Category Archives: The Cancer

Waiting

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The waiting room in an oncology office is a peculiar place. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable so I think I tend to overcompensate for the nervous energy in the room and I find that I’m often the cheeriest one in the room. I think some people find it off putting as I tend to pick-up on the odd looks that people give me. “Laughter in a place like this, how insensitive” I seem to hear them thinking. And it’s mostly from those who are accompanying a cancer patient.

When we were there last Wednesday the waiting room was the fullest we had ever seen it (business is up!). Among those waiting was a family of three: a mom and dad reading some magazines, and between them their elementary school aged son. The father had thinning hair like me, and I immediately identified him as the cancer patient. It’s generally easy to tell in that room, if it’s a man they are bald or have short or thinning hair like me, if it’s a woman they’ll have a scarf or hat on. I kept looking back at that family while we waited as I was really impressed that they were all here for the appointment, especially that as a family they would bring their kid in with them. I think it’s great actually, cancer effects everyone in the family.

They called his name before they called mine and as the family got up and approached the Medical Assistant it became abundantly clear that I had made a huge mistake in my assumptions. It wasn’t his appointment, it was their son’s. And in fact it was their first appointment. He couldn’t have been more than 10 years old.

I can’t stop thinking about that family. In hindsight I can see the sadness, the stoicism that the parents were displaying in that waiting room. I can see now that they were scared but were trying to displace their nervousness. They both sat, heads down, slowly flipping through the waiting room magazines (I can’t imagine they were doing too much reading) while their son sat between them eating a small bag of chips and swinging his legs off the end of the chair.

Based on his age, chances are he has leukemia. Like lymphoma, it’s a another type of blood cancer, but one that attacks the white blood cells. And like lymphoma there is fairly high rate of survival. But still, I think of how hard it was for me to come to terms with my illness, that I can’t even imagine trying to explain that to a child. Or worse, to be a parent of a small child walking into that room. It was hard enough (and still is hard) for my own parents, and I’m almost 30.

It was certainly one of those “cancer sucks” moments (or rather, a phrase we’ve come to adopt in this house is simply “fuck cancer”). The moment when that kid identified himself as the name called in the waiting room has really stuck with me for the last two weeks. So much so that I’ve thought about it every day since.

“Are you Thomas?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“And is this your first time in?”
“Yep” he said while looking back into his bag of chips for any which he may have missed.

What’s interesting is that I find that I don’t so much worry about him. I worry about his family. More specifically his parents. I’ve really come to realize to that this experience has in many ways been harder on the people around me than it has been for myself. It can be hard to watch sometimes, not only because its hard to see people that you love go through something like this, but even more so because often times there is nothing to do BUT watch. Watch and wait.

So when I’m sitting in the waiting room, looking around everyone, I never worry about the ones with the thinning hair, or the head scarves. I worry about the people with them. Us, we’ve accepted it. We’re here to get poked and prodded and filled with poison. That’s our job. Sure it’s hard sometimes, but not as hard as being the people who come with us and support us. THAT’s hard. Because all they can do is watch. And wait.

The truth is I don’t mind. I would rather this happen to me that to have to sit and watch it happen to someone that I love. Me, I can handle it. But what I couldn’t handle would be having to watch and wait while someone that I loved went through this kind of cancer treatment, or any kind of health struggle.

I can’t imagine what that must be like.

Hairloss Part III

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While the hair on my head continues to thin yet has mostly remained, I’m just about out of body hair. It’s almost entirely gone on my legs but is still hanging around on my arms. I haven’t been losing hair in clumps like I was back in October, but what I think is happening now is just normal hair loss that everyone experiences. The difference for me is that while everyone else is constantly growing new hair to replace what they naturally shed, I am not.

The thing about the hair on our bodies is that it serves a purpose. You really notice this when its gone. Nose hair for example is something you probably don’t think much about it, unless you no longer have any. The purpose of nose hair is both a first line of defense to keep things out, BUT it also works to help keep things in. Since I no longer have any my nose runs all the time. You know how when you’ve been outside in the cold for a while, and it can make your nose start to run? Well that happens to me, only it doesn’t have to be cold, and it doesn’t have to be “a while,” I basically just have be outside and it will cause my nose to start to run. And with none of that pesky nose hair to get in the way and disrupt the flow, it rolls on out in a quick and steady pace.

I’ve also lost the hair in my ears. Here is another example of a place that we have hair for a reason. Like the nose, the hair in the ears is again designed as a first line of defense to help keep things out. Without it though, I find the body resorting to an over production of it’s second line of defense, ear wax.

The weirdest place though that I’ve started noticing the hair loss is MY EYELASHES. And whats even weirder about that is that it’s mostly just the bottom lashes that have lost the good fight.

If you’re keeping score, I’ve got about 8 left on the bottom of each eye.

You can a couple of them still hanging on, but they sure went fast. I first noticed it late last week when I rubbed my eyes and noticed several eyelashes still stuck to my fingers when I pulled them away.

Also as the hair on my head has continued to thin at a slow pace, I have finally reached the point when my head is starting to get cold if I leave the house without a hat or beanie.  I really started to notice it in the over the last week or so while I’ve been out Christmas shopping. Still, if you passed me on the street I don’t think it looks to bad, nor do I feel that I particularly look like a cancer patient. Unless you already know.

