A week of no chemo....

Amazing, I didn't have chemo yesterday yet I still didn't sleep well through the night. It's as if my body is now programmed to not sleep on Thursday nights, I should have taken a Lunesta. I laid in bed for the last couple of hours hoping to get a little more sleep but gave up and here I am adding another post. Beth has been having a tough week. She has had this nasty cold and now she thinks it could be a sinus infection. She will be seeing her doctor today to get it checked out. Fortunately for me, I haven't caught anything off her, yet. But I have also been hitting the Airborne all week, too. I did start the week with wheezing in my right lung and lots of gurgling. I went into the clinic on Tuesday to run it by Dr. Chen and get a vitamin infusion. Dr. Chen didn't seem concerned, he said it sounded like heavy mucus moving about, possibly as a result of little bit of an inflammation. I told him about Beth's cold but he said he couldn't find any cold like symptoms. By Wednesday morning, it had stopped. Another interesting thing when visiting the clinic, since I got a vitamin infusion my vitals were taken. I weighed in at a whopping 204 lbs. I am stumped how I could put on 4 lbs over the weekend. I struggled with the nausea all weekend and while I did eat, I certainly didn't over eat! The last PET scan did reveal an emerging pleural effusion so maybe it's getting a little bit bigger adding fluid weight. However, I haven't had any trouble breathing and my blood O2 levels were still 99% so its not serious, yet. This happened to me when I was in the hospital that first week back in September, a water pill helped drain it off. I have finally found the best remedy for the nausea, no chemo! Its been a nice week not having to do it but I will be there next week to get started on the next cycle. I fear the nausea will be back once I get started, but no pain no gain. I must forge on for the benefit of my life. But it does have me thinking more and more of when I can stop it. While I do take it day by day, it would be nice to have an established goal. I imagine that Dr. Chen will say I can stop chemo when there is no sign of cancer. However, I am interested in limiting my exposure to the chemo to reduce future recurrences and other types of cancer forming so I am wondering if I have to have SUV scores of zero before stopping. I feel like if I can get all those scores down to one or less, I can finish off the rest through natural medicine and alternative therapies. I will explore this more with Dr. Sodhi, Dr. Gignac and Dr. Trujillo down at the Bio-medical Clinic in TJ. However, obviously, my goal is remission and I will be using alternative medicine to keep it that way so if I must continue the chemo to that point, I will. As you can tell, I am pretty confident with alternative medicines. I strongly believe in its effectiveness and value.

I did get some other good news this week. We had a meeting at the office concering our benefits. I was concerned that we might be switching health care insurance and that might leave me in a tough situation with coverage for both Dr. Sodhi and the clinic. As it turned out, we are staying with the same plan, adding better dental care, and starting the Flexible Spending Accounts program. This came to a relief since my insurance pays out about $1,000 per chemo treatment. It would be hard to survive without adequate health care. Can you believe we have to worry ourselves with good health care in this country? Funny, as I type this the radio reporter I am listening too on NPR is saying that the prez will be addressing the health care crisis in the next State of the Union Address. But, whether it be a democrat or republican in the white house, they can address it in a speech but nothing really solves the problem. Costs are sky rocketing and therefore I am grateful that ERI still manages to take care of its employees. I have seen our deductable increase from $200 to $500 but I recognize that costs have to be spread about to make ends meet. I am signing up for the flexible spending account. This will help with the herbs and supplements costs I will be facing this year. We are capped at $500 for the whole year and that is just a drop in the bucket for what I will be spending, however its better than nothing. Of course, I will have to jump through more hoops to get reimbursed for the herbs and supplements, I will have to have Dr. Sodhi and Dr. Gignac sign off saying they prescribed these for the benefit of my health. Apparently, you can get reimbursed for any over the counter medicine but you can't get reimbursed for a giant bottle of multivitamins from GNC. Allow me a tangent for a second, one of our major clients at work rolled out a health and safety program where the emphasis is being proactive with your safety. Meaning in a nutshell, we address the safety issues with a job prior to starting it as opposed to not thinking about safety until an incident occurs, being reactive. Statistics have shown a decrease of on the job injuries and incidents when the safety program is proactive. So my issues with health care is why is it so focused on treating the patient after the fact as opposed to preventative medicine? Why wouldn't the flexible spending accounts be more interested in promoting a healthy lifestyle, good diet and nutrition with supplements, instead of waiting till the illness has taken effect and covering the medicine used to recover? Again, statistics show a healthier lifestyle leads to less medical attention. Oh, there's the answer to my dilemma! Show me the money! A quick disclaimer, I am a coordinator and trainer of the safety program for my company and I have bought into it, hook, line and sinker. It makes a lot of sense to me and I have seen results within our own offices. So I am a bit biased when asking rhetorical questions!

Last night after work, we had a get together for one of my coworkers. Bill, our construction manager and builder of remediation systems, has retired so we celebrated with him. Since Bill transferred up from the Northern California office, he has done a lot to improve our office, the quality of work we do and provided much expertise. He was a guy that worked the field a lot so I could go a week without seeing him. But I have worked with him for a few years now and I know he will be missed. When we had mechanical or electrical problems, he definitely was the go to guy. We will manage just fine without him (I hope!) due to a good crew he has developed so I wish him well in the next phase of his life. I feel like I share something with Bill. We have both entered a new phase of our lives where you are supposed to hang on until death. However, for Bill and I, we say bullshit, we will be living our lives to the fullest milking it for every experience and every enjoyment possible until our time here is done. Bill is jumping into the RV and heading to warmer pastures for the remainder of the winter. Twenty to thirty years from now, I'll join him. Although, I might jump into an airplane and head to the tropics! I was reflecting a little last night about how far we have come with this Seattle office. Since opening the office in October of 2000, we have seen a little turnover and now we have seen a retirement. We have seen good people come and go yet we still continue to grow. It was once just John and I out of his house and now we are nearly 20 people strong with potentially more to be added later in the year. Just in our short time, we have experienced quite a bit. I am looking to add a cancer survivor to the mix. Once I have that accomplished, I know this office can endure all the ups and downs thrown at it. So here's to Bill, may his retirement be long and fruitful and may his RV log several thousand miles of good ole American asphalt!

Wedding update: I haven't gotten cold feet yet! Beth, her mom, and I took a look at a former nursery on Francis Lake in Maple Valley as a ceremony location. It was quite nice and offers us the option of an indoor or outdoor ceremony. With the plan to do this in May, the chance of rain is very possible. The indoor facilities just may give us that insurance of it not raining on our day. As it works here in the northwest, if you plan on doing something outdoors, it will surely rain. If you don't want to take the chance and do it indoors, it will be the nicest day on record. Since we will have the flexibility come that morning, the sun god might smile on us that day. We also had our first little stand off the other night. I know one of the biggest things about getting married is not killing each other before it happens. I figure the best way to avoid that is by me keeping my mouth shut and wallet open! lol Now I will really get it when she reads this!!! So another lesson learned on my healing path, cancer has nothing on a pissed off woman...