Chemo treatment 2.4 down, two more to go and then the week off...
Well, it won't be much of a week off. Krystina put in the order to have a new round of PET/CT scans done during that week. So instead of the usual chemo cocktail, I will have to take my valium and chase it with some surgar syrup and the flourine radioactive injection, yum, yum! Then I will have to do some contortions to fit into that tube. How do football lineman do it? Is there an extra large tube for them? "Mr. Walter Jones, the men's big and tall CT tube is available now, would you mind lathering up with this vaseline or shall I do it for you?" I better start doing more yoga now to make that half hour go a little easier.
So yes, we will be doing another progress scan in a couple of weeks. I am optimistic I will see further reduced SUV scores even though we just did the last one in January. The pressure around my heart hasn't been so bad lately and I actually think it has gone down on its own. I need to do another echogram with Dr. Sytman but keep forgetting to call and make it. I have been busy with work again and find my mind preoccupied with normal things, for a change. Thats been good for me, but shame on me for not staying on top of the medical needs. Don't get me wrong, I am on top of my herbs, supplements, and vegan (plus fish) diet. I have been getting out on walks more, even thought the freezing weather kills my chemo brutalized sinuses. We actually got about a half inch to an inch of snow in the city last night. Just enough to cover roof tops, cars, lawns and gardens but thats about it. It did leave icy conditions on the roads so there was plenty of wipe outs on a normally light traffic day. Beth waited for her bus for an hour before giving up and walking home to get her car. I was up too early, about 3 AM, so wasn't functional enough to care. It left me a mess for the day, but duty called. I had a meeting with the public works department in Marysville to get some permits, had lunch with my past coworker and friend Adam, came home to help out with more safety stuff for the office and fell asleep around 4:30, not waking up until 9 PM this evening. Now here it is 2:30 AM and I am adding to this blog. Ah yes, those refreshing chemo cocktails leave long hang overs!
So I got to the clinic on Thursday right on time. George didn't let me sit down this time and called me back for the vitals. BP looked great at 123/71, lowest its been since a few weeks after the last pericardiocentisis. Hence why I think the fluid is draining on its own this time. Pulse was 88 bpm, blood O2 was 99%, even though the right lung has been gurgling again, and weight still steady at 201 lbs. All the private rooms were booked, which was fine with me, so I bellied up in the lounge. Suddenly, I had 3 of the 4 nurses fighting over me, Jessica, Huang, and Daravan. I told them there is plenty of me to go around today and that I felt extra demanding anyways. It didn't take them long to scatter after that! So Jessica settled in to jack me in and collect the blood. It didn't take long to get the results back and all the blood cells bounced back up a smidgen from last week. Funny how it works like that. I thought they would be lower since I felt like doo all day Wednesday. I woke up from a restless sleep feeling dizzy and weak. I also had the shakes and thought that maybe I had flu like symptons, even though I had a flu shot last fall. It stayed with me the whole day and I didn't feel like eating much. I went to bed early and slept ok and woke up to a small case of diarrhea and Thursday went fine. So odd after that, the blood counts came up. Maybe I simply ate some bad tofu.
