Eric's Cancer Story

I've started chemo.  So far (day 1) I feel fine.  I'm taking some new kind of kick-ass anti-emetic (anti-nausea) pill called Odansetron.  Yup: Oh-Dance-A-Tron, how fitting ...   we'll see how tomorrow goes.  I still have a bit of a bruise from the bone marrow thing (I only notice 'cuz I'm sitting on my ass so much; must walk).

What's chemo like? Well, I go in the day before to meet with the doc, who checks my blood cell count (white blood cells, indicating infection, and platelets, indicating anemia, I think) from blood work I get done at any lab prior to coming in.  If all is well, I go the next day to the chemo clinic, and enter a room with a buch of beds, like a small blood clinic.  It's mostly older folks there, I'm junior by an average of 35 years.  I lie down and a nurse finds a vein (or artery, I'm not sure, but it's not the same as where they TAKE blood from, that's going downstream, they want to inject the juice so it goes upstream) last time it was on the thumb-side of my right wrist.  They set up a saline solution drip, and then, one at a time, they give me the four drugs that make up my mix, called ABVD, after the trade names of the drugs (tylenol is a trade name, acetaminophen is a generic name).  Two of them come in small bags that take about 30 minutes to go in, one of them is in a syringe, which plugs in the tube, and the nurse slowly 'pushes' it in (like ER: "30 CC IV push, STAT!").  The last one is a big monster bag, that takes over an hour to go in, and is covered in a dark bag because it reacts to light.  They also put a hot compress on my wrist, because this stuff can burn going in, but it didn't.  Once it's all done, I suffer a bad side effect: I have to take a monstrous pee from the 2 litres of shit they've pumped into me.  "No, I don't think I'll have a hot compress for this one, thanks".

The last week went very well, and ended with a great trip to Mt. Tremblant. I did quite a bit of mountain biking and felt fine. I ate like a pig.

Now the crappy news:

I got my cat scan results back and they indicated that the cancer is in stage 4, as it has spread outside of the lymphatic system and into my lungs. OK, it sounds terrible, but it's not as bad as it sounds. My current treatment will kill the cancer wherever it is, and there's still a roughly 70% chance that it will go away and never come back. That's down 20% from before, when they thought it would be in stage 2 or 3. I'm still going to be OK, and I was pleased that the doctor didn't seem all 'doom and gloom' about this news. It was more like "Well, this is odd, but we'll go on just the same". It's been my experience so far that the doctors don't pump you full of hope if there's no call for it. The last thing she said was: "Hey, there's still a really good chance that you'll just zip right through this"   And that's what I'm focusing on ...

Next chemo is tomorrow, and I'll update soon to tell you how I'm doing, stay tuned.

Had chemo today ( yesterday, really, as it's almost 2 am on Thursday now ) and I'm feeling allright. I felt well enough to go take in some theatre; staged readings of new plays at Arts Court. BUT, and this is a big but(t) (no doubt -ed. ) I seem to be getting one of the side effects I noticed before, which they had warned me about; restlessness. Can't sleep a freakin' wink. Oh well, to surf, or not to surf (and play Starcraft), that is the question. Zerg must die.

Sorry folks, been a while. That's mostly because nothing's been going on, no aches and pains or anything to report. I guess one thing I didn't mention in my last update was that my white blood cell count was a bit low before my last treatment, but just barely, so the doc decided to go ahead anyway. Well, this time it was too low to go ahead, so, after a 2 hour wait in the 'room of unbearable humanity' ( = waiting room -ed. ) I was sent home. I am going to be put on some drugs to increase my white count. I am apparently not white enough. Side effects of this drug include spastic, irregular dancing, and a neuropathy which causes one to lose everything and sing about it in a twangy, yowling manner. Bummer...

Anyhoo ... this is pretty frustrating, since they have no advice to give me as to why my count is low, or what I can do to help it. BUT! on the plus side: my lymph nodes are noticeably (sp?) shrinking. This wouldn't be so bad, except that, apparently, most of my penis was a lymph node. Bummer...

