Category Archives: Good Days

Next to Normal

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Today (Wednesday) was such a normal day that I almost forgot to blog before going to bed. For the last few weeks I’ve had cancer related updates and new things to share every day, but today was just a day. And to be honest, I feel perfectly healthy and I didn’t really think about cancer much today. The first draft of yesterday’s blog post (written before I knew that I wasn’t going in for chemo this week) had a big section about how great I feel, and how I didn’t want to back in for chemo because I haven’t felt this good in months. I had been told that this would happen, that after I emerge from my first dose of chemo all of my symptoms would disappear and I would feel great. It’s exactly what happened, and I had pretty much made up my mind that I didn’t need to go back and that I was cured, though I had doubts that my oncologist or my wife were going to buy it.

But still, a very normal day today. It felt like September 12th all over again (the day before my first doctor’s appointment). I got up at about 8:30 and spent the morning applying the second coat of paint to the bathroom. Then in the afternoon I took care of some errands and took the dog for a long walk before starting some house cleaning. I have energy and I have been able to accomplish things again. It’s almost enough to make me forget entirely. Like it never happened! I need to remember to enjoy this while it lasts.

I think Christine had a rough day though. As far as she was concerned it was her “Friday” all day on Tuesday. I had chemo scheduled for Wednesday and she wasn’t planning on coming back into work for the rest of the week. So it was Friday, right up until 4:45 when I called her and let her know that they had canceled my appointment. Suddenly it was Tuesday again, that has got to be a rough adjustment to make.

A special thanks goes out to all of Christine’s co-workers who have agreed to help to cover for her while she is out of the office every other week, for half the week. Especially now, when our schedule has changed and now all of the days that she needs coverage on will be shifting (and thanks in advance if and when it shifts again).

In the meantime, I’m working on getting my white blood cell count back up. I don’t really know how to do that… but I sure think about it alot. I concentrate really hard and imagine a new white blood cell just popping into existence and joining his white blood cell friends for a joy ride through my blood stream. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, but I like to think that it helps.

I think the “mourning period” is over

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It only took 2 months.

I don’t know how to describe it, but in the last few days I sort of “got over it” or to put it in a more NSFW term that we use often: I “un-fucked myself.” What I mean by this is that while I’ve had a pretty good attitude and have kept a generally positive persona about this “whole cancer thing,” I feel like I’ve still let it dominate and mandate the decisions and choices that I’ve made over the last 2 months. This isn’t something that surprises me, it is kind of a big deal after all, but still I can’t help but feel like I’ve let it take over my life. I think I’m done with that now. I can’t ignore the fact that I’m sick, but I think I’m done letting it completely dictate what I do or don’t do.

Christine started noticing it first in the small things. Last night for example we were out and she noticed that I was walking at a faster clip than she was, closer to the pace of life that I used to move at. She commented I must be feeling better since I was walking at my normal speed again, and that made me stop for a second. I checked in and realized that I didn’t particularly feel any better, in fact Monday through Wednesday after chemo are actually some of my most physically uncomfortable and achy days of the cycle, it’s just that at some point I’d sort of accepted it. It’s not going away anytime soon, there isn’t anything that I can particularly do about it, so why should I let it slow me down or stop me anymore.

And boy, has it ever. I keep surprising myself when it comes to my physical abilities, or rather inabilities. I get an idea that I’m going to do something simple like laundry, but its shocking to me how quickly I find myself becoming fatigued. My hope is that it’s more from the damage that I’ve done to myself by not being at all physically active over the last few months, and not the disease, or rather the treatment , that’s been the source of my continued weakness. And that could be case, only time will tell, but at least for this week I feel like I’m ready to start moving forward again in a big way.

It’s either that, or maybe I just woke up feeling oddly ambitious today, and this is how it’s manifesting itself. Either way, I’ll let it carry it me for as long as I can.

Highs… and Lows

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It’s almost too easy to talk about this journey as a series of highs and lows. Today was a perfect example. I got to spend some time with my friends Dane and Jessica (the High) but I ended the day feeling pretty low (the Low).

I sort of touched on  how I’ve been feeling in yesterday’s post, but I want to expand upon it today. As an overall, I haven’t felt too terribly bad during this latest round of chemo, but what’s been slowly wearing on me is the fact that I haven’t felt good either. I’ve just kind of felt sick for the last week. Not in an unbearable way, but its like its lingering just under the surface and won’t go away. It hasn’t prevented me from doing anything, but its just been a constant presence for the last week.

It actually started on Wednesday, the day we went in for chemo again. I was okay in the morning, but the nearer we got to our chemo appointment the worse I started feeling. By the time Tanya picked us up and we were on our way I was feeling genuinely nauseous. Even now thinking about it again I am starting to make myself a little ill. The nurse told me that I was basically describing “anticipatory nausea.” It’s basically what it sounds like. I know what I’m on my way to do. I don’t want to go. I know how it’s going to make me feel, and my body starts to react in anticipation.

It’s been almost a full week now, and that feeling has remained, like I said, just below the surface. Never really showing itself but at the same time never really going away. After a week it’s really starting to wear me down. My fear is that this is the real manifestation of continued treatment and that my body is starting to lose ground against the chemo drugs. When I talk about with people I describe it as diminishing returns, that with each subsequent treatment I am not quite able to get all way back up to a baseline level before I have to go back in and get another round of chemo. I’m scared that this feeling is going to get worse as the months progress and that eventually it won’t go away at all.