So of course, Jessica injects me with the benadryl and Krystina comes in to do the exam. Its amazing how her and Dr. Chen time themselves perfectly to come in after the benadryl. I guess they know us patients would be less gabby, forget our questions, and say, "yeah, I feel ok, can I sleep now?" Actually, Krystina is very thorough with her questions and exam and reviews many of the details from the previous weeks to see how those ailments are doing. One she keeps touching on is this rash I developed on my genitals that are a part of the side effects of the chemo. She likes to cover her mouth and in a sheepish smirk ask, "how is the rash." Then she says it always reminds her of that commerical where the guy is in the public swimming pool talking to his health care provider on the cell phone and says, "yes it is a rash......I should stay out of the pool?" Everyone in the pool overhears it and starts clearing out. It is a funny one. So with the chemo lounge full, I say in my regular tone, "the neosuporine jock itch did the trick!" Just to let you readers know, we are asked if we would like to go to a private room before the exams begin. Not many of us patients do, unless it involves undressing. So we talked about some aches and pains I have been feeling, the crappy Wednesday I dealt with and that was about it. There has been more focus of attention on the ringing in my hears I have been dealing with. Krystina would like to see the carboplatin dose get reduced to minimize the ringing and Dr. Chen doens't think its bad enough to warrant that yet. I guess the long term toxicity of carboplatin can eventually effect your ears and hearing. I believe this is also another reason why we will be doing progress scans so soon, to see if we can back off the carboplatin if more progress has been made. Later, Dr. Chen came in to follow up on the sore spots I have been dealing with. I have a spot over my right lung that hurts when you push on it, thats about it. Kinda the same thing with a spot under my right arm pit. It feels like to me its cancer lesions on my ribs. Some of my visualizations are to pull back my skin and expose my ribs and then carve off the lesion with a knife. Sounds grusome, but it seems just like carving off a bad spot on a potato! It makes me think one of those cheezy 80's or 90's made for TV "drugs are bad" movies where a wayward teenager gets high on LSD or PCP and carves his face off with a razor blade. Not that the drugs caused him to do it, deep down, he wanted to do and the drugs just help facilitate the courage to try it. So don't spike my cherry juice with LSD, I just might carve the cancer cells off myself! :p Couldn't be any worse than chemo, right?
Ok, off the morbid topic. Well, as if cancer is a much more happy topic. So I sipped down my carbo and taxol and pretty much finished up the day. Like most days, about an hour I after I entered the lounge, everyone else clears out. There is this breast cancer patient, Judy, who has been staying late with me the last couple of times as well. In fact, she has been the last to leave the last couple of times. She is pretty gabby so its hard to get some work done on the laptop before the benadryl kicks in killing off all motivation. She is a nice person, but once you have the benadryl, its hard to focus on a conversation. Most of the time, she gets hers a few minutes later, gets her exam from Dr. Chue, then comes back and falls asleep. I was pretty dozy myself this time and so George shut out the lights for us. Judy is on chemo to reduce the tumor in her breast before its surgically removed. She is doing a 12-week cycle then goes under the knife. Sometimes I wish it was that easy for me, I am on chemo until the end of cancer or me. But, it really is us, the individual, versus the cancer. It might seem to be easier for Judy but she could have complications and end up in worse shape than I. Where as I, I might have to endure chemo for a while but I might not have to ever bare the scares of being cut up or burned with radiation. So even knowing my general prognosis and survival statistics are probably the worse in the lounge on a full day, I can't help to feel I will beat this and continue looking like the James you have always known and loved, not a war torn and battered cancer patient. Judy seems to have the personality of a cancer survivor so I think she will do well regardless, I think that is why I tend to envy what seems to be her easier healing path. And like all the other patients in the lounge, we are pulling for her. Go Judy. Now that I am thinking about it, I haven't seen Pill Poppin Ken in several weeks now. We briefly talked about him on Thursday and we were told he was coming in earlier in the week but has been missing appointments. It seems he wore out his welcome with the late in the week patients so started coming in during less hostile times. I, for one, hope he doesn't give up. While he does look beat up from the cigs, drugs and booze, he is young like me and has a whole life ahead of him to work things out. Just don't let life slip through your hands so early. Some of us are late bloomers and find life after 40 or 50 far more rewarding then the trials and tribulations that confound the youth so often. Each year and each decade can always bring something new that profoundly changes