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Keep up the fight brother! Thank you for sharing with us, as in many of your exploits, you're an inspiration. God Bless.I decided I’ll swap the wheels from The Beast to the Tahoe and that way I wont be able to stand to look at it like that and I’ll start on it. I figured to wait until after all my cancer treatments are done anyway and today was my last chemo infusion and next Monday will be my last day of radiation at which point we are calling it a win. there is no way to ever know if bladder cancer is in complete remission because there still isnt anything that can scan for cancer in a bladder with any real certainty. The only way to check is to go inside with a camera and look, and biopsy as well as they can look for cancer cells in the urine. So every 3 months for the first year they’ll look, and once a year for the next 5 or more. I’ll have all summer off, and in September I’m scheduled for them to put me out when they go in for the first look. My urologist wants to be ready to remove anything just in case there is anything. So just to summarize, July I peed bloody urine and freaked out, went to urgent care. They ordered a bunch of tests, sent me to a urologist where he went inside with a camera and I watched as he found 5 tumors, once of which was right where my prostate touches the bladder and looked way different than the others. It turned out, that one was small cell bladder cancer, a super aggressive type that had them immediately decide to remove my bladder and prostate and they started talking about being up against the clock. They also determined that I was stage 3 due to this. I did a quick check- small cell bladder cancer by itself has a 40% survival rate over 5r years. And I also had that second type of bladder cancer- which further complicates things. Very little is known about the small cell- its only 2-3 % of bladder cancers detected. And so even less is known about having both types. I did my research, weighed the pros and cons of different options and asked my oncologist if trimodal bladder saving treatment was viable for me. That would be surgery to remove tumors, regular full 12 week chemo regimen followed by 4 weeks of light chemo every Monday with combined with radiation to the bladder and prostate which is done Monday-Fridays then follow up checkups if all goes well. This round is only a 20- minute radiation dose. The drive is the worst part of that. So I’m nearly at the end of treatment, the rest will be a cruise. Today was from 8:30 this morning to 5:30 and then the drive home. Mostly sitting around and visiting with my sister who I haven’t spent enough time with the last few years. Anyway, thank you people for being part of my world. A car forum might seem like a strange place to read about someone’s cancer but my build threads will be here forever, I’m not doling out personal info and this place has always been a cool and safe place for me for many years. And I want this journey I;m taking to be open and a part of who I am. My advice for anybody is to advocate for yourself especially when it comes to pushing to get cancer screening if you fall into any of the high-risk categories like I did. I smoked cigarettes for 40 years as well as drank heavily. If it’s caught early enough it can b e cured, unfortunately insurance companies in the US think its better to put out fires rather than prevent them so its not being caught until its stage 3-4 when its too late because they deny imaging or tests. Anyway, 5 more 20- minute radiation blasts and I’m done! If you read all the way through this long ass post , I thank you. I’m still here and will be for the foreseeable future so if there’s anything I can help with in regards to your GM SUV or pickup, let me know.
Thank you Sam! This morning is my last radiation treatment, and I’m done! My sister has been my chemo partner and drove me to nearly all my appointments ; she is going to be with me this morning and I’m ringing that damn bell so other cancer patients can see it can be beat. 2 bladder operations, 12 weeks of chemo, 4 weeks of daily radiation. And now I get the summer off. I will have to be checked via cam up my dick every 3 months for years and every time will be nerve wracking. I have changed how I eat and exercise as well as how hard I will allow myself to work. I’m 65 and need to realize I need to take it easy on this old body and not push too hard. Last summer I worked myself to exhaustion for months digging and building my pond. I lost about 40 lbs and wasn’t eating right, purposely trying to lose weight that way. Not a good idea. I believe I put my immune system at risk and that’s when the cancer invaded. I will keep myself strong and healthy and that shit wont have a chance.
Happy Birthday, and you're still a youngster, until there is at least a '7' starting your age number.
It’s not a locked up caliper. And it’s not the rear differential. It might be the transfer case. This has the NVG249 full time AWD TC with a viscous coupling that I know very little about. It’s weird and hard to diagnose without a lift. I need to make a list of things I’ve tried and the results because there’s been a lot of diagnosing. It seems if all 4 wheels are on the ground I was able to drive it forward for 10 feet easily but it was hard to back up those ten feet, and then I went forward about 5 feet it seemed even harder, and I had to give it a lot of bas just to back up that little bit, and it just stopped in place and wont move again. The first time, after having it towed home, I disconnected both drivelines and I was able to roll it back and forth in my driveway with 2 people pushing like normal. Then my first troubleshooting I hooked up the front driveline only and drove it back and forth several times in the driveway. Then I thought the rear differential was locked up because I hooked up the rear driveline, all 4 wheels off the ground, and it wouldn’t spin the tires giving it a lot of gas. The right rear never moved. We tried rotating the tire by hand and it was locked up. I thought it was the diff. So I started removing the diff and when I pulled they right rear caliper off, I was able to rotate the hub by hand. It must have rusted up sitting all winter. Crap. bad diagnosis! So now everything was free, I hooked up the drivelines, wheels off the ground, and it spun the wheels forward and reverse, but something was off. I had to give it some gas to get the wheels to rotate, and they never seemed to spin easily and it felt like there was something making a chunky weird noise,. I had to reassemble shit and put the truck on the ground for more testing and drove it forward and back like I first mentioned and eventually it just quit moving, like suddenly the brakes were on. I checked that rear caliper and that wheel spins by hand when I jack it up. Also, when I did drive it forward, it felt like I drove over a 2 x 4 in the driveway. It was another weird feeling because there was nothing in the driveway. I swear it felt just like I had driven up against something and I had to give a bit more gas and then it just kind of jumped and started moving forward. Like I said, its hard to diagnose but I’m almost sure its not the trans.
Yeah thats the correct info but uts pretty useless like a lot of the service manuals is when it comes to some of this trucks components. The NVG149 is not well documented and since it was only bused a couple years there’s not much on the forums about them. Maybe @randeez can chime in- I’m know he was running one on his race machine. I looked through the service manual but it doesn’t show a diagnostic for my situation. And then troubleshooting they do show for other symptoms pretty much says to open up the transfer case and look at the internal components. So much help there lol.
