Nick Asoian’s Recovery

GOOD NEWS!!!! As most have heard Nick is back home in Vail, recovering well and most importantly cancer FREE!!! Look for updates on his site, www.nickasoian.com, here on FB and in the local Vail newspapers! To celebrate this great news and continue the fundraising due to time off work and his future bills we putting on a Welcome Back party at La Bottega. Come by La Bottega in Vail on Wed June 30th anytime after 6pm and say hi to Nick - La Bottega is offering 30% of everything (Drinks and Food) after 5:30pm to Nick!!! A BIG THANK YOU to them is in order! We're all thrilled with Nick's progress and all the good news, which took a long time and lots of hard work from Nick and all of you! Thanks so much to everyone for all their support thus far and for getting Nick through this tough battle. Nick will face steep ongoing medical bills and annual testing to ensure his health into the future, so stick with us into the future and look for another auction fundraiser this fall. In the meantime please plan on coming to La Bottega on June 30th, Nick would love to see everyone who can make it!!!

Travis, Me, Ellen, Nate and Matt at Doug and Katie's wedding

Hello Everyone, Well depending on where you live I don't know if I should say that I hope you are enjoying your summer or still enjoying winter! I hope you are all well and I wanted to share with you my most recent and exciting news. Yesterday I had my first clear PET scan since my second transplant! This is now my second clear PET scan and we have already found out that the transplant was successful from a test that showed Nate's cells have taken over. We are still waiting for his red cells to overtake mine, but that will come within the next month. At the moment it has been getting nicer here in Cherry Creek and I will be able to go out for rides on my motorcycle in a week or so! Of course I can't wait to get home to Vail but I am doing well here and getting out all the time. I will be able to coach again this coming season which makes me very happy and I can't wait to get back on the hill with everyone again. I really want to thank everyone again for so much support through all of this and for all of your encouragement. I still of course have to have twice weekly blood tests, doctor's appointments and many more scans for years to come but I hope that the hard part is now behind me. I will keep everyone updated as more information and developments come up. Thanks once again and I can't wait to see you all! Nick

Nate and I standing in front of New Zealand's highest mountain, Mt. Cook

Hello again everyone, Well I have been out of the hospital for about three weeks now and loving it! I am living in Cherry Creek for a few months with my great friend and surrogate sister Mel. Of course I can't wait to get back home to Vail but right now it is nice to be down here in the warmer weather without the extra few feet of snow! My blood counts have continued to go each week and today we may have found out some of the reason for that; Nate's cells have now taken over 100%! This is such great news and one of the big tests I've been waiting on the results for. One last blood test to check that I have gone for O+ to A+ and Nate and I will officially be genetically identical! The doctor is nearly certain that I will be able to go to Matt and Maren's wedding in July and that I should be able to start back to work with the Ski Club in the fall. I have my next PET scan in about three weeks to check and see that I am actually in remission but so far things are looking good for those results. Once we get the results from that scan the doc should be able to tell me with certainty that I will be able to coach and that hopefully this will all be over soon! Thanks to everyone again for all of your support through this and I will send out another update after I get the results of the PET scan. Nick

Nate getting his bone marrow harvested

Well guys it's happened, I've had my second bone marrow transplant. This past Wednesday the 24th of March my immune system was reborn, again. This time was with help from my brother Nate who turned out to be a perfect ten out of ten donor match for me. Not only was this news very exciting but it was accompanied with the news of my first clean PET scan. This meant that I would be going into this transplant in the best possible shape, with the best possible odds of beating this disease once and for all. Unfortunately on Nate's end it meant missing some races and training for which I would like to thank him immensely. So pretty much how it would work this time is that Nate would get a shot called Nupogen which helped his body to produce enough extra marrow that it could be harvested. Once his blood counts were sufficiently high he came in the University of Colorado Hospital and got "harvested". This consisted of him sitting for two days with an IV in each arm and being unable to do anything. When they had collected enough cells for me they brought the bone marrow upstairs gave it strait to me. I am now what they call Day +5 which means five days from the date of transplant. So far everything is looking as it should and the doctors seem to be happy. At the moment all of my blood counts are dipping downwards, which they expect, in order for Nate's cells to take over. The process is so detailed and at such a small genetic level that although I started this process as blood type O+ I will end with Nate's blood type of A+ I still have a week or more left here in the hospital which will put me about three weeks or so total. From there I will be moving in which my great friend Mel in Cherry Creek for a few months until the doc says I can head back home to Vail. Thank you everyone that has been calling and keeping up with me, it means a lot to get a text or phone call when I'm stuck here in the hospital. I hope you are all well and be looking for me back out there on the motorcycles this summer! Nick