your life and turns into something sweet, so much more worth living for. Simply by working through those hard times, things will then take a turn for the better. And really, how does one truly recognize and appreciate the good times if there aren't any bad times to compare them too? And you know, you can have both at the same time. For example, I have cancer, its been known to be the killer of all cancers, the carcinoma T. Rex if you will, but I am also getting married to a woman who won't leave my side and will tend to me through this whole healing process. So yeah, I am getting both the worse and the good times at once. And you know, I may not have fully recognized or fully appreciated what Beth means to me until the cancer hit me. Then seeing her dedication to me was convincing enough to know I found Mrs Right. This is where I have to say you got to take notice of life and enjoy its intricacies. I have been hit with the worse news one could ever hear from a doctor and yet I found Mrs. Right. Is life crazy or what?!? I once told Beth I should probably play the lottery, with the bad luck I have been having, I am bound to get the winning ticket. But after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that if I did, I would surely die from cancer. Life is just crazy enough to hand you a million bucks only to bring you death before you have a chance to enjoy it. Its better to remain humble, appreciate the things you have, and enjoy the life you are given. Life isn't about how long you live, its about how much you got out of it, the quality of life you lived, the personal experiences, the impressions you leave behind. Of course I just simplified it and there is much more to add, but in this over complex world, we can keep it basic now and then, can't we? I mean, life doesn't mean how much you grab and hold onto, keep it simple, let go of what's irrelevant and rejoice with a deep breath of fresh air, look around you at the beauty of this world, and feel your heart beat through your body. Then grab someone you love, hug them, grab your significant other and kiss them. That is life. Life is love. Love yourself, your friends and family, and the living world in which you live in. That is life. The rest of it is just irrelevant details. For a guy in my shoes, those details are truly irrelevant. What I want more now is more time for hugs and kisses, breathing fresh air, seeing this world in true color vision, and simply feeling my heart pump life through my veins. Once these things are gone, so are those details. If there is an afterlife that allows one to relfect on the life they just lived, I am sure they will not spend a minute on those irrelevant details and spend eternity reflecting on how it felt to love and be loved, how it felt to breath and feel that heart beat and most of all, that beautiful blue/green planet we used to call home. These are very tangible things we cannot let go of. They make up the core of our existence. The purest elements that give us life and reason to live.
So now that its 4:20 AM on this early Saturday morning, I will try to go get some sleep. We shall see...
Well, it won't be much of a week off. Krystina put in the order to have a new round of PET/CT scans done during that week. So instead of the usual chemo cocktail, I will have to take my valium and chase it with some surgar syrup and the flourine radioactive injection, yum, yum! Then I will have to do some contortions to fit into that tube. How do football lineman do it? Is there an extra large tube for them? "Mr. Walter Jones, the men's big and tall CT tube is available now, would you mind lathering up with this vaseline or shall I do it for you?" I better start doing more yoga now to make that half hour go a little easier.
So yes, we will be doing another progress scan in a couple of weeks. I am optimistic I will see further reduced SUV scores even though we just did the last one in January. The pressure around my heart hasn't been so bad lately and I actually think it has gone down on its own. I need to do another echogram with Dr. Sytman but keep forgetting to call and make it. I have been busy with work again and find my mind preoccupied with normal things, for a change. Thats been good for me, but shame on me for not staying on top of the medical needs. Don't get me wrong, I am on top of my herbs, supplements, and vegan (plus fish) diet. I have been getting out on walks more, even thought the freezing weather kills my chemo brutalized sinuses. We actually got about a half inch to an inch of snow in the city last night. Just enough to cover roof tops, cars, lawns and gardens but thats about it. It did leave icy conditions on the roads so there was plenty of wipe outs on a normally light traffic day. Beth waited for her bus for an hour before giving up and walking home to get her car. I was up too early, about 3 AM, so wasn't functional enough to care. It left me a mess for the day, but duty called. I had a meeting with the public works department in Marysville to get some permits, had lunch with my past coworker and friend Adam, came home to help out with more safety stuff for the office and fell asleep around 4:30, not waking up until 9 PM this evening. Now here it is 2:30 AM and I am adding to this blog. Ah yes, those refreshing chemo cocktails leave long hang overs!
