They Call Me Galvez

8/14/10 Pinckney, MI – Hell Survivors Paintball Field. Despite a humid midwestern summer day, >150 people came out to support the 2nd Annual Tumors Suck Paintball Benefit.  The inagural event, the first of it’s kind last year, was cursed by severe thunderstorms but it was energized by the enthusiasm and dedication of Team FUBAR.  This year there were no thunderstorms, and the expectations were raised with a year of experience in planning the event.  The 2010 event was highlighted by a few new wrinkles,  a logo was created specifically for the event by Enuf Marketing and Design, a bounce house for kids was introduced, and many new faces participated in the event.  A lot of newbie paintballers got their first taste of paintball play and Team FUBAR once again put on their “mentoring mask” for all the new players.  This year there were more female players, and the enthusiasm for the event increased by at least 10 fold!  The event t-shirt featured the slogan “this ain’t no pity party” that expressed the sentiment underlying the purpose of playing paintball as a benefit for cancer and brain tumor advocacy. There are many similarities between paintball and a new tumor diagnosis. One needs to be cautious, yet stay on the “offensive”.  Much like a medical situation, it is also important that all teammates (medical team +family) are working in a coordinated effort towards accomplishing the mission (beating the tumor mass.)  In a new intimidating situation, one can choose to:

• survive – weather an “attack”,
• dive - give up hope,
• or thrive – continue to do what you need to do and fight back

The paintball benefit is an event where both survivors and non-survivors can thrive by uniting to show support combating all tumors.  mAss Kickers Foundation (MKF) looks to provide support and motivation to all newly-diagnosed patients, family, and friends affected by tumors or cancer.  MKF serves this mission through its website, fund-raising, and select events (such as paintball) throughout the year.  MKF uses two campaigns in the war on both malignant and nonmalignant tumors.  TUMORS SUCK! is a public awareness campaign. It is meant to unify all those touched by a tumor or cancer with a pugilistic, rebellious attitude. Basically, people just wear the logo or post the logo somewhere people can see it to show support for someone under going treatment for a tumor mass… malignant or “non-malignant”. USE THE K.U.R.E. is an action campaign for the newly diagnosed patient and their loved ones to combat any intimidating diagnosis. K.U.R.E. stands for Use Knowledge, Promote Unity, Support Research, and EMPOWER YOURSELF. It’s an excellent strategy to combat an intimidating tumor mass diagnosis not only on an individual level but also on a larger community level.

Many of the participants this year expressed how much fun they had.  They look forward to next year’s event.  The highlight of the event was “the gauntlet”.  Members of Team FUBAR again volunteered to be moving targets as a unique way to raise funds for mAss Kickers Foundation and the National Brain Tumor Society.   As a “sniper” in the gauntlet, I couldn’t help but laugh at the way Team FUBAR hammed up the gauntlet .

The 2010 paintball benefit was a huge success and doubled funds raised from last year under the leadership of Angel Bureau and Andrew Wlodyga.  With another successful event under our belt, we expect an even bigger event next year.  I can’t wait to see the new wrinkles in the 2011 paintball benefit.

Last weekend I went to SeaWorld again.  This time was different.  Usually when I go with my friends, we stop at the Anheuser-Busch Building for free samples then I try to impress them with my “short term knowledge” of aquatic life. They are always impressed with my knowledge of orcas, penguins, and flamingos.  The past couple times I have gone, I have gone with my friends and their kids.  Still really fun, but in a different way.  I went to places I’ve never been:  The Sesame Street Bay of Play and the show, Blue Horizons.  In the Bay of Play, so many kids were running around, jumping off stuff, screaming… pure energy.  There were rides there for kids, Oscar’s Rockin’ Eel, Elmo’s Flying Fish, etc.  I bet hyperactive kids would like to spend the whole afternoon there. I know I would have!   Blue Horizons was not what I expected.  Lots of acrobats.  Personally, I’m more into seeing the animals do tricks.  I’m still amazed at what they can do, but the animals were always the big draw.  The pure size speed and strengths of orcas, makes them the top predators.  The fact that they can be trained fascinates me.  These things are killers.  One of my favorite attractions is the Shark Encounter.  These things are “primitive” predators that have been around for millions of years.  Dude, they are so efficient that they didn’t need to evolve much!  Animals that scare me fascinate me…  hahaha!

I did take my mobility scooter (the mAss Kicker Mobile) with me to SeaWorld.  I have fun riding it with kids.  They crack me up!  They like playing with the horn.  We always turn heads (or annoy people) because we are having too much fun!  When I was in the wheelchair I felt self-conscious having someone push me in the wheelchair because I couldn’t control where I was going and I always felt like a burden to people pushing the wheelchair.  I’m curious by nature and I’m always exploring my surrounding so I never liked feeling bottled up and displayed in a wheelchair.  I guess you can say with the “mAss Kicker Mobile” I can SEA-THE-WORLD!  whah-whah-whah… you are now allowed to punch me in the face!