Ferrari, the team everyone should be cheering for in F1

Happy Spring Everyone, Well I'm back down at the University of Colorado Hospital for what I hope should be my last and final treatment session. I got here last night and have already had surgery to put a new port in my chest in order for the staff to administer my chemo, drugs, and bone marrow and blood products. I have also received my first of my last five doses of chemo and will get my second bone marrow transplant on Wednesday the 24th. As most of you know this bone marrow will be donated from my brother Nate who is a perfect ten out of ten match for me! Also about two weeks ago I received news from my doctor that my most recent PET scan was clear! With these two facts I am very excited that after this stay at the hospital I will be all done and back on my way to regular life. I will be in the UCH for three to four weeks then I have to stay in Denver for two to three more months depending on my blood counts. I'm very excited that my good friend Mel is going to let me stay at her place in Cherry Creek and if anyone is in the area and would like to walk around the neighborhood or hang out I would love the company! Of course this new transplant and chemo round has hit me financially but I am hopeful that I can re-apply for some grants and that we may be able to hold another fundraiser soon. We also have hoodies, beanies, caps, and t-shirts with the NICKASOIAN.COM logo on them which should help to raise some funds. If anyone is interested let me know. After some expressed interest, we are also working on a way in which to order online and have them shipped. I would like to thank everyone for all of your support through all of this and hopefully it's all over soon! I would love to have messages, phone calls or visitors while I'm here. Thank you all again and I'll keep you updated. Nick

Nate and I standing on the ice on Lake Superior in MN.

Hello again everyone, Well I got some pretty good news a few nights ago, my brother Nate, is a "perfect 10 out of 10" donor match for my upcoming bone marrow transplant! This is great news because now I know I have a donor and also it gives me peace of mind to know where my blood is coming from. After Nate gets done with some races in Aspen he will have to go to Denver to have his marrow harvested. I should then start my stay in the hospital and have my transplant sometime in the first or second week of March. I will be there for three to four weeks and then another two months in the Denver Metro area. I am really looking forward to having this be my final step in this long process and can't wait to get it started. The only thing is that they say you can take on the traits of your donor sometimes, so it looks like Nate and I will become even more like twins! I just hope that I can still drive better than him hahaha! I will keep you all updated as more info comes and stay tuned for info on our next fundraisers. We will also be getting hoodies and beanies to sell along with the shirts and hats we have had. Thanks everyone Nick

An old pic from the top of Milk Run in Telluride, Co.

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season and New Year. Sorry it's been a while but there has been a lot going on. Driving snow cats at Beaver Creek was going really well until about the 27th of December when I noticed that I had a fever. As it turned out I had to stay in the CU Hospital until the afternoon of the 31st because of that fever. They did numerous tests and couldn't find the cause so after a day or so of normal temps they let me leave. However, on the 3rd my fever spiked to almost 104 and I was forced to go to the Vail Valley Medical Center to get fluids and treatment. Luckily Katie Schofield was able to come down to the ER to help me and that was nice to have her there. The next day I was transported by ambulance to the CU hospital again. Finally they found out that there was an infection that was growing in my original port put in September 2008. They removed that and it seemed to take care of my fever once and for all. As if that wasn't enough for two weeks time, my PET scan results came back and showed that the original spots where the disease was at were all gone. Unfortunately, it also showed a new spot slightly on the right side of my sternum. Because of this spot I was required to have another biopsy to confirm what it was and it did turn out to be Hodgkins again. Since this new development I am now going to have to start another round of chemo and then have another bone marrow transplant. The bummer is that the schedule for this one is much longer. Since I am not able to use my own bone marrow this time I will need to have a donor for this transplant. My brother is the most likely match and will be tested soon. Then once the transplant starts it will be three to four weeks in the hospital this time and then two months in Denver instead of two weeks. At the moment it looks like I will be able to start the transplant around the beginning of March or so. I am still getting a lot of info as the week goes by and I will do my best to keep everyone updated more often. Thank you again to everyone and please do a snow dance! -Nick