So I got to the clinic on Thursday right on time. George didn't let me sit down this time and called me back for the vitals. BP looked great at 123/71, lowest its been since a few weeks after the last pericardiocentisis. Hence why I think the fluid is draining on its own this time. Pulse was 88 bpm, blood O2 was 99%, even though the right lung has been gurgling again, and weight still steady at 201 lbs. All the private rooms were booked, which was fine with me, so I bellied up in the lounge. Suddenly, I had 3 of the 4 nurses fighting over me, Jessica, Huang, and Daravan. I told them there is plenty of me to go around today and that I felt extra demanding anyways. It didn't take them long to scatter after that! So Jessica settled in to jack me in and collect the blood. It didn't take long to get the results back and all the blood cells bounced back up a smidgen from last week. Funny how it works like that. I thought they would be lower since I felt like doo all day Wednesday. I woke up from a restless sleep feeling dizzy and weak. I also had the shakes and thought that maybe I had flu like symptons, even though I had a flu shot last fall. It stayed with me the whole day and I didn't feel like eating much. I went to bed early and slept ok and woke up to a small case of diarrhea and Thursday went fine. So odd after that, the blood counts came up. Maybe I simply ate some bad tofu.
So of course, Jessica injects me with the benadryl and Krystina comes in to do the exam. Its amazing how her and Dr. Chen time themselves perfectly to come in after the benadryl. I guess they know us patients would be less gabby, forget our questions, and say, "yeah, I feel ok, can I sleep now?" Actually, Krystina is very thorough with her questions and exam and reviews many of the details from the previous weeks to see how those ailments are doing. One she keeps touching on is this rash I developed on my genitals that are a part of the side effects of the chemo. She likes to cover her mouth and in a sheepish smirk ask, "how is the rash." Then she says it always reminds her of that commerical where the guy is in the public swimming pool talking to his health care provider on the cell phone and says, "yes it is a rash......I should stay out of the pool?" Everyone in the pool overhears it and starts clearing out. It is a funny one. So with the chemo lounge full, I say in my regular tone, "the neosuporine jock itch did the trick!" Just to let you readers know, we are asked if we would like to go to a private room before the exams begin. Not many of us patients do, unless it involves undressing. So we talked about some aches and pains I have been feeling, the crappy Wednesday I dealt with and that was about it. There has been more focus of attention on the ringing in my hears I have been dealing with. Krystina would like to see the carboplatin dose get reduced to minimize the ringing and Dr. Chen doens't think its bad enough to warrant that yet. I guess the long term toxicity of carboplatin can eventually effect your ears and hearing. I believe this is also another reason why we will be doing progress scans so soon, to see if we can back off the carboplatin if more progress has been made. Later, Dr. Chen came in to follow up on the sore spots I have been dealing with. I have a spot over my right lung that hurts when you push on it, thats about it. Kinda the same thing with a spot under my right arm pit. It feels like to me its cancer lesions on my ribs. Some of my visualizations are to pull back my skin and expose my ribs and then carve off the lesion with a knife. Sounds grusome, but it seems just like carving off a bad spot on a potato! It makes me think one of those cheezy 80's or 90's made for TV "drugs are bad" movies where a wayward teenager gets high on LSD or PCP and carves his face off with a razor blade. Not that the drugs caused him to do it, deep down, he wanted to do and the drugs just help facilitate the courage to try it. So don't spike my cherry juice with LSD, I just might carve the cancer cells off myself! :p Couldn't be any worse than chemo, right?