I will be getting another cat scan in about three months, and that will determine whether I get two ( woo woo! ) or four ( doh! ) more months of chemo. This beats the old method, whereby you are let out of the cancer clinic, and if you see your shadow has no hair: BOOM! Four months for you!

In summary: I go on special drugs this week, and we shoot for chemo next Wed. ( the 16th ). Apart from that stuff, I can't remember anything else to tell y'all, except to thank everyone for their continued support, unless, of course, you have some spare white blood cells...

Minor update: turns out I won't be taking drugs to increase my net whiteness; time will do the trick. So I'm just marking time, thinking white thoughts, 'til Wednesday...

Did chemo today, so here I am at the keyboard at 2:45 AM, even after taking my 'sleepy pill'. Only notable note was that my left arm, where the IV was, broke out in some weird rash. Then an alien burst out of my chest and I thought to myself; "Well, it all makes sense now", and then, "Aaaaarrggghh!!". ( ok, well, the rash part is true ) My White Blood Count ( WBC ) was marginal, but not low enough to have to delay chemo. We'll see how next treatment goes. As you've noticed, we've changed over to [ISP X] as our internet provider, hence the new address. Been working all night to get that bleedin' automatic forwarding thing working. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just nod, don't you know it's dangerous to interrupt a large geek in mid-rant. Where was I? I don't know, grrr... Look what you've done, you've got me all upset. Now I have to go kick the cat .... There, all better. Oh stop it, it keeps him on his toes. Oh, and we have wunna 'dem fantzy schmantzy counter things at the bottom of the page now so we can tell how many ( few ) people read my illegible drivel... and I've drivelled all I can for today... ta.

• I met my new oncologist ( actually, she might be a hematologist, I'm not sure ) who was away on maternity leave when I was diagnosed. She can't say the letter 'D', and if you use the word "actually" in conversation, she puts a steel bucket over her head and sings 'Over the Rainbow', but apart from that, she's pretty sharp...


• If my white blood cells are low, the new doc would prefer to put me on a white booster called Neupogen, rather than delaying the treatment. "Bring it on!", I say. The more, the merrier.


• One of the plethora of chemo side effects is bloating of the extremeties. I can't wear the two rings I used to. You know, I hate to continue this thread of jokes, but: Unfortunately, the bloating isn't occuring in any extremeties where it might be useful ... Yark, yark.


• I like traffic lights.

I guess I'd be lying if I said all was fine and dandy. Don't be alarmed - health wise everything is fine and dandy. I'm just starting to find this whole cancer thing a bit tiresome, that's all. Can someone remind me why I signed up in the first place?

I'm feeling pretty tired, and I'm a bit crankier than before. One day sticks out in particular; I was in a mood I have felt a thousand times before, only before, the remedy was to go out, down too many drinks, get very jovial and vent and laugh and wake up feeling shitty yet refreshed. The classic definition of 'blowing off steam', and I REALLY needed it. Only now, that's verboten. It was one of the first times that I've felt really limited by this. Up 'til now, I've never felt much different from everyone else, but that night I did.

You see, the shitty part is the not knowing. Maybe I could have gotten blasted drunk without any ill effects at all. Or maybe it would have made me sicker, or opened the door to an infection leading to pneumonia or something else. Who knows... I won't know untill September 15th, which is my next cat scan. Today I met with the doctor and she said that even if this scan is totally clear ( which would not be typical ), I would still be looking at November. And December is more likely if there's still some cancer left in my system now ( or September 15, to be more precise ). I thought the end was going to be in October. I guess I'm just a bit bummed that the tunnel seems to have gotten a bit longer.

To make things even better, my hair loss has accelerated. It's a bit of a surprise. I was starting to think I was going to go the distance 'with lid', but when I did a standard 'pull check' tonight, I was a bit stunned by the result. Normally, if I gently tug on some hair between my fingers, maybe a few would come out, this time it was, well, "tuft" wouldn't be far off. This is not such a huge deal to me, since I'm going to shave it off, but this just forces me into deciding when. I don't want to get to the point where I look stupid due to 'patchy head', but I'd also like to let my scalp get a bit pink before I mow it all down. Anyway, I'm going to keep it for the wedding I'm going to in T.O. this weekend, then we'll see. Don't be shocked if I'm bald the next time you see me. When I do it, I'll post a picture of me sans cheveux.