Beaver Creek snow cats in a snowstorm

Happy Holidays everyone! I am back home in Vail now and I have started my new job as a snow cat operator at Beaver Creek. It's pretty fun but much more difficult than it looks so make sure to hold your criticism about the grooming next time you go skiing. It is really pretty to be out on the mountain late at night and even better when it's snowing! My blood counts continue to go up and just yesterday I had my Apheresis catheter removed from my chest. This was an external catheter that was used to remove my blood and harvest the stem cells from it for the transplant. Needless to say it is nice not to have anymore tubes hanging out of my body! I have my next PET scan in a couple of weeks to check and make sure that the transplant and all of the treatment just before took care of everything. However, no matter what the results of the PET scan are I still have to do three weeks of radiation for 15 minutes a day five days a week. This will be focused only on the spots that were cancerous. The side effects will be much less than the total body radiation but still I will have to see how it goes. Hopefully after that I will be done will all treatments forever! Well I hope you all have a great holiday season and think snow! Nick

Thanksgiving morning on the drive up Lake Creek

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving and that you are all enjoying your day with family and friends. My blood counts have been going up ever since my release from the hospital and I was lucky enough to have my nurse let me come up to Vail to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I have another blood draw tomorrow and if my counts are still good then I am allowed to stay up in Vail! On Monday I have an appointment with my doctor to go over my progress and map out my next few months. If all goes well I will be able to start work in a week or so. Since I can't coach this year I will be a snowcat operator at Beaver Creek. I have wanted to do this since I was a boy and now I have the chance to make the proverbial lemonade out of my lemons. I will keep you all updated and once again I hope you are having a great Thanksgiving and eating lots of turkey and pie! Nick

Radiation machine

Nick sent this out from the hospital and we wanted to get it on here as well.----------------------------------------------------------- Hey everyone, I wanted to write and give you an update on how I'm doing and also let you know that the registration for the Gobble Gobble Wobble has been extended until the day of the event. The Gobble Gobble Wobble is a pub crawl that is being held this Saturday the 14th in Downtown Denver as a benefit. Some of these proceeds will go to helping me pay my extensive medical bills. It will be held at five different bars: Front Porch, Spill, Nallen's, Pour House, and Lavish and promises to be an awesome time. I wish I could be there to party with all of you but I am eleven days into my twenty one day hospital stay. With your entry to the pub crawl your team will get T-shirts and there are going to be trivia questions at each bar. For more info and to sign up go to http://www.loft-22puttinpubcrawl.com/ or click on the link from my website www.nickasoian.com I hope that everyone can make it and thank you again for all of your continued support! As for me I have done all of the treatment and had the stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, the effects of the radiation are catching up with me and it has been making my mouth and whole digestive system really painful. I have lost twenty pounds since being in here and can't eat solid food at the moment. The good news is that Dr. Myint has said that I am right on schedule and that I am "textbook" as far as how I'm feeling and my progress. At the moment I have >O.1 white blood cell count and have had to receive one blood transfusion. However, once my stem cells have en-grafted and my counts come back up I should start to feel much better. Right now with my inability to fight off infection I am not having any visitors but I can't wait to get out of here and see everyone again. Thank you all again and don't forget to sign up for the Gobble Gobble Wobble. - Nick

www.loft-22puttinpubcrawl.com

Friends of Nick are putting on an event in November. It's called the Gobble-Gobble Wobble, and its on the 14th of November in Denver. We've listed it on the events section here and its on the FB group as well. Come on out, have a great time and know you're helping Nick as you and your team crawl your way through five downtown Denver bars. A portion of the proceeds will go through the Vail Valley Charitable Fund to Help Nick! Here's the link for more info - www.loft-22puttinpubcrawl.com

A picture of me all set up for my second to last session of radiation with the lung blocks in front of me