Ok, off the morbid topic. Well, as if cancer is a much more happy topic. So I sipped down my carbo and taxol and pretty much finished up the day. Like most days, about an hour I after I entered the lounge, everyone else clears out. There is this breast cancer patient, Judy, who has been staying late with me the last couple of times as well. In fact, she has been the last to leave the last couple of times. She is pretty gabby so its hard to get some work done on the laptop before the benadryl kicks in killing off all motivation. She is a nice person, but once you have the benadryl, its hard to focus on a conversation. Most of the time, she gets hers a few minutes later, gets her exam from Dr. Chue, then comes back and falls asleep. I was pretty dozy myself this time and so George shut out the lights for us. Judy is on chemo to reduce the tumor in her breast before its surgically removed. She is doing a 12-week cycle then goes under the knife. Sometimes I wish it was that easy for me, I am on chemo until the end of cancer or me. But, it really is us, the individual, versus the cancer. It might seem to be easier for Judy but she could have complications and end up in worse shape than I. Where as I, I might have to endure chemo for a while but I might not have to ever bare the scares of being cut up or burned with radiation. So even knowing my general prognosis and survival statistics are probably the worse in the lounge on a full day, I can't help to feel I will beat this and continue looking like the James you have always known and loved, not a war torn and battered cancer patient. Judy seems to have the personality of a cancer survivor so I think she will do well regardless, I think that is why I tend to envy what seems to be her easier healing path. And like all the other patients in the lounge, we are pulling for her. Go Judy. Now that I am thinking about it, I haven't seen Pill Poppin Ken in several weeks now. We briefly talked about him on Thursday and we were told he was coming in earlier in the week but has been missing appointments. It seems he wore out his welcome with the late in the week patients so started coming in during less hostile times. I, for one, hope he doesn't give up. While he does look beat up from the cigs, drugs and booze, he is young like me and has a whole life ahead of him to work things out. Just don't let life slip through your hands so early. Some of us are late bloomers and find life after 40 or 50 far more rewarding then the trials and tribulations that confound the youth so often. Each year and each decade can always bring something new that profoundly changes your life and turns into something sweet, so much more worth living for. Simply by working through those hard times, things will then take a turn for the better. And really, how does one truly recognize and appreciate the good times if there aren't any bad times to compare them too? And you know, you can have both at the same time. For example, I have cancer, its been known to be the killer of all cancers, the carcinoma T. Rex if you will, but I am also getting married to a woman who won't leave my side and will tend to me through this whole healing process. So yeah, I am getting both the worse and the good times at once. And you know, I may not have fully recognized or fully appreciated what Beth means to me until the cancer hit me. Then seeing her dedication to me was convincing enough to know I found Mrs Right. This is where I have to say you got to take notice of life and enjoy its intricacies. I have been hit with the worse news one could ever hear from a doctor and yet I found Mrs. Right. Is life crazy or what?!? I once told Beth I should probably play the lottery, with the bad luck I have been having, I am bound to get the winning ticket. But after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that if I did, I would surely die from cancer. Life is just crazy enough to hand you a million bucks only to bring you death before you have a chance to enjoy it. Its better to remain humble, appreciate the things you have, and enjoy the life you are given. Life isn't about how long you live, its about how much you got out of it, the quality of life you lived, the personal experiences, the impressions you leave behind. Of course I just simplified it and there is much more to add, but in this over complex world, we can keep it basic now and then, can't we? I mean, life doesn't mean how much you grab and hold onto, keep it simple, let go of what's irrelevant and rejoice with a deep breath of fresh air, look around you at the beauty of this world, and feel your heart beat through your body. Then grab someone you love, hug them, grab your significant other and kiss them. That is life. Life is love. Love yourself, your friends and family, and the living world in which you live in. That is life. The rest of it is just irrelevant details. For a guy in my shoes, those details are truly irrelevant. What I want more now is more time for hugs and kisses, breathing fresh air, seeing this world in true color vision, and simply feeling my heart pump life through my veins. Once these things are gone, so are those details. If there is an afterlife that allows one to relfect on the life they just lived, I am sure they will not spend a minute on those irrelevant details and spend eternity reflecting on how it felt to love and be loved, how it felt to breath and feel that heart beat and most of all, that beautiful blue/green planet we used to call home. These are very tangible things we cannot let go of. They make up the core of our existence. The purest elements that give us life and reason to live.
So now that its 4:20 AM on this early Saturday morning, I will try to go get some sleep. We shall see...
posted by Beth @ 2/25/2006 02:17:00 AM
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