Cancer is a Journey

*cue sappy music

"Cancer is a journey...and everyone's journey is different." Watching television the other night...well, listening to it, I was in the kitchen making dinner, I heard this phrase from a commercial for The Cancer Treatment Centers of America®. Now, I've had issues with them before - their commercials that lead people to believe that they are cutting edge and can offer things that other cancer treatment (that are ACTUALLY cutting edge) can offer - all from a for-profit institution - we'll just say that it left me skeptical.

But this particular phrase was particularly irritating. A journey is something I picture as something that someone undertook voluntarily. It is a wonderful and wondrous thing and, ultimately, pleasurable. Cancer is not a journey (despite the tongue-in-cheek title of this blog). It is not a journey so much as it is a forced march. Like a forced march, no one wants to go on a 'cancer journey'. You start off by surprise - forced into a very frightening world that until then, had been entirely unknown. Each day is filled with fear - of pain, of injury, of scarification, and of death. Your captor is in control and you have no choice but to continue to put one foot in front of the other until you either make it to wherever you're going, or you drop dead.

This idea of cancer and the treatment of cancer as some sort of adventurous journey is a complete crock of shit.

Let's be real, people, and let's be honest - cancer sucks and it's okay to say that it does*.

*Links to others who agree with this point of view:

Cancer Sucks!

Choose Hope

Stupid Cancer

Moments of Self Pity...and then back on solid ground

I have been building up to a bit of a meltdown recently. You can read too much about cancer and about people who have cancer and it can get to you. The sad stories of people who die within a few years of diagnosis after a long, protracted struggle and who leave mourning loved ones behind can really bring you down. I've found that I try to create my own sort of statistics by reading stories, finding out how long each person in each story with my type of cancer lasted, what they had to suffer through in order to paint an approximate picture of my own future.

Ghastly thing to do to yourself.

My sister is the most helpful person to me through all this without even knowing it. She sent me the super-smoothie recipe (earlier post) which I attribute to my relative health and well-being and she sent me this blog (click HERE) about a man, now 68 years old, who was diagnosed first with stage 4 lung cancer, then 3 1/2 years later, prostate and throat cancer all of which he has beaten. To celebrate, he is walking the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Mexico. It's an amazing story and what they seem to attribute his survival to is his exercise. I've been reading a lot of about this...that regardless of age, gender, race, etc., the main components of those who survive long-term (I guess that means over five years) is a quality of life that includes fairly vigorous or at least regular physical and mental activity. This is my life. I'm very active, some would say 'outdoorsy' or 'sporty', and I'm a grad student - lots of mental activity.

I can do this. Or at the very least, I can give it my best shot.

Chemo Insomnia

Chemo insomnia is a strange thing. I've had insomnia before, usually after choir practice (so much oxygen!) or a particularly ripping graduate class (brain just won't quit). Chemo insomnia is a little different. Sleep teases you - you might drift asleep normally only to be jerked awake by weird body spasms, an odd twinge of pain, or absolutely nothing at all. Seriously. There you are, nearly asleep and then suddenly - AWAKE! Almost asleep. AWAKE. Just about made it. AWAKE. It's like that weird struggle you sometimes have to make it to a difficult orgasm. Extremely frustrating. Tonight, I went through the usual back and forth until I had a weird sensation/dream that someone or something was right behind me, sort of whispering in my ear. I actually squealed. And here I am.

And what can I write about....hmmmmm...I had my PowerPort for chemo installed about a week ago. The bruises are nice shades of purple and green - quite lovely for the spring/Easter season...ummmm....I enrolled for my summer class on the Sociology of Death and Dying - that might make for some interesting blog entries...wweelllllll......I've been reading other blogs and I've got to say that some make me downright jealous. Some people are just really good, entertaining writers who write honestly and humorously about their lives with cancer and I'm not sure that I'm doing such a brilliant job in that department. I've been thinking that, like in other areas of my life, I'm not always that open and forthcoming..."I know you are a private person" someone recently described me as...weird...I never thought of myself as a private person...guarded maybe, but not necessarily private...so perhaps that's the ticket. Open up, expose, send the guards home and fling open the gates of the self!

Or maybe I'll just go back to bed.

First Post-Chemo Scan Results

I have chosen the illustration to the left (specially made by yours truly) to illustrate the effectiveness of two rounds of chemo. What you are looking at is dramatization of the inoperable main tumor that I have in my left lung. Pre-chemo, it looks angry and appears to have the potential to get angrier. After two treatments of standard chemo, it has suffered quite a shock. Good news for me - more time on the planet. Bad news for the tumor - it must now work harder - which if you think about it is really bad news for me, ultimately. For now though, I'm happy that chemistry has bought me some time.

KB and I have been searching for a home to actually buy - it should cost us significantly less than rent, and we'll be able to nest it and make it our own instead of tolerating all of the plain beigeiness that comes from apartment living. Our lease runs out at the end of May, so here's hoping we can get into something by then.