Well everyone I have finished with my three days of TBI or Total Body Irradiation! I was fairly uneventful but they say that the effects will catch up to me here in a few days. Today I started the first of my high dose chemo sessions with one more tomorrow. Then on Monday I get a "rest" day the on Tuesday I get my stem cell transplant. From there on I am on the path to recovery. I still have some rough times ahead but I want to thank everyone for their wishes and thoughts and all of the support. Sarah has been amazing as always and been staying here with me all night and most of the days. My mom has been down and more and more of my friends have offered to come down to hang out and show support. Just remember that no one that has kids under 12 years old or may have come into contact with anyone that is sick is allowed. The radiation was pretty easy to do as I pretty much just laid there as you can see from the picture. It was about 25 minutes for the front then six hours later another 25 minutes for the back. The lead blocks you see there are to reduce the amount of radiation to the lungs by about 25%. Well I will try to keep blogging as much as I can depending how my energy stays but I want to say thanks again to everyone for their support and I will be back up and at em in no time! Hope everyone is going well and rip it up to all of my athletes this year! -Nick

Me with the collection machine behind me

Well today is the first day of my stem cell collection. It's not difficult or painful but really boring. I am hooked into this machine that takes my blood out of one side of a catheter and then winds it through a lot of tubing on the machine. At one point on the machine the blood goes into a centrifuge where the blood is separated into 3 main parts: red blood cells, white cells, platelets and stem cells, and then Plasma. From there the machine diverts the middle part, the part with the stem cells, into a collection bag. The red cells and plasma are returned to my body from there. In all there is about half a unit of blood outside of my body at any given time. The process today requires that the machine see approximately 25 liters of blood in order to get the amount of stem cells required. This means that my entire blood system will be circulated four times plus a little in order to achieve the 25 liters needed today. The calculation for how many stem cells needed is based on body weight. In my case I need between five and ten million stem cells per kilogram of body weight. The math on that is that I need to donate somewhere between 488 million to 970 million stem cells. This already sounds pretty amazing but in order to get those stem cells, the bones have to be stimulated to produce so many that they actually leave the bone marrow and enter the blood stream. In order to stimulate production of stem cells I am give daily shots of a medicine called Nupogen. Each one of these shots costs about $1200 and I have been receiving them for seven days so far. The cost of those shots alone is one really great reason to have insurance by the way. With the amount of cells that my body is producing I should be able to complete my collection in two to three days. At first I was pretty bummed about the number of days that are needed but then my nurse told me that average is actually four to five and that once there was even a twelve day collection! Thank you again to everyone for all of your support and I will be updating more often now that things are starting to happen all in a row. -Nick

The New Ferrari F10

Well thank you to everyone that came out to Spill last Thursday night for my first fundraiser. We had a great night and were able to raise some good money. I hope that everyone had fun and that you are enjoying the prizes and auction items we had for you. Thank you again to Richie for hosting the event and for all the swag he got for us. Thanks to Matt and Ellen for getting it all organized and to Matt for the nickasoian.com gear. That reminds me that we still have plenty of hats, t-shirts, and tank tops for sale so just let me know if you want one of the items. Of course thanks to Bryon Friedman for the awesome music all night. I hope everyone had a chance to get one of his CDs. You can hear him on XM and Sirius radio or at http://www.bryonfriedmanmusic.com/ Also Sarah's future cousin in law Britt, is helping to host an event called the Gobble Gobble Wobble pub crawl in Denver. Britt owns Loft 22 on Larimer Street in Larimer Square. Loft 22 is a boutique clothing shop with some cool cloths and accessories so be sure to check it out. I will have more details here and on Facebook about the Gobble Gobble Wobble as we get closer to the date. Thanks again to Britt and Loft 22 for offering to help. On my last blog I told everyone that I had just had a biopsy done. The results are back and it turns out to still be Hodgkin's. The surgeon was able to get 75-80% of the mass and so there is no real change to my treatment or schedule. The only thing is that in 60 -100 days from my transplant I will have to have some focused radiation to really make sure that everything is all gone. Well thank you again to everyone for coming to the event and for all of your support. I will be trying to blog more often again and I hope that everyone keeps in touch with me. Thanks Nick