This past weekend, I went to Comic-con in San Diego for the second straight year.  Don’t call me an uber-geek yet, because Comic-con is not just another geek-pilgrimage (although I’m a geek light weight, I would have gone anyways.)  It was really crowded, but I had a great time!   I actually attended three out of four days!  Sadly, I don’t think that gives me enough dork-cred.  The people that dress up in costume and line up at 6AM for panels are hard core!  I was impressed with the passion shown by all the attendees.  Comic-con is a very unique event where celebrities can directly interact with fans.  Pretty cool.  There aren’t a lot of events where this interaction occurs. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but anything movie-related holds my interest.  I know there were many die-hard comic book fans that scoffed at the presence of many non-comic related panels present there this year. Comic-con  has been becoming more of a pop-culture convention than a strictly comic convention.  The increase in popularity of comic book movies has helped to put this annual pilgrimage or “geek-rimage” to San Diego a holy crusade for geeks around the world!  I will admit I just wanted to go at first to geek-watch, but then I thought, “This is actually kinda cool!” I really enjoyed the movie and TV panels.  But don’t get me wrong I did pick up some comics and graphic novels, but I still don’t have my “dork-cred” yet.  My top 5 panels in order were:

1. the Avengers Cameo with Samuel Jackson, Scarlet Johansson, Robert Downy Jr, etc (this will be an awesome movie!)
2. The Other Guys with Will Ferrell, Mark Walberg, Eva Mendez
3. Family Guy with Seth McFarland, Seth Green
4. The Cleveland Show with a cast reading
5. The movie Super panel with the cast: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Paige, Nathan Filion, and Liv Tyler

Comic-con is like 4 days of Halloween.   People get dressed up in costumes, you carry a bag around picking up free stuff, and you feel like a little kid getting herded into panels like going to class.  Some people really get into dressing up!  The first day you are kinda in shock realizing these are grown-ups dressed up in costumes.  But almost everyone is there to have good time! I did take my mobility scooter (AKA the mAss Kicker mobile) with me.  It was great getting around and I now possess the skills to maneuver in a large crowd.  However, there was one thing I was not prepared for in the scooter.  I didn’t realize that in a crowded area, my head sits at or below armpit level.  Oh lord, the horror!  I do have more freedom to go out on my own, but I was not prepared for the many smells to which I would be exposed in large crowds of people.  While hygiene at comic-con is not the greatest, the guys bathroom floors are equally disgusting. (I’m sure this can be said about any major event.)  There are always little puddles of urine on the floor.  I never noticed how disgusting this is because for me it was always a quick pit stop.  When your balance is fine, you don’t really have to worry where your feet are. When you have to constantly worry about foot placement, balance, and aim… a trip to a crowded public restroom becomes an adventure.  It is a realization I’m willing to come to terms with, but I’m sure I will discover many other disgusting things.

I have always been a comic book fan.  In elementary school, my parents used to reward me with a comic book for every “A” I brought home.  They even let me subscribe by mail to MARVEL comics, The Amazing Spiderman and The Transformers.  Well… they got me reading, getting good grades, and excited about getting the mail.  When you are 9 years old, the only time you get mail is on your birthday or Christmas… I remember feeling so cool getting mail! The excitement and anticipation of getting the next issue was always something I felt after reading a great story.  Anyways,  I’ll definitely be going to comic-con next year.  Gotta think of a cool costume… Maybe then, I can join the ranks of the uber-geeks.

Let me first state for the record, I hate reality TV!  It is drama that you can’t help but watch and can easily get sucked into it.  For me, watching a great sports event is like an addiction.  Then it dawned on me.  I’m a hypocrite!  SPORTS was reality TV long before the Real World ever aired! Drama, emotion, competition, and suspense. All the elements for entertainment are there. I read this article by Rick Reilly about why he writes about sports.  It got me thinking…  A good game or match always has a good storyline. I love watching “Rivalry” games with teams that have despised each other for decades:  Michigan-Ohio State, Duke-North Carolina, Red Socks-Yankees, Texas-Oklahoma, the list goes on and on.  The drama of the actual game is enhanced by the storylines: a player with a personal purpose; emotion of both sides fighting to win; the suspense of each play; the big plays; the pressure to make plays… In my family, sports is the glue that holds together the lines of communications between the men at most family gatherings, whether it is golf, football teams, or basketball teams it’s always a good ice breaker or conversation filler.  The World Cup is a new ingredient in my Love Potion for sports.  I don’t understand it completely, but after seeing the pride in each country… I was hooked!  I feel the same way about watching the Olympics.

