Twenty Chemotherapies Later

If you are wondering where we've been, it's a place in Boston called Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

After being clear of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for 8 years, tumors were found in the gallbladder I needed to be removed due to a serious infection brought about by a blocked duct.

Unlike the Lymphoma, this is not curable cancer. As a highly aggressive tumor, the chances of long-term survival are slim.  The options were surgery with chemotherapy or don't do anything and just let it kill me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a kind that gives up easily.

We opted for the surgery followed by chemotherapy. The surgery removed all visible tumors but there were still tumor cells which developed over a year. Then we started standard chemotherapy which had a minimal effect, then we tried one possible alternative which too had a minimal effect.

The second alternative, based on the existence of a DNA variation found in people susceptible to breast cancer has slowed the tumor growth considerably. That has been the twenty bi-weekly chemotherapies I've had so far and am scheduled to continue until it too stops working.

And it will but we don't know when.  Isn't that true of life in general?

I have visited death several times in my life.  I call them my practice runs.  One of my favorite buttons from the 60's, after Frodo Lives!, is "He who isn't being born is busy dying."  I will continue being born every morning when I wake up until the morning I don't.

-30-

Yesterday’s Visit to Dana Farber

Just a quick note:

We went in for our scheduled consultation with my oncologist at Dana Farber yesterday. 

“See you in six months.” was what she said.

We liked that.

-30-

CATT Scan on Thursday

Three months have passed since the last PETT scan.  I go in on Thursday for a CATT scan to see if the cancer has returned.

All of the hair removed by the chemotherapy has returned.  It's even getting a tad shaggy.  Superstiously, I decided not to get it trimmed until after the test.  If I need to return to chemo, why waste money?

-30-

Thanks for the well wishes

There are times when you find out just how many people are part of your life.  This has been one of them.  The routine of life, where you get up, drink you tea, shower, get dressed and go off to work, work, finish work, come home, have dinner, watch TV, answer email, go to bed and see only the few members of your family and the people with whom you work builds a false sense of being part of a very small community.

Then the proverbial fan became struck and my support structure came together with amazing speed and solidity.  I can only say thank you so many times, but consider it a looped messages that will only end when I do.

-30-

Wait for the shock to pass

When this news settles down, I promise to make a longer blog entry.  

-30-

Dana Farber

Back from Dana Farber. The scan and blood tests came up clean. I go back in October for a look over with the next scan three months after that!!

-30-

Update – Chemo

This is picture of the tin man that welcomed us to our son’s school play on Saturday night.

I thought it reflected very well how I feel after the fifth of six sessions of Chemotherapy. 

Parts out of place.

While I probably should have just taken the weekend totally off, even staid in bed, I refuse to let my life stop especially if the eventual permanent stopping has in anyway be accelerated by this.

During a previous time when I was taken out of the flow of life by a catastrophic event information I had gleaned from a book by Dr. Jonathon Miller, A Body in Question helped me substantially recover.

In the book, Dr. Miller mentions how a person when placed in the medical environment becomes a patient. As a patient they assume they are sick and therefore succumb to what they believe are the inevitable results.

I took that advice to heart and determined through dress and manner to be a guest of the hospital, not a patient.  Using the same perspective, I am determined to be guest of this cancer and not its supporter.

To get to the grit of what is happening today, the effects are worse, more pronounced and extremely annoying.  Now it’s time to get on with living as best I can with what I have.

-30- 

The Body in Question

They Kept Saying it Would Get Worse

And they were right.

The last PET scan was very promising with "No Uptake" as the result.

The chemotherapy has been most forgiving for the first three sessions.

Not so the fourth.

The possible side effects have been openly listed from day one but they have, up until now, been few and mild.

Up until now

I should've kept a list, but I am fairly sure if there was a list for each of them, I would be ticking them off one by one over the past three days.

This is not a complaint. I am just reporting the facts.

If suffering through this is what it takes to stay alive, piece of cake... sort of... okay, slice of pie.

-30-

LiveJournal Tags: chemotherapy

via Writerous

Posted via web from grazing's posterous

No Uptake

The news at Dana Farber was promising.

After undergoing three sessions of chemotherapy and waiting for my fourth, I was given a PET scan.

As I waited with an IV in place dripping saline solution, my nurse came to tell me that scan came back with "no uptake." She then gave me the bump.

(fist to fist).

Then they started hooking me up again.

I know this is good news, but my body feel worse than it has through the other sessions of chemotherapy. It's hard to rejoice at such good news trying to overcome the feeling you will vomit at any given provocation.

The bottom line seems to be, that I am in the beginning stage of remission. I will be tested for another five years before the cancer can be said to be clear.

Of course, what I heard is they expect me to be around for another five years.

Around that, I can get my head.

-30-

Post Chemo-Hubris

On Thursday, I went through the third of six planned chemotherapy sessions. On Friday, I managed to make it through a business meeting in the morning but by mid-afternoon I had just enough energy to make it into getting the white blood cell shot before I was wasted for the rest of the day.

Then, with the help of the associated medicines to counter the negative side effects I was feeling better last night. I agreed to go out to a Mexican restaurant in Norton, MA. The food and company was invigoration.

The hubris is was in not thinking ahead and having the Mole Enchilada with hot sauce. I’ve done some pretty idiotic things in my life, some of which culminating with my being given supreme unction, but last night at home, the suffering was at least a six where supreme unction is a ten.

And then, what do I do. I not only agree, but suggest Thai food for tonight. I was wise enough to settle for the Phad Thai and not the green curry, but still, I might as well run with scissor behind Dr. Crane.

-30-

LiveJournal Tags: Chemotherapy

via Writerous

Posted via web from grazing's posterous