God, bla, bla, bla ... anyway, I'm sorry to whine so much, but I needed to. This is so weird, sitting here typing in Windows Notepad, yet feeling like I'm talking to someone.

It's midnight, and the crickets have not yet been silenced by Kanata bylaws, their strength lies in a flat organizational structure.

there, I feel better,

E

Man, am I ever taking a long time between updates! Sorry. Anyway...

I was thinking.

Dangerous, I know. To be avoided, generally, but on the drive from Kanata to downtown, it's unavoidable, particularly when the only company you have is Ottawa radio programming. So I was thinking. There was a recent movie with Gwyneth Paltrow ( mmmmmm, Gwyneth Paltrow -ed ) called 'Sliding Doors'. The concept of it was to follow the different paths a person's life can take after a critical moment in that person's life. I was thinking about that in my own context.
"What if this hadn't happened?"

Well, you would expect, human nature being what it is, that I would weave my own fantasy tale of a cancerless life in which I was rich, famous, good looking, and was a flawless ultimate 'quarterback'. For some reason, the more I envisioned a 'parallel future', the more I came up with alternate disaster scenarios.
All far worse, and more permanent than the temporary setback I find myself in now. It was really strange. I really didn't feel like this stuff was coming up as some sort of defence mechanism. Like some form of rationalisation, to make me feel better about my current situation. It just felt like I was honestly thinking, and my
'alternate future' was invariably some kind of really insidious, evil disaster, in which I permanently lost something ( friends, career, freedom, limbs, you name it, it all went through my head before I got to the Metcalfe exit ).

Maybe it was all rationalisation, but as I said, it didn't feel like that. And the end result was that I felt pretty good about where I am. I mean, taking stock of all the things I feared when this first started: Wicked side effects, nasty complications, being bedridden, losing my friends - none of it has happened.

And you can't believe how thankful I am for that...

Anyway, that's what I was thinking.

E

PS - I'm bald now. Turns out I have acceptable skull geometry, so my fears of looking like a Klingon have been assuaged. I'll post a pic next update. I have also posted a listing of all the previous 'bubble quotes'. Ciao -E.

FINALLY! the bald head picture!



In other news: I'm sick. I seem to have picked up some sort of bug, it's a mild flu type of thing. My nose runneth over. Doc's put me on antibiotics, which is more of a precaution, since what I have is probably viral. C'est la vie. I was going in to work for a bit there, but I'll have to cool it 'til I'm better. No biggie. Anyway, hope you enjoy the photo...

E

Well, I got over the cold I last reported and am doing fine, I'm a little more tired now than before, so I just sleep a bit more. I guess the biggest thing to report is that I had my Cat Scan today, and I'll probably have the results by next Tuesday, when I see the doc prior to chemo next thursday. Please keep all appendages crossed. In the meantime, we're off to a cottage for a week, to sit on our butts, and to float as the need arises ... If you need to reach us; tough.

with love, as always,

E

Good news...

The cat scan showed that the cancer is almost completely gone. The doctor was very pleased, so once again, I take my cue from her, and am also very happy. Short of some type of "miracle remission", this is the best news I could get. It's basically to the point where, if I walked in there with that cat scan, and they didn't know I had cancer, they would have a hard time saying for sure that I actually had Hodgkin's. So I'm almost there.

The schedule now is to finish my current cycle of chemo ( that's 2 treatments, starting this Thursday ) then to do 2 more cycles of "mop up chemo", which should take me to December 2. At that point, the doctors who do radiation therapy ( shudder ) will take a look at my case and determine whether I need the evil rays. I hope not. The current philosophy with nuke therapy is that they have to weigh the benefit of using it as a last step to finally kill any remaining cancer, against the risk that the patient will develop cancer at a later age because of the radiation - nice. Anyway ... cross that bridge when we get to it...

