2007-03-12
Yep... its me!
Hello everyone :)
I�ve started this post a few hundred times, never getting it to sound right. Oh well� I�ll spew and see what happens. This post is mainly being written to get all this crap out so that future posts won�t have to deal with it. At least that�s the plan at this point� write about this once and maybe reference it again later, but future writings will be less about the physical and more about � other stuff.
Where have I been? Well� mostly fighting my way through the lands of radiation and chemotherapy � mind fields they are, I tell ya.
The radiation part is over - 10 consecutive days of having a stream of something dangerous and yet wonderful (assuming it works!) being shot into my head and thigh (of course different streams! Geez� they weren�t caroming the shots like they were playing a game of pool!). I still can�t tell if the radiation actually had any ill effects on me or not, although I sure suspect it did. The chemo�s effects are so strong and pronounced; it�s hard to tell where one starts and the other stops. My last radiation treatment was this last Tuesday, so hopefully now I�m only dealing with whatever the chemo itself throws my way.
Chemo � now there�s a 2-edged sword. Without it, cancer patients wouldn�t stant much of a chance. But let me be the first to tell ya� there are days when you chemo recipients sit back and ask themselves� is the cure worse than the disease?
I�ve been through 2 courses of chemo so far. The first was while I was in the hospital back in the beginning of Feb when they were still trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. Being in the hospital, I was taken care of pretty well� and didn�t realize just how much I depended on the nursing staff to get through the days after the chemo treatment.
A week ago Thursday was my first out-patient chemo treatment (thank you Cindy for accompanying me!). While long (6 hours!), I just sat there while the toxic cocktails were infused into me. The biggest thing that day� I missed my afternoon nap, which made me feel a bit fatigued. Other than that� a normal day.
Friday I had to return to the oncology center for follow-up drugs (which is standard)� stuff to help bolster both my red and white blood cell counts (both take a big hit� chemo isn�t too specific when it comes to attacking stuff in the body). I got a dose of something that will help concentrate calcium on the parts of my thigh bone where the cancer is severely weakening it.
I also gambled. Along with the stuff above, I got a dose of something that busts up blood vessel formation that feed groups of fast-growing cells� which is exactly what cancer cells are. The idea is that if the blood vessels are not able to feed the tumor, then the tumor dies from lack of nutrition. Simple, huh?
Sorta� remember I said I gambled taking it? First, while this drug has been tested against lung cancer, isn�t approved for lung cancer. In testing against lung cancer, they�ve found that this drug can sometimes cause severe hemorrhaging. The REAL gamble was that the tumor on my head, while mostly outside the skull, did protrude inside the skull and into the brain just a bit. So� if this decided to hemorrhage on the inside of my skull, instant meningitis� decidedly not a good thing. Long story short � it worked great, an the tumor on my head (which was so large that I had taken to referring to it as Mini-Me) is now SOOO much smaller that it even made my oncologist grin ear to ear.
The above was written between 5:30 and 6:00 AM this morning. It�s now 4:00 PM and I don�t think any further fermentation of this post is going to help make it any more readable. So� post time I suppose. I haven�t said everything I want / need to say yet � that�s just a warning that there�s more to follow� at some point.
t85225 at 4:04 p.m.
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