Sawatdee

Matt wrote this post when he was in the hospital in CCU on a vent.  It was still in draft format but he told me that he was going to post it.  The end was a bit muffled but I left it as is. I wish I had gotten to this a lot sooner than…

I was in the doctor’s office today getting prepared for a simple procedure that 99% percent of you will never have to get or even worry about in your life. The last time I saw this doc was a year ago where he performed the same procedure on me that he did today. The doc…

Hobbies are such an important past time that keep me busy to survive this thing called life, so I am sure it helps most of you. I am always looking for something new to get into and crave my attention. Something to just east my mind. Dripping candles has something that has always caught my…

I guess that I am really lost in my life right now. Maybe not lost but frustrated in life. Nothing is going my way. Everything I have been planning for in my future has to be re-arranged or put on hiatus because what has been going on. I feel like nothing I do is the…

After a fun, banjo filled, bass thumping, rain pouring, mud stomping, and just a straight up hoe down weekend, I was forced into going to see some no named band called Phish. Honestly, I was not planning on going to see any Phish shows this summer. I am kind of over the whole Phishing thing…

Monday April 24 Daren and I got off of the train and were bombarded with native Mexicans trying to give us a ride to the nearest hotel or the nearest lake. We were way overwhelmed at first because one we were drunk and that was the only reason. We had to sit down and get…

Monday April 24 Here was the next part of our excursion. We were about to hop on a train for nine hours weaving in and out of a canyon and tunnels. Chepe was the name of the train on the railway of Mexico. The train left Los Mochis at 6 in the morning to our…

I have decided to break up my Mexico trip into three different parts. There will be two posts of more dialogue of me writing on what we did on our trip. One of the posts is entirely video and picture clips of our amazing train ride. There are going to be many pictures and videos…

Over the past two weeks I have gone to see the band Furthur five different times. I have seen them in New York four times at two different venues and one time in Philadelphia. Furthur consists of two original members of the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, and they re-live the Grateful Dead…

On a whim, I decided to surprise a special lady, Ms. Anna Cunningham, on her trip to Jamaica. A couple months ago Anna was invited to a wedding at Sandals Jamaica and I was also invited to come along. At the time, I knew that I was getting chemo the week before the trip, so…

Repairman Jack is the main character in a set of books by an author named F. Paul Wilson that I have recently been reading. Jack describes himself as a fix-it man. People come to him to get their problems fixed. He makes it clear that he is not a private investigator and does not do…

This is chemo!!!  Apparently this stuff is called the red liquid of death or something like that.  Now, the scary part of this is that this stuff turns your urine RED.  I am fine when it is going into my vein, but when I see my urine red is when I start to get sick…

One year ago, I was coming to terms with being diagnosed with this unbelievably rare form of cancer at age 24.  I had to leave my girlfriend in Thailand, leave one of my favorite places that I have ever been to, and end my job abroad.  I literally had to stop my life and now…

I just purchased four sets of Furthur tickets to four different shows.  A set of tickets cost about 150 bucks and all the shows are in March.  March is two months away.  Now, for the normal person two months is nothing.  That will be here in no time.  For me, I have no idea what…

So the last two entries I have written have been based on bad news.  I want to update everyone on what is going on in my life and what I have been dealing with, though they have been necessary, I figured I would change it up with this entry. At the hospital, I had the…

Shivering in the middle of the night in my bed was a sure sign of something wrong.  I was laying in bed trying to figure out the reason why I was so warm sleeping the night before and now I was shivering.  It took me about a quivering hour to realize that my head was…

I know that this title is corny and very cliche, but I thought it best describes the month of November for me.  November was probably the second worst month I have been through since being diagnosed with cancer.  I was feeling so good before November started, its scary how things change so quickly and how…

This is a post that I started writing when I finished my last treatment in the beginning of June. I did not want to delete it, so I am going to post it instead. I have been four weeks out of my last treatment.  In the past, four weeks I have been recovering from the…

The whole damn Sayles Family on August 21, 2010.