Had an awesome week of sloth at a cottage 2 hours west of here, and had a great weekend of carnival-like atmosphere when a bunch of y'all came up to visit. Thanks to those who could make it, and 'maybe next time' to those who couldn't. And to those who weren't invited: you were obviously snubbed for a reason, and you now need to devote great energies to sucking up to me ( not Her, cuz I wear the pants around here ).

just begging for trouble,

E

Ok, so I've outdone myself in sloth. To those of you who have awaited this update, I apologise profusely. I've been lax because, well, there's really not much to report after last week's ( month's, shurely -ed; ) good news. I'm just really anxious to:

• Get on with my new job (sales support engineer)


• Get in shape... Any shape.

So I was in the tub the other day. You'll find you do this sort of thing when you've got all day to do nothing. I'm a guy. Guys don't 'tub' much. So there I was in the shower, turning off the water, feeling that first chill as the air from the other side of the curtain starts sneaking in and feeling you up. Looking at the drain plug I thought, 'hey, there's something I haven't done in a million years; soak in a tub'. So I turned the water back on and started doing some first-class soaking. Of course, being a little long of limb, I had to do some serious yoga to get any kind of water coverage, but I managed, and it was really nice...

so I soaked...

After I became quite numb from the extreme folding I had done to get mostly underwater, I just kicked the plug out and let the water drain out. After soaking for a while, if you've had your torso in the water, you get used the sensation of floating, 'til it doesn't feel like floating any more. You're just there, comfy. If you continue to just lay there as the water drains out, you get to feel the truly odd sensation of the return of gravity, as the weight of your torso slowly begins to press against your back, more and more until you're not soaking anymore; you're just lying on your back, wet and naked in a tub, with your cat peering over the edge ( maybe that's just at my place ). Life has returned to normal, and unless you have a really big water tank, there's no going back, you have to get up and join the world,
but at least you feel refreshed ...

It occurred to me that maybe that's what finishing chemo is going to be like.

The past six months have been a little like floating. Nothing really mattered, every day was Saturday. Bit of a blur, really. So I got to thinking that when the treatment's over, the gravity will come back. And like having to get out of the tub, it'll suck in some ways, but at least I'll feel ready for it. God knows I'll feel ready for it...

Well, I'm glad to say chemo went 100% better today. One of the interns suggested that I take a dose of one of the drugs they had originally given me to sleep better atavan ) to see if 'calming me down a little' would help with the nausea at treament time. Well it did. It actually zonked me out quite well. I slept a little, which was nice.
Wife unit has arranged to get leave on my chemo days, so she was there with me, which was also nice. We had way too much food afterwards at a chain restaurant called Montana's, including some reeeeely good wings. Yes, I'm eating healthy, thanks for asking...

I'm currently in a play right now at Kanata theatre. It's a very small role in a play that opens next week. I'll send an email out re: open dress rehearsal. It
should be fun.

So, I just wanted to get a quick one out to say that my nausea fears were unwarranted, and I will dutifully over-opiate myself before future treatments to avoid unpleasantness, and the treatments will fly by.

By the way, the "Bubble Quote" of the day is a classic from Rob Dumbrille, whose house I park at when I'm going to the Civic Hospital. We I were chatting with him and made it clear we had to go, so in way of a parting statement he added, in complete deadpan:

"Well, I'd say 'enjoy' but...."

For some reason, maybe it was the delivery, I busted a gut...

enjoy,

E

Man, have I been a bad boy or what? Ok, I was pretty busy with my play, and I slept for, like, 3 days straight after it closed, but after that, I was just plain lazy... Ok, state of affairs: I only have one treatment left!! The Doc is scheduling a cat scan and a consult with the radiation guys ( they're not doctors, just some russians with leftover cobalt ) on my next visit, and I won't have results from either 'til after XMas. She says I'm doing really well, my bone marrow has done excellently, apparently. If you can figure out how to pat your bone marrow, email me ... Anyway, in general I'm really tired. My sleep schedule is all messed up. That's why I'm finally updating the page, another sleepless night. What kind of freak is on his computer after 4 am and NOT surfing porn?? Has my life come to this? I guess at this point my biggest concern is not getting sick, because my immune system is at its lowest, and will remain that way for a couple months. Which is unfortunate, because I'm going to be drunk for 6 months after I walk out of the chemo clinic for the last time. Hey, at least the nausea drugs will come in handy. I'm just kidding...
I guess that's about it. We are nearing the end of the ride, but it ain't over 'til the fat radiologist sings, baby...

