July 30th, 2014

While most people don’t start espousing knowledge and wisdom to the world at the age of 23, a free pass and a chance to share some reflections seem to be in order on my birthday.

A lesson I have been learning throughout these past few months has been to truly be patient in the midst of situations both medical and otherwise. If you’ve known me for a while you’ll know that being patient isn’t one my strong suits. When I was still a wee lad this manifested itself most obviously in the classroom. I would return home with report cards that contained mostly decent marks but with a slew of comments like “Paul is very enthusiastic about learning, but needs to raise his hand before speaking.” As I grew older I learned to not always blurt out the first thing that came to mind, but instead found myself internalizing frustration.

When this cancer journey began, one of the...

June 16th, 2014

Hello Friends,

If my lack of posts recently has been a concern to you, I want to assure you after sailing through a few storms, that journey is still on course and I am doing well. I had been in a weird funk recently, finding myself somewhere between anxious and apathetic, a restless I couldn’t shake. I felt like a school-child whose swinging his feet didn’t touch the ground and whose assigned work simply wasn’t captivating him.

Currently neither a student or an employee, the concept of not simply being defined by what I do had become itself strikingly apparent. And as the waves of life oscillated, the importance of a secure anchor revealed itself anew.

(Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Summer 2012)

I am an advocate of sailing in faith, strength, and confidence, but after captaining this journey for the last few months I’m convinced it is impossible to leave the safe harbor...

May 16th, 2014

This week I wanted to quickly highlight a few of my favorite things:

1

I’m definitely learning to deal with the chemotherapy side effects more effectively. It previously would take me about four days to feel back to normal, but last infusion session it only took three so I’m feeling good about that. Also, actively choosing to take control of my perspective has been invaluable as well.

2

As I alluded to in the previous entry, there was a creative project brewing and today I’m very happy to get to announce the birth of my podcast which is entitled “The Sound of Science.” You can listen to the first episode “It all Changed in A Flash” here.

I was at an event not too long ago hosted by Roman Mars, creator of “99% Invisible” a wonderful and creative radio show about architecture and design. He mentioned the fact that making radio can be a very solitary activity and...

April 23rd, 2014

Hello Friends! First off, I apologize for the lack of updates since my last post but I want to begin by assuring you that I’m doing well since my first chemotherapy treatment session. It was an interesting experience and one that I’ll try to better document the next time I go in (this Friday, April 25th). Essentially, I’m hooked up to this fancy little machine that drips a variety of fluids into my body at specified rates. The first few days after treatment weren’t so hot with nausea and fatigue being the main culprits of discomfort; fortunately though it mostly cleared up in about four days.

I know that I had previously promised to delve a little deeper into the science behind the drug regiment that I’m, on so I figured I’d touch a little on that today. ABVD is a chemotherapy regimen used in the first-line treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, and consists of the drugs...

It is the eve of my first chemotherapy session and there are a number of things running through my mind that I want to share with you dear reader:

For one, I have gone there (Washington D.C.) and am back again (in Arcadia) and had a wonderful trip. It was so enjoyable connecting with fellow science communicators and an honor to take the stage at National Geographic. One of my favorite aspects of the whole experience was seeing individuals really grow over a period of just a few days and truly excel in their particular communication style. The video of my talk is now online here and my deepest desire is that what I conveyed was hope and encouragement. While my talk was certainly about science, regeneration, and sea urchins, the real goal was hope and the concept of not simply accepting circumstances or trials but realizing that there is always a choice in perspective.

Getting to...

This last week was spent enjoying the company of my dearest sister Rosalind who was on her spring break from Berkeley. I’m pretty sure that being home was quite boring and slow compared to her fast-paced life in the Bay, but regardless I was happy to have her home.

The youngest member of our family is settling well into the Bump residence. While he still chooses to choke himself to death on his leash instead of walking at a reasonable pace, Hoku is improving and has mastered the command of “sit.” One thing at a time I suppose, good thing he’s adorable.

The medical update for this week is not anything huge. I had a port-a-cath put in for my upcoming chemotherapy treatment and surgery was rather curious as it was only local anesthesia, I was very much awake and talking as they made the incisions and inserted the device. Chemotherapy drugs are very toxic and irritating to the skin...

All the tests are finally complete! Some highlights include: the thickly-accented doctor who administered my pulmonary function test, the echocardiogram which made me feel like I was getting a ultrasound for a baby, the bone marrow biopsy which felt like constantly hip-checking a brick wall, and the CT/PET scan in which made me radioactive! Points for anyone who can link the title of this blog post and the last word of the previous sentence. Let’s just say I was humming some very amusing lyrics to myself as a very kind technician injected radioactive fluorine-18 deoxyglucose into my body.

The results of all of these tests at this point are all quite positive. We are still waiting for the complete analysis of the bone marrow biopsy, but at this point they’re still leaving me at Stage IIa. The PET scan confirmed this staging, showing that the cancer has extensively penetrated around my...

Another week has come and gone, and it looks like we are getting closer to some answers! I met with my onocologist, Dr. Daphne Stewart, last Thursday and she was really quite wonderful and I feel confident in her ability to help me. So this week and the next consist of a large number of tests to get a more complete picture of the disease. For those of you keeping score at home I’m currently a stage IIa which means that the Hodgkin’s lymphoma is in 2 or more groups of lymph nodes, in my case the first CT-scan detected abnormalities in my neck and chest. The “a” refers to the fact that my lymphoma, at least for the moment, is asymptomatic.

Before getting into the new tests ahead, the results of the blood tests are in and as predicted, not everything is normal. The number of white blood cells, platelets, and neutrophils were all high and the tests for c-reactive protein and lactate...

So here we are one week later, not too much has changed. For better or worse there has been a bunch of lovely insurance red-tape that we’ve been wading through. I’ve definitely gotten impatient at times, but still remaining patient and trusting that everything will work out has certainly been stretching.

The medical update so far is that I’ve been to see a primary care doctor, had a few blood tests, and am now lined up to see an oncologist (cancer doctor) this coming Thursday. In regards to blood tests, being the curious scientist that I am, I wanted to learn more about the tests they were doing and why! Also, as someone who is passionate about science communication I couldn’t turn down this opportunity with a captive audience.

So there are a variety of tests that can be performed when your blood is drawn, but I’ll specifically be touching on the ones related to lymphoma. First a...

As a freshly minted graduate from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with my Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology I was ready to conquer the world. I had finished up my undergraduate career rather successfully if I might say so myself, graduating with Honors after completing an original research project, speaking at a TEDx event, and having interviews at some of the top graduate schools in my field.

That world would soon be turned upside down.

Preparing for a research trip with newly secured support from National Geographic to travel to American Samoa to study coral reef thermal tolerance, I figured it might be wise to see a doctor before I left. The checkup was going well and I was given a clean bill of health until I mentioned I had felt some very small bumps on my neck. The doctor took a look and wasn’t very sure what they were, but decided it would be prudent to have a CAT-scan...