Also on my mind today is a friend who lost his father to cancer today. It was not unexpected, but I can’t help but feel the loss and take a moment to reflect on how much cancer sucks. I only met him once, but he was such a sweet man and he did have a lasting impact on me: to this day the image of him dancing with his wife at his son’s wedding knowing that he was terminally ill was one of the most touching moments I’ve ever see in my life. It brings tears to my eyes even thinking about it now. I know that our cancers were different, and that our journeys have little in common save for the  “c word” itself. But none the less, in the short time that I’ve lived with my own cancer I’ve felt an increasing connection and understanding with others who have lived, and who continue to live, with cancer in their lives.

Anyway, a lot on my mind tonight, and as such I’m feeling pretty blah. Christine has been amazing though. She worked all day and then came home and is now decorating the tree and hanging up the stockings while I lay here and type this. It just looks so beautiful.

Like I said, it’s a journey of highs and lows.

I should go, Christine just threw an entire glass of wine on the cat.

Hopeful after a lovely evening

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On Wednesday night Christine and I were invited to a recruiting presentation for prospective students of the MBA program. If you’ve been following us since the beginning you may recall that Christine was accepted into this degree program and had just begun courses when I was diagnosed and we made the decision to defer her enrollment for a year. The school has been very supportive of us and our decision and Christine has kept in contact with them throughout this process.

I have to tell you, at every encounter I continue to amazed and impressed by these people. Christine has been guaranteed a spot in next years class but they still invite us to the occasional recruiting event or reception in order to “ensure that you remain enthusiastic and interested in our program.” What they forget is how enthralled we are about the program but that just goes to show how thorough and impressive they are. Throughout the process they given us the impression that THEY have been courting and recruiting US into their exclusive program when really I feel like it should be the other way around. This is one of the top Business School programs in the country and they want Christine! (we won’t tell them that she can’t count)

It was a beautiful reception and dinner at the Sorrento Hotel with a brief presentation and then a few alumni spoke. I got so excited for Christine to start this program again, it was the same feeling I had back in the fall when we attended the “Back the School Night Reception” after her first day of class. I distinctly remember sitting in that room over dinner at the table full of her new classmates. It was a feeling of excitement, hope and endless opportunity ahead of us. It was happening! She was taking her first steps into this amazing program, I had just come off 8 months of solid steady work and was a few weeks away from starting another 3 months of work. Life was good! I was SO proud of Christine for everything that she had accomplished and was about to start, and frankly I was proud of myself for everything that I had accomplished and was about to start. That last bit doesn’t happen often, so I always note it when it does =) Two weeks later… well, you know that story by now.

The thing is, I had that same feeling again on Wednesday when I was sitting in the room listing to alumni talk about the program and the opportunities that it provided for them. I looked over at Christine and again was immensely proud of her and I was excited again for the future like I was back before everything happened. This is important to note, I purposely haven’t been “counting down” my number of treatments or spending too much time thinking ahead about an exact date when I will be finished with chemo since we don’t know, and it could change even if we did. But I do feel comfortable looking forward to next fall when Christine will be starting the program again. I assume that by then this painful experience will be be fading into the rear view mirror of our lives (hey look at that, imagery! This is what happens when you start reading books without pictures in them again). We’ll be back where we started, and probably much wiser for the journey.

“Done”

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There is another reason why I keep thinking maybe I’m almost done with this treatment course: I normally feel pretty good during the days leading up to my next chemo appointment since obviously they are they days farthest away from the last chemo appointment. But this week, I don’t just feel pretty good, I’ve felt great.

There are a few possibilities behind this. The first and most likely is that it’s because I’m currently not on the full treatment regimen. If you recall, last month, because I was beginning to show signs of possible lung damage, I was taken off of the bleomycin, leaving me on only 3 of 4 chemo drugs that I would normally be given. I’ve commented a few times over the last month on how the lack of bleomycin seems to have favorable results on the way that I feel, and perhaps and this is just another way that it’s presenting itself.

But then I think there is another possibility. Maybe I’ve felt so great this week because the tumors are gone? Maybe I’m at the point now that that only thing keeping me “sick” is the chemo drugs themselves. If that’s the case, then maybe now that I’m this far away from my last dose I’m starting to feel normal again (for lack of a better term). I’m still not a doctor (you’d think I would be by now, seriously), but it seems to make sense to me.

God, I just can’t get over how great it would be walk out of that office tomorrow knowing that it’s almost over. We are pinning our hopes on some great news today in a serious way. A way that I haven’t allowed myself up until this point. And again, I’m terrified that we are setting ourselves (and everyone) up to be disappointed. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve been so reluctant to talk about it in the first place, but it goes back to my commitment to be honest with myself and really use this blog as a tool to document where I am at both physically and mentally in the process.

So where I am physically and mentally? The answer  is “DONE.” I’m just done with it all. I’m done physically, and I’m done mentally. And now all I can think about is that I hope my oncologist sees it the same way, and that she thinks that I’m “done” medically.

Today I’m either going cry tears of joy, or I’m going to shatter into a million pieces. Either way its going to be a big day.

We’ll keep you posted.