At the Rolex Grand Am at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah

First Day of Ski Season �09/'10 Well everyone I can't believe that today is actually the first day of ski season this year! Loveland opened up the earliest they have ever opened in forty years. However, I drove back to Denver from Vail and I'm not quite sure what they were skiing on up there. "White Ribbon of Death" might have a new meaning with an opening this early. Well first I want to invite everyone to Spill tomorrow night for the first official benefit fundraiser for me. Spill is located on Market St. between 14th and 15th in Downtown Denver. Thanks to Richie Hadley and Spill for hosting the event, thanks to Bryon Friedman for coming to rock the house with his band, thanks to Ellen and Matt for pretty much taking care of everything, and to everyone else thank you and I hope this turns out to be awesome. We should have some amazing swag to be given as door prizes, some signed equipment from local pro sports teams, tickets to many sports games, nights in Vail, and many other great prizes. There is even a rumor that there may be some pro athletes showing up! It should be a great time and a chance to see many old friends and make some new ones; I hope to see everyone there. Well onto my health. After my last PET scan I got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that all of the cancer is gone except for this one "hot spot" which may turn out to be nothing. Unfortunately the bad news was that because of this "hot spot" I had to have a surgery on my chest to find out why this particular spot had been unaffected by the chemo treatment. The surgery consisted of three cuts into the left side of my chest where the doctor would deflate my left lung and the remove as much or all of the mass in order to do a biopsy of it. The surgery went very well and all was going smoothly until the next day. The day after surgery I started to feel sharp pains in my lower chest which became worse as the day went on. Finally at around 12:30am the second night the doctors had to put a chest tube back into my chest in order to release the air and blood that was accumulating in my lung cavity. Even with over twice the regular dose of pain medicine it was the most painful thing I have ever felt. Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend Sarah for staying all those nights with me and holding my hand as they put the chest tube into me! So here we are again on the first day of the ski season for 2009/2010 and the day before the first fundraiser event being held at Spill in Denver. Before the events tomorrow I have to see both the chest surgeon and the Oncologist to find out the results of the biopsy and to make sure that I am healing well from the surgery. I will try to let everyone know those results tomorrow night at Spill and ASAP here on the website as well as my upcoming treatment schedule. Happy ski season and talk to you again soon. Nick

Nick was finally released from the hospital today, after a prolonged stay due to some complications from the surgery earlier this week.

Nick had some more setbacks in recovering from this surgery and will be in the hospital for another few days. He is at the CU hospital on Colfax Ave. between I-225 and Peoria, room #916. If you want to swing by give a call/text to 720-320-1004.

New Zealand

More good news! The Swift Eagle Charitable Foundation has come on board to Help Nick with a great donation! read more about them here: www.swifteagle.org. Nick is also receiving promotion help from SKIRACING.com! check out http://skiracing.com/?q=node/280 to see their coverage of the fundraiser at Spill on October 8!

Hi Everyone, Nick is recovering well from his biopsy earlier today, although he is still in lots of pain. He's in the hospital overnight and has lots of support there! We'll have more news as soon as its available. - Friends of Nick

Hi everyone, Some last minute changes came up during Nick's tests last week and there is good news and bad news. The good news is that his PET scans showed only one "hotspot" - or mass of cells. The even better news is that is hasn't changed in months! The bad news is that he is in last minute surgery tomorrow to biopsy the mass and get it tested. This has pushed back his other treatments by a few weeks but it will be good to get this out of there, and have more information on how his body is dealing with all the treatments. We'll update the site ASAP once we know how everything went. You can leave any wishes/thoughts here and/or www.nickasoian.com, he loves all of it!

Join Nick, Bryon Friedman, and all of us at Spill - October 8th

We have some great updates on Nick's progress with his treatment, the fundraising so far and the next event at Spill in Denver on Oct 8th. Nick is getting ready for his long stay in the hospital, it will be around 3 weeks straight of some really nasty treatments and recovery. A lot of preparations and testing are the order of the day for now. This more intensive treatment will really test his whole body and especially his immune system. The down time from his treatment is significant and will eat into a lot of work time. Your efforts thus far have helped us get close to the break-even mark, debt-wise, for Nick which is FANTASTIC!!! The upcoming events can now help fund the more expensive treatments, his time away from work while he recovers, and the long-term annual costs of this disease. Which leads me to the final point of this email - GET YOUR BUTT OUT TO SPILL ON OCTOBER 8TH - This is a 21 and over event only. We know this will leave of lot of Nick's close friends, especially from coaching, out and we're sorry about that. We'll make it up to you. Some details: -Bryon Friedman has just been confirmed to play the event!!! www.bryonfriedmanmusic.com -Silent Auction and raffle items galore (Broncos tix, Vail and Summit Co lodging, ski swag, etc) -Drink specials -NICKASOIAN.COM gear!!! Hats, shirts, tank tops! Thanks for all of your support, and please tell your friends about the FB group, share it on your pages and talk up Nick's website, www.nickasoian.com. See you at Spill! Friends of Nick