Chemo today. The good people at the hospital have a couple of early Christmas presents for me:  adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine.

Merry Christmas to ME!

One more down, one less to go!

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Stine here. Brian is resting comfortably after chemo yesterday, and it was pretty uneventful. Well, it was certainly a little silly.

Because Brian has been experiencing some “anticipatory nausea” when he thinks about getting in the car and driving to the hospital, he has been taking a relaxant medication before we leave the house. This medicine made him a little silly by the time he started chemo, and it had him in a pretty good mood when the nurse came around with a bag full of wigs that patients can have. He sampled the wares:

This is his "come hither" look.

He looks good as a blond.

Needless to say, when I showed him this picture later in the evening, he had forgotten it was ever taken. =)

I am so thankful for his amazing sense of humor, and amazing optimism while being poked and prodded. Even when he’s receiving treatment, he keeps the nurses laughing and everyone around him smiling.

For example, somehow today we got into a conversation with our nurse about the “Chemotherapy and You” book, and how it contains a chapter on how to tell your children you have cancer, but not a chapter for how a twenty-something-year-old should tell their parents.

Nurse: “It must have been really difficult to tell your parents when you found out you were sick.”
Brian: “Yeah, it was pretty hard.”
Nurse: “It must be hard for them to not be able to do anything but watch you get treatment. Because you know a mother would cut off her arms for her children.”
Brian: “That’s why my mom only has one arm.”

…

I guess you kinda had to be there. Trust me, it was funny at the time. He says lots of funny stuff like that, all the time.

In September when he was diagnosed, he was worried that he wouldn’t be a “good” cancer patient, with a sunny outlook.  I don’t think he has to worry about that anymore.

Anyway, my point is, that Brian is handling this like a champ, and it keeps things in perspective for me when I’m dealing with a hard time at work, or get stuck in traffic. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I’m so glad that he will be around to celebrate the rest of our lives together because of exactly the treatment he went through today. Modern medical technology is amazing, but I’m sure his charming personality has a lot to do with his treatment, too. =)

The Voice

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The voice is muscle, and like any muscle if you don’t use it you lose it. Or at least it can quickly get out of shape. I realized this first hand last night when I went in for my first rehearsal for the revival… We actually all met last week for read through, but this was my first time working through a song again in a long time. In fact, as I realized during my first hoarse sing-through, the last time I sang ANYTHING was three-and-a-half months ago when I last sang this same song onstage. It was a bit of a wake-up call.

It will be fine, I just need to be sure and actually use my singing voice a bit more to get it back into shape. That, and you know actually maybe warm-up before going into a rehearsal. When we last did this show in September, I had been working for almost a year straight with no breaks, so my voice was pretty much always in good shape without having warm up or anything.

Everything was raspy, crackly, weak, and I just didn’t feel like I had any control over it. I don’t know why I was so surprised though. Like I said it’s a muscle, I wouldn’t expect to run every day for a year, then stop for 3 months, and then go out for a run and expect the same mile time that I had when I stopped. But for some reason I was still surprised when my voice wasn’t where I thought it was.

I also wonder what effects my chemo treatments have had on my vocal health aside from lack of use. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there as well. In the past I would Google it. “Chemo” and then whatever possible side effect or ailment I was looking for and it always comes back with a result. I find lately though that I have problems doing that. Its getting harder and harder for me to talk about chemo as I have such negative associations with it that when I start to talk about it or think about it I can feel back in the room, in the chair. It makes my heart sink and my stomach turn.

Along those same lines, just the names of the drugs have power over me. When I’m sitting in the chair and they bring the drugs up, they show them to me and read off the names showing me the labels and verifying that it’s me and that it’s the right drugs. Just the other day I was reading something somewhere I randomly stumbled across the name of one of the drugs they give me, and my body reacted to it. Powerful stuff.

Okay, case and point, I have to stop talking about this now as I’m making myself a little ill. =)

Guilt

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For the first time since crushing it last week, my toe is feeling better and I’m beginning to walk normally again.

Interestingly, since I’ve stayed off my feet for pretty much the entire week I’ve been feeling really good as well. Normally I think I would be trying to do things and would up on my feet working and cleaning around the house etc. This would typically exhaust me and make me feel like crap, so I guess there is something to taking it easy and just sitting on the couch for a few days until I feel better.

Of course I’ve accomplished nothing all week, so I guess its a trade off. Push myself and actually be useful but feel the effects of the fatigue and achyness, OR sit on the couch for several days and feel physically better.

The problem is that I just can’t sit still. Even when my “job” is just to “get better” I still find that I feel guilty sitting at home and taking it easy while Christine is out at work.

It’s something that I’ve actually struggled with ever since I left my old day job last spring. When I’m in a show I work nights, but during the day I always found that I couldn’t really bring myself to just relax and read, or watch TV, or play video games. I did whatever I could to keep myself busy with things I felt made me useful: cleaning, running errands, and working on various projects. So it’s something that has always been issue for me, but has definitely been heightened for me since getting sick.