I'll update sooner this time, sorry,

E

So that's chemo all finished with. Of course, on my last treatment, we managed to burn one of my veins, but that'll go away. I feel pretty run down in general, very low energy, but I haven't gotten sick. I'm still sleeping like a hibernating bear, but hopefully that'll start to change soon. That will depend on what happens as far as radiation is concerned. My chemo doctor told me that, given her experience with patients like myself, she thinks it's probable that I'll have to undergo radiation. When you get radiation, first they do all sorts of measurements on you in order to create a shield, or template, with a hole in it where they want the radiation to go. Then, for about 3 weeks, you come in to the hospital every day, and the procedure is like getting an X-ray. No doctor involved, so there's no waiting. In, zap, out. The side effects of radiation are less severe than chemo, fatigue, mostly, so I'll be sleeping even more, if that's possible. Anyway, the
consultation with the 'nuke doctor' is next Monday ( the 13th ) so I'll tell you more then. Let me just say that I'm extremely glad to be finished with the chemo, and I thank everyone for the support, emails, kind words, and occasional acts of unspeakable carnality I've received from you all over the last 8 months or so ... they were a great help...

thanks again,

E

LOOK! me being Santa for the company kids' XMas Party

Wow, over a month without an update ... jeez! Well, as the less than slightly bitter
humour in the bubble above indicates, I'm still in the holding pattern for radiation
therapy. I've had 2 cat scans in under 1 month ( one diagnostic, the other for planning of the radiation therapy ) but no word yet on when they're going to start. Oh, I should start by saying "Merry Freakin' New Year!!" to any and all of you I haven't spoken to since the wholly anticlimactic arrival of the mil ... god, I can't even bring myself to type that friggin' word, much less say it. Anyway, I'm still a little on the tired side, but have managed to escape the onset of many maladies currently en vogue, such as influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, rickets, beriberi and the dreaded 24-hour ebola. Thank goodness! So really, my utter and total disregard for updates has been a direct result of the complete lack of anything to update you with. I guess I should say that the diagnostic cat scan that I just had was good, or clear, or whatever, but I haven't heard it from the doctor's mouth yet. Some scattered radiologist called me up to ask me when my last cat scan was and I
managed to squeeze from him that the one in his hand looked clear, but he was a bit of a nutcase, so who knows, he might not have even been looking at mine. "So how do my ovaries look, doc?", "Oh, err, fine, yes, quite nice, indeed, yes .. err, what?"

So, anyhoo, this is a non-update, to fully brief you on all the inaction that's been
frantically not occurring, and also to say that I'm not doing enitrely unwell in this frenzied lull of maxed-out, extreme sloth ( which is an event in the next X-games, if I'm completely mistaken )

It's time to take out the trash! Semper Fi, soldiers!

E

PS - Crazy? Don't mind if I do!!

Well, I got in to see the radiation people, and they marked me up with lines for the nuke techies to aim at, you can see the bullseye here:

Gee, I hope the radiation doesn't kill my curly abundance of chest hair! Anyway, I finally got my appointment for my first radiation treatment, and it isn't 'til a week this coming Monday, which makes it the 24th of Jan. I was hoping to get started sooner, but I'll be completely done treatment by Friday, the 11th of Feb. Which means I'll be completely drunk by about 6 pm of said day...

Anyhoo...

