 years in perspective?
Lake Como
Lake Como is a place we’ll clearly have to visit again. It’s stunningly beautiful, but unfortunately we had bad weather the single full day we were there. That didn’t stop me from getting some great photos of the area the day we arrived, and then the morning we were leaving. Lake Como is a place that’s beautiful no matter the weather, and also incredibly quiet and peaceful, being far away from big cities. It was a great place to just unwind and relax, and enjoy the silence. We could easily spend a week here, enjoying all of the small towns and gardens, and might just do that on our next trip!
Verona
We made a quick pit stop in Verona while driving from Lake Como to Venice, and saw the Castelvecchio castle and bridge. I think the countrysides of Verona, ancient castles like this one, and possibly doing a winery tour is where it’s really at in this region.
Venezia
Venice was truly stunning, and the city itself is another UNESCO World Heritage site. The art and architecture, its history, and the fact that this was all built on marshland a thousand years ago was all incredible to see and experience. As one of our tour guides pointed out, forget about seeing Venice as a “romantic” city. Venice was all about power, prestige, wealth, and greed in its day, and anything they wanted that they couldn’t get, they’d pillage from others. Venice was the first true international financial center in the world, emerging in the 9th century and peaking around the 14th. By the time new sea routes opened up around the Cape of Good Hope with the Americas, and then heading east to Asia, Venice was so wealthy that it took another three centuries for it to decline and to finally be conquered during the Napoleonic wars.
The city today is mainly just a living and breathing museum, and a big tourist trap that’s also massively in debt, but imagining all of this a thousand years ago was another mind-bender. Venice is definitely a must-see place in Italy.
Gear
Dude, it’s Italy. It’s gorgeous. You just show up and you’re going to get amazing photos just from being in such a beautiful place. I could have taken the vast majority of these photos with the cheapest DSLR camera and kit lens, and nobody would have been able to tell any difference. Any APS-C class or larger sensor DSLR or mirrorless camera from the past 10 years, and I’d say any dual-camera smartphone such as the iPhone 7 or newer, are all more than good enough. So long as you understand the basics of timing, lighting, and composition, you’re going to get great photos.
Related Blog: THE SECRETS TO GETTING GREAT PHOTOS
We’ve come a long ways in nearly 20 years of digital cameras and photography. Early digital sensors left a lot be desired compared to film, had limited resolution, and typically awful dynamic ranges and highlight renditions. I strongly preferred the look of film to even my Nikon D80, which came out in 2006, but anything made within the past 10 years is more than good enough. The reason I’d suggest a dual-camera smartphone such as an iPhone 7 or newer, if that’s you’re preferred photography tool, is because you’ll actually be able to take a normal or short telephoto shot at a reasonable resolution. With a single wide-angle camera, you end up having to crop heavily for a normal to short telephoto shot, which typically leaves you with very little resolution leftover, and a technically poor photo. Italy deserves better.
Gear really doesn’t matter these days, when most everything is so competent. Far more important than photography gear on such a trip is keeping what you’ve got powered up. Especially if using a phone that’s also sucking down navigation data as you walk around unfamiliar towns while also taking photos, a good 10,000 to 20,000 mAh class portable recharger is going to be essential. You might need to recharge your phone completely two or three times in a day if it’s doing it all! You also need a good bag to keep your belongings secured. All of your amazing photos are going to be for naught if a pick pocketer manages to make with your stuff! ThinkTank makes a lot of good stuff designed with this in mind. My Spectral 10 bag worked brilliantly. It’s been discontinued by ThinkTank, but is still available at retailers like B&H. (I make $0 on affiliate links, as this is purely a personal blog and website.)
That said, I brought my full-frame Canon EOS RP mirrorless camera, the Canon EF 17-40L ultra-wide, Canon EF 24-105L mid-zoom, and the new Canon native RF mount 35mm f/1.8 IS macro lens, along with a small Canon 220EX flash. This stuff is all total overkill for vacation photography like this, but it’s my format of choice and what I’ve got. I brought a mid-zoom rather than a telephoto, as 105mm was going to be more than long enough for most photos, and the point of this trip was to relax and have a nice time, rather than to be constantly jockeying lenses.
The biggest thing that I gain with a full-frame camera for vacation style photos is the natural vignetting (darkening of corners) that it gives the photos at medium to large apertures. I love this and feel that it gives photos a more natural and organic look, that I’d have to spend many hours recreating in post-processing otherwise. In comparison, more modern APS-C cameras and lenses are designed with more “optical perfection” in mind with less of this, but tend to deliver a flatter and more “clinical” rendering as a result that just puts me to sleep. I noticed this while going through a bunch of my older travel photos, that as good as my APS-C Canon 7D Mark II camera was and still is, I strongly preferred the “look” off of my older full-frame Canon 5D Mark II. This is why I’ve gone back to full-frame with the Canon EOS RP, as I just prefer its look better, among other things.
That’s it! I hope you enjoyed all of my Italy photos.
Check out my dedicated Italy page below, or click on the individual albums themselves at the bottom. The “Highlight” album covers our full October 2019 trip, but if you’re a foodie or want to see more, definitely check out the bigger albums that are split into two parts.