Sports is what attracted me to physical therapy.  I could get paid for doing something I love?  Awesome!  I have taken an athlete’s approach to rehab after my brain surgery.  I got to thinking sports was a way for me to heal.  I view going to therapy sessions like going to practice.  For me, I enjoyed going to practice… For me, practice was always the time to fine-tune everything.  I still think that it is the work you put in outside of official practice times that will help you excel.  The same with therapy… you won’t get better just going to therapy appointments.  It’s the work you do on your own that separates starters from the bench players.  The same applies to rehab… doing the right exercises on your own will make recovery more efficient.  Putting that extra work in is getting harder for me as my schedule get busier and busier.  Last weekend, I got to visit an old friend of mine in LA.  He’s got a cute little two year old girl who likes to sit on me when we watch TV. I’m like her personal chair. But WOW!  Culture shock being around kids!  I like it, but it is very different from what I’m used to. I give props to my buddy because how do you appease a grumpy two year-old?  Reason doesn’t work.  Watching my friend throw out “dad-isms” when his daughter was naughty had me doing double-takes at the buddy who used to challenge me with Canadian beers in school.  How do you not laugh at kids when they do something naughty but funny?  I guess we all have to grow up sometime. For now, I’ll be content being “Silly Uncle Eric” entertaining the kids…

Thanks to everyone I’ve met in the past few years…  check out this book video!

I had spent my entire young adult life preparing for a career to help others rehabilitate from catastrophic diagnoses.  After almost 2 years working as a physical therapist, I received shocking news that I was the recipient of my own catastrophic diagnosis.  In September 2005, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  I became someone I’ve spent years preparing to help.  Reversal:  When A Therapist Becomes A Patient is about my experiences as a young rehab patient and healthcare professional.  It is unique because it contains:

1. The humorous perspective of a young active male brain tumor patient that many people can relate
2. The logical perspective of a patient with a medical background when faced with difficult medical dilemmas
3. Multiple perspectives from the loved ones closest to a patient
4. A real time format that is easy to read and validates the authenticity of the situation
5. A book soundtrack available exclusively on iTunes
6. The perspective of a 2nd Generation Filipino American patient vs. the views of his overprotective traditional Filipino parents

This “blook” is my personal account of the first three years of my incredible journey.  In this time; I published the first edition of the book, walked 4 charity 5K walks; started the Tumors Suck! movement; started the nonprofit, mAss Kickers Foundation; emerged as a leader in brain tumor advocacy, became involved in the young adult survivor movement; and redirected my professional goals from a career  in physical therapy to a career in the nonprofit sector.  All the royalties from Reversal sales go to mAss Kickers Foundation. Please tell all your friends about it.

Reversal is now available on
Amazon.com

and as an ebook.

Amazon Kindle

Barnes and Noble Nook

Sony Reader

I think I’m gonna end up breaking my mobility scooter… just a hunch…  I don’t think it was built to go over speed bumps. It seems like it stalls every time I hit a bump. I may need to tone it down a little more… the simple act of crossing the street is always an adventure… maneuvering to push the crosswalk button, lining up to hit the curb at the correct angle, making sure I’m aware of traffic that is turning, praying I don’t stall in the middle of a busy street… sheesh… stuff that was routine is now a concentrated effort! Maybe I just need to get out more often… I’m really “jumpy” or really sensitive to everything… this must be what newly paroled prisoners must feel like… sensory overload!

Anyways, I love being able to go out whenever I want, but it seems like there are less people to hang out with… the people I used to hangout with 5 years ago are still around, but they all have real responsibilities now. I can get out more, but it’s much harder to find people to hangout with. This was going to happen regardless of surgery, but it’s all hitting me at once. I actually went to the movies for the first time by myself and it was great being on my own! It was a little weird, but I could get used to it. I was not embarrassed at all being by myself at the movies. Gone are the days of calling someone up on the same day to see if they want to do something. Everything requires planning in advance. This is yet another thing I gotta adjust to… re-integrating myself socially is a whole different type of rehab…  it’s something I’ve been neglecting, but I’m more aware of it now. My friends have been great thus far, but I feel like it’s time to take the initiative and start doing things alone… people realize this on their own… health care professionals can only provide them with resources… you can’t force somebody to re-integrate themselves. I can definitely see where patients need help figuring stuff out, but it is ultimately up to a patient to know when they are ready. I am amazed at how much the little things in life were taken for granted.  Sadly, sometimes you don’t realize something had been missing, till you find it again. I’m talking it all in, but damn there is still a lot of of things to figure out!  Being out and about has made me more aware of things… after identifying and isolating impairments, it is just a matter of addressing those impairments…