In considering things guys consider when they're walking down Metcalfe on their way to lunch, discussion turned to the fact that all superheroes invariably receive their superpowers as a result of exposure to radiation. So I came up with a grid of possible consequences, and their inherent pros and cons:

Superpower	Pros	Cons
Incredible Hulk-strength	Immediate upper hand during intense bargaining	New wardrobe/vehicle required at end of morning commute from Kanata on 417
Superman-abilities	Oh so many pros, most tempting, though, is the ability to turn back time by speeding around the earth, or, wait a minute, is it the x-ray vision?	Superman was tragically reduced to shlepdom by the invention and mass production, in the late 80s, of millions of Kryptonite(tm) bike locks, powers now only effective at the polar ice caps
Web-slinging power	Capable of ensnaring foes by simply cocking wrist and squeezing	Masturbation becomes an extremely delicate operation ...
Super intelligence	Understanding the deepest mysteries of the universe, ability to solve humankind's problems	Inescapable desire to talk about LINUX
Breathing via gills ( a la Man from Atlantis )	Ability to effortlessly glide through the majestic depths of the world's oceans	Not much use in Ottawa; have you ever swam in Mooney's bay? Eeecccchh! Secondary con: being called the "Alanis Man"
Super-stretchy limbs ( a la Stretch Armstrong )	Never having to get up to fetch the remote, or, for that matter, to relieve myself	Runing the risk of overstretching one limb in particular in the pursuit of fun and profit
Herculean strength ( ok, so Herc didn't get his strength from radiation, let me run with it, will 'ya? )	Ability to move great masses without exertion	Friends constantly asking you to help them move, worse than owning a truck. Secondary con: having to yell OLYMPIAAAAA!! whenever you leave a room
Super Evil-ness	Hatch diabolical plots to rule great empires, command armies of black-clad minions, hang with the most evil people on earth	Evil club president is Marc Labonte

Well, I haven't really decided which power I might like, if you come up with any good ideas,
mail me ( see link below ) and I'll add them here...

take care

E

Ok, well, if no one's reading this, it's my own damn fault, but for all it's worth, here's what's up:

I'm in my last week of radiation therapy now. Radiation is way easier to take than chemo. It's like a glorified XRay that you take lying down on a table. The table is motorised so they can line you up under the crosshairs of the machine. The whole huge radiation machine swivels so that you can be shot from the back and the front, which is something I didn't know at first. I wasn't too keen on the fact that they'd be nuking through my spine, but, well, if I start twitching and winking uncontrollably, you'll tell me won't you? I have an appointment once a day, every weekday, at the Civic hospital. I've never had to wait more than 10 minutes to go in, which is great. It goes like this:

I walk in, and take off my shirt. When they stop laughing and pointing, I lie down on the table. As I am moved into into firing position, they re-mark the crosshairs on my chest, and rotate the machine around to shoot me in the back ( cowards! ).
Then they run out of the room ( see previous parenthetical remark ). I hear some clicks and a buzzing sound. When the buzz changes tone, I know I'm actually being radiated. There's the change in tone, and also a big red flashing light on the wall ( no joke ). So the buzz goes on for about 30-40 seconds, and when the smoke clears, they come back in, poke me with a stick, and see if I grunt. At which point they go on to rotate the machine back around and repeat the process to shoot me from the front, no blindfold, no cigarette, no last words. Which is just as well: "Any last words, Mr. Schmidt?" "Yes, (gets paper from pocket) Ahem: So the Pope dies, and they elect a new Pope...". Yark, yark... [note: this is an infamously bad joke that I tell] So, what about me: I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeely looking forward to the end of the week. After a few days to let my aesophagus recover, ( oh yeah, that's the only side effect I have right now, sort of a perpetual lump in the throat, I have to watch what I eat because it's easily irritated ) I can start really breaking in the treadmill we bought for XMas. I've publicly lamented the 20 or so pounds I've put on since the start of all this, and I have a bit of work to do to get rid of it. It'll be tough, as I've really no stamina to speak of after almost 10 months of utter sloth ( poor sloths, get such a bad rap ). I went back to work because I was getting a bit antsy, but I may have been a bit premature, it's pretty tiring, but everyone there is being really nice, giving me shit and telling me to go home,