At the Quarter Pole

Sorry it's been awhile since I blogged. I have had three of my prescribed 12 cycles since then with 4 drugs compared to the three I had last time. What I was told last time about the cumulative effect of chemo certainly seems to be holding true this time. That is, the 2nd cycle feels worse than the 1st, the 3rd feels worse than the 2nd, etc. This is my "off" week and I should be feeling better, but truth be told I'm still not feeling too hot - definitely not as good as this time in my last "off" week. Besides the chest pains that I always have that are caused by the 5FU drug, I have some new and different side effects this time. None of them are unbearable but they are certainly annoying. Little things like a weakened voice, frequent headaches, disorientation (only right after my drug administration), occasional bleeding in my nose and stoma, and an overall "blah" feeling that is hard to describe. It's hard to say if the drugs are causing all of these and I probably won't know for sure until a few weeks after I'm finally done with this and I can see if everything has stopped.

My first battle had three separate rounds of chemo treatment. One was weekly for five weeks. The second was monthly for 4 months. The last was 6 times every two weeks. So even if the side effects were cumulative, there weren't a lot of consecutive opportunities to worsen - no more than 6 times. I don't mind saying that I am more concerned this time because (1) I've got 12 of these to go through and they are 9 to go and (2) I've already seen cumulative effects and I'm wondering how I'm going to be after the 12th. I just tell myself, "You're tougher than the chemo" and "You've beaten this once. You can do it again." Dr. Y said I had an option of no treatment, since Dr. Ondrula got all of the cancerous mass in my thigh during the biopsy, but Dr. Y did not recommend this, as the chemo is needed to ensure all of the cancer is gotten, no matter where in the body it is. The main problem with chemo is that it kind of goes through your body like a tidal wave in that it goes through your body destroying just about everything in its path - cancer cells and good white blood cells, not caring about what side effects it's causing along the way. You just hope and pray all of the cancer cells are killed and flushed from your body and whatever good and healthy cells are killed or damaged are repaired or replaced by new healthy cells.

When you're a kid, it's easy and typical to "wish part of your life away." You know, an 8 year old may wish he were 12, a 12 year may wish he were 16, a 16 year old may wish he were 21, and so on. As you age and you realize the value and importance of each day and that tomorrow is guaranteed to none of us, you likely stop "wishing part of your life away." (Maybe an exception is those who wish they were of retirement age.) With that in mind, as much as I wish it were the middle of July now and all 12 of these cycles were over, I'm going to live each of these days as best and as productively as possible under the circumstances. I likely won't be as productive as usual, but chemo causes you to create paradigm shifts of what "normal" is. Who knows what else may happen during that time? For instance, a representative from the American Cancer Society has been trying to follow up with me about doing some volunteer work after I indicated to them a willingness to do so. So we'll see what happens there. Of course, the other side of trying to wish your life away is that you never can. It's never instaneously x days or years ahead, no matter how hard you wish it to be. You still have to live one day at a time and that's what I'll try to do. I just pray for God's strength to see me through.