Had such a fun weekend. I took the train up to LA  again but this time I used the crutches and a mobility scooter. That little scooter has opened up the world for me. I can finally keep up with my friends when we go out. I don’t feel like I’m holding everyone up anymore. Sure, I can’t go everywhere, but I don’t feel like burden to my friends when I’m out and about. I do get some weird looks from people though. I think people are used to seeing older people in mobility scooters, so when they see me they probably think I’m screwing around. (OK, maybe I’ll stop chasing pidgins and trying to run them over!) Actually, I really don’t care what people think.  So if people stare, they stare… I not gonna waste energy worrying about what people think of me
I met up with one of my friends from college and we went sight seeing in LA. Thursday we went to the Dresden restaurant from the movie Swingers, then went to Griffith Observatory. Griffith Observatory is one of my favorite places in LA.  It satisfies the science geek in me while eliciting my inner Rico Suave. (I say this because this is where Kelly and Dillon had their first kiss on 90210… don’t ask why I know that.)  On Friday we met up with another friend in Redondo Beach and hung out in Hollywood. I got to take the scooter out on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame! In the Hollywood and Highland Mall, I even let my friends take turns riding the scooter… So funny!  When I get together with some of my friends you can bet we are up to no good… I called them my “pit crew” because they got really quick disassembling the scooter to transfer it in/out of the car. My friend tricked us into going to a restaurant that served insects as an appetizer. We ended up eating crickets, but I passed on the scorpion. Crunchy with very little flavor.  Later that night we met up with some friends at a bar in Santa Monica. Saturday we toured the Redondo Beach Pier. My friends walked, I rocked my scooter. Definitely pushed the limits on the scooter. Found out it doesn’t run well on hills, bumpy ground, or grass. Oh well, at least I can get around faster now! Been to the bar twice already on my own to watch basketball! I’m doing my own “experiments” with ETOH and walking/ scooter driving.  No seriously, I’m looking at the effect of ETOH on ataxia.  Results are inconclusive so far because functionally I’m safe, but I haven’t found any quantitative peer reviewed measures for ataxia yet.  “It’s all in the name of science”  I gotta try going to a movie next. Anyways, at the wedding I had 3 glasses of wine and a beer and was successful walking with the crutches with no falls…”It’s all in the name of science”… HAHAHA!  A “whole new world” is starting to open up!  I’m getting much more comfortable with the crutches… I still think walking then running is not too far away but for now the “scoot-scoot” will have to be a means for me to get around for long distances most efficiently.

Wow!  Things are already starting to pick up!  I am putting the finishing touches on my Fall schedule.  I’m going to a MD Anderson Conference in Houston to speak on a patient panel, rehab grand rounds at RUSH hospital in Chicago, Texas again for the LiveSTRONG Young Adult Alliance Conference, and hopefully something at University of Michigan Hospital.

I’m getting more comfortable with the crutches, but I am nowhere near fast enough to walk across a busy intersection.  I know in time I will get faster, but I’m faced with the dilemma of speed for community mobility.  I will continue to work on my community mobility speed, but I am still stuck with the fact that I cannot go out by myself.  I think I have found a way to address that… a mobility scooter.  You know, those scooters you see older people riding.  Unfortunately, insurance won’t cover it because I am independent in the home.  I need something that will make me independent in the community.  Crutches or a walker won’t cut it for me going out and about.  A mobility scooter seems like a good solution because walking with the crutches or a walker requires a lot of energy.  By the time I get somewhere, I am pooped!  I understand why insurance only pay for medically necessary equipment in order to establish independence at home, but jeez, in many cases equipment is necessary to establish independence in the community.  I’m very lucky to have a great network of family and friends with mobility, but a scooter will let me go where I want to go without someone having to stand close by if I lose my balance.  As a PT, I have seen how some patients become dependent on the scooter for all mobility.  I promised myself not to fall into that trap.  I got my hands on a scooter and went out by myself in public for the first time in over 4 years!  I live very close to a shopping mall.  I never used to go  to the mall before, but I’m very confident I’ll be doing that more often!  Gotta try it at night one of these days… I’ll still work my butt of trying to walk and run, but for now the “scoot-scoot” will have to do.  Eric Galvez, call-sign “mAssKicker1″.  I’ll be calling San Diego mall booths requesting permission for “flybys”… HAHAHA!

Testing my Droid. I have been using my whole arsenal of starwars jokes the whole weekend. I have named my Droid “EG-25″