I have read many stories about cancer patients beating cancer by doing the alternative medicine route instead of traditional medicine.  These patients start eating healthy and using other medicine to boost the immune system.  My mother and I have looked into alternative medicines for my illness.  The first thing we did was go to a…

I am sure most of you have heard the phrase, “I got the case of the Mondays.”  Well today Monday June 28th was a pretty awful Monday.  There are many factors that contributed to this awful Monday that I will explain.  The past week and a half I have been on a nice vacation.  It…

While I was in Lopburi hanging with the monkeys, a national geographic camera crew was in the area and filming the monkeys. I guess these guys saw that my glasses got stolen and that the monkeys were crawling all over me and liked that. They interviewed me and asked some questions about the whole situation.…

I have recently joined a Relay For Life team.  “The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease,” the Relay For Life mission…

I first want to apologize for not keeping the blog updated during this whole process.  Someone hacked the website and deleted everything on the website.  We got it back, but some newer blog entries were deleted.  The last blog entry had pictures of what I had to go through everyday and I now do not…

My surgeon told me that he was going to war with the tumor once he opened me up.  Now, my body will be going to war against the cancer.  On March 16th, I will be starting my radiation and chemotherapy.  Up to this point, I have been eating healthier and taking vitamins.  I was also…

Along with loving Grateful Dead music, I also love drinking beer.  In college, we did not drink the best or most expensive beer, but I loved every second of it.  I love Budweiser.  Such a simple, delicious, AMERICAN beer.  That was the best part about it.  The usual beer we would “spring” for would be…

What can I say, I absolutely LOVE Grateful Dead music. I cannot get enough of it.  I am constantly searching for more music to hear.  I think I will always need a fix of live Dead music every two weeks of my life.  I read about the new reincarnation of the Dead when I was…

Todd Sheaffer and Friends @ The Fountain House 02.13.2010 I have been back in the states for a month and two weeks.  I have been itching to go to a show.  My first show was going to be very important to me because I was just diagnosed with cancer.  I haven’t really done much since…

The title of this blog is the perfect description of what I am feeling right now.  I am sitting in between surgery and the start of my treatment.  I am nervous.  I just want to get started and start battling with this disease.  I sit here waiting not sure what is going on in my…

There are those places that everyone reads and knows about before traveling to Thailand like Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket.  Then there are those places that you hear about once you get to Thailand that you just have to go to like Pai and Koh Chang.  Every country have those.. well, secret places that very…

“Planet of the Apes” is a movie that comes to mind when you visit Lopburi, Thailand.  Humans are slaves to these beasts. Monkeys rule this town.  They roam around the town and even climb on the apartments and the phone wires.  On the last weekend of November, eight of us planned a trip to Lopburi,…

2009.11.27 – UPDATE on MOvember Stache It is getting close to the end of the month and the stache is coming in real nice.  I know that my stache will be the winner in a couple of days.  I have been bad at keeping an update on it so here is a pic about 3…

Moving to the other side of the world is great for so many different reasons and one of them is learning about the different cultures.  I work with a couple of Australian blokes and it is great because I get to learn about new words and customs.  For example, no American uses “bloke” to talk…

Anna and I had a lot planned for our October break.  We had The Gibbons Experience in Laos, Chiang Mai, and a small town in the middle of the mountains called Pai.  Chiang Mai has a special place in my heart.  In 2006, I studied abroad at a university called Payap University.  It was here…

Before I even got to Thailand, Annie told me about this thing called The Gibbons Experience.  What she told me was that: a) we would have to go to Lao and b) would be zip lining and living in tree houses for 3 days.  Zip lining in Lao!!!!  How safe could that be?  I told…

Apparently in Thailand we do not just celebrate the Thai holidays, but the Chinese holidays. The Half Year was on September 7th. We went out with Annie’s Thai friend Gift. There was going to be a parade through the downtown area of Suphanburi. For most of the parade it was normal. Off in the distance…

I was asked to go to my first Thai funeral the other day by my boss. I was curious as to what goes on during a Thai funeral, so I wanted to go. Wipa, a woman I work with, unfortunately lost her mother, so we were going for her. We got picked up and went…

Day 1 For all of you wondering the name of my school is Sa-Nguan Ying School. I teach in the english department in the school. I have been teaching for about 3 weeks now and it has been interesting to say the least. The students know most of the math work that I have been…

I landed in Thailand on Thursday morning and that Friday Anna and I were out heading down to Koh Samet. The beautiful island in the south. So Friday night Annie and I got to Bangkok and we planned on staying for that night. We stayed at this hotel called The Key. The place was gorgeous.…

3 O’clock Tuesday June 30th. My dad is driving me to the airport. (First, I know that this is a little late. I have been lazy and vacationing so bare with me.) I actually was a little nervous. Why? I thought to myself. It could have been leaving a perfectly great teaching job at Midland…