Hi everyone, Today we broke 500 members to the " Help Nick Asoian beat Hodgkins Lymphoma!" Facebook group! This is amazing considering that Matt just started the group yesterday around noon. So I want to thank everyone again for all of their support. Also I have been told that some people have already donated to the VVCF via this website so thanks to you and I'm glad that the site is working well. I will be getting out of the hospital this evening and then staying here in Denver for the night and going back up to Edwards tomorrow sometime. To all of you that have called me, texted me, Facebooked and even visited you have made my days here in the hospital much more bearable and made it seem much shorter. I know you are all busy with various thing and thanks for taking time out for me. It looks like we may have an informal sort of meet and greet party at Rick and Kelly's in Edwards on the 12th or 13th of August if anyone is around and wants to come out for a drink or appetizer. As we get closer and get more details I will send out all of the info. Make sure to keep checking here at nickasoian.com and the Facebook group for the updates!! As always I will try to pick out a fun picture to post with all of my blog entries. Feel free to ask questions about the pictures and give me feedback if you want. If anyone hasn't joined the Facebook group please check it out and invite anyone you wish to join. I am also friending pretty much anyone that asks that is joining the group so tell people not to hesitate to friend me. Already I have been meeting many new and supportive people!! Thanks again everyone for all of your help and support and keep checking in to see all of the new blogs and new upcoming events :-)

Good day everyone, On Saturday I played in the annual AJ Campbell Classic golf tournament. This is a tournament put on by my old friend from elementary school, Chase Campbell and his family, in honor of his brother. The turnout was huge and there were even some other people from Vail there to play which was awesome. My foursome was my brother Nate, and friends Gui and Rick. The picture you see of these three was taken by me at 8:15 am just before we teed off. Notice the 24oz Bud that I got for my little brother haha. Considering that I haven't swung a golf club in over three years I felt pretty good but my shoulder eventually got sore. In the end we shot 6 under as a group which I was pretty happy with. After the game everyone got together in the clubhouse to have lunch and the Campbell's had organized a raffle and small auction. Ellen got a really nice putter and I got some wine and a bottle of Grey Goose in the raffle. After the raffle Chase announce that some of the proceeds from this year's AJ Classic would go towards me and cancer research. I want to thank everyone that came to play and I plan on making this part of my annual schedule for years to come so that I can help others out in the future. I have checked back in to the CU Hospital and am on my second day here with all going well. Just bored as usual so if anyone wants to stop on by or give me a call I would love to see and hear from everyone. Thanks again to everyone for all of their support and I will talk to you all soon. -Nick

Here is where you will find all the updates, info, news, etc on Nick's recovery. Nick has been diagnosed with stage 2b-3b Nodular Sclerosing Hodgkins Lymphoma. Nick was diagnosed while coaching ski racing in New Zealand in the summer of 2008, and he has been battling the disease here, at home in Vail, ever since. As long-time Vail residents, Nick, his parents Kate and Mark, and brother Nathan have been heavily involved in ski racing with Ski Club Vail, where Nick was an athlete and has been working as a coach for the past 5 seasons. Nick is the kind of person whose friendship has no bounds. Anyone who has known him over the years is amazed with his caring touch and kind heart. His loyalty to friends and family and compassion for all are unequaled. In trying to emulate those qualities, his friends have started a website as a portal into his world right now and as way to ask for help on behalf of Nick. As of July 2009, Nick has completed his first round (8 months) of chemotherapy. 90% of people with Hodgkins Lymphoma are cured or go into remission after this first round, but Nick has found himself in the other 10%. As a result, Nick now faces a much more intensive and demanding second round of chemotherapy that involves long hospital stays and extensive travel to Denver. Nick also faces a bone marrow transplant, full-body radiation and 5 weeks in Denver at the end of his current chemotherapy prescription.