Until then, it's life as usual in the big city. I continue to be happy and thankful and to love.

Congratulations! You have pulled the Cancer Card!

Today is the 6th month anniversary of my pulling the cancer card! Bob Barker, what prize to we have for our guest today?

Well Burt, we have a brand new thoracic CT with contrast!

It's true. I celebrated this auspiscious day by getting a thoractic CT scan to see if the chemotherapy is successfully combating the cancer. I'll find out on Friday when I go in for my lab/doctor/infusion appointment.

From what I've read on other cancer blogs and wall posts, CT scans of this nature can cause a great deal of anxiety - people are afraid that treatment is not working, or if they are having a scan to see if the cancer has come back, they are obviously anxious that the cancer has returned. Evidently, it's much easier to win the first round with cancer than subsequent ones.

I have to tell you though, I really haven't had any anxiet as of yet. I'm not sure why this is other than 1) I think the chemotherapy is working because some of my symptoms have gone away, and 2) because I have prepared myself for it NOT working. My whole life it has been this way. I prepare for the worst so that I'm pleasantly surprised if the news is good. What's helpful for me too, I think, is that I know that any good news is, essentially, temporary. There will come a day when my DNA mutation mutates again so that any treatment is basically useless. Don't get me wrong, I plan on seeking out different treatment options along the way, but I know where this train is ultimately headed.

Curiously, I'm okay with it.

The Best Chemo Smoothie Recipe Ever!

Most people know, if not by first hand experience then by common knowledge, that chemotherapy makes you feel like crap. You feel nauseated and exhausted. Even if you felt like eating, your taste buds feel like they've been burned or mowed over, and you have a sort of bitter and very unpleasant taste in your mouth almost constantly. Particular food smells and even the idea of particular foods can set your stomach reeling. I have been very, VERY lucky. My sister has taken it upon herself to do a ton of research and found for me The Best Chemo Smoothie Recipe Ever! Not to engage in the hyperbole so common in our time, but the recipe, found at the end of this article in (click here for article & recipe-->) Prevention Magazine as made a tremendous difference in how my body handles chemotherapy. Although I had the recipe for the smoothie before my first round of chemo, I figured I would only start drinking it if I needed it. Almost exactly 24 hours after my first chemo was administered, the effects of the chemo hit me like proverbial ton of bricks. I was suddenly exhausted, dizzy and nauseated. I drifted in and out of sleep and wakefulness for two days and remember very little of those two days from where I sit now. On day three, I ended up in the emergency room with a fever. Once I went back to work, I suffered from 'chemo-brain' and I would collapse at the end of the day. It took me a good two weeks to feel 'normal' again. Enter The Best Chemo Smoothie Recipe Ever! I started drinking it on day four or five post-chemo and it did help some at the time, but I kept drinking it - 20 ounces in the morning, 20 ounces in the afternoon, every day. My second round of chemo was much different. 24 hours after, I was still tired and did some drifting in and out of sleep, but during my times of wakefulness, I was lucid and I remembered what went on. All symptoms were much less prevalent. I went back to work and suffered no chemo-brain and no end-of-the-day collapse. It took me five days to feel normal. Round Two was more like a bout with a light flu. I am now nine days post-chemo and my energy level is amazing. I no longer collapse into bed and night and then have to drag myself out of it in the morning. I am able to exercise more. The Omega 3s in this smoothie are believed to enhance the effectiveness of my chemotherapy and the huge hit of vitamins helps my body stave off any infections. I truly feel like I've been liberated from the fog and am truly alive again. Although I did drink more water than I had the first round, the only difference between my behavior during Round One and Two was my blessed smoothie. It is somewhat costly and I think that people who live in remote areas might have trouble finding all of the ingredients, but I would advise anyone going through chemotherapy to do whatever they can to use this smoothie. Note: If you make enough of this smoothie that you are saving some for later, wait and add the flax and wheat germ to each individual serving. Otherwise, the grains soak of the liquid and the consistency is rather unsavory. It is truly health in a glass.

Offering Comfort

I had a conversation with my mother last night about how great the Gamma Knife is and how I'm glad that I don't have cancer back in the 1960s when so much of it was hopeless and really ugly. We talked a little about whole brain radition and I told her that if it ever came down to that, I don't think that I'd bother. I think that this upset her...not that I wouldn't bother, but that we were in the circumstance of even having the conversation.

So I guess my question for the day is how do you comfort the ones you love? Most people answer that since you are the one with the disease that your family needs to find other people to talk to or find comfort from. But just because you have cancer doesn't mean that you stop being a mother, sister, daughter, or whatever. Not that people should expect to lean on you 100% all of the time, but if you were one source of comfort in the past, why should that not continue, despite your disease being the source of discomfort? Am I not the same Ruth I was before I got the cancer? That Ruth would offer comfort.

I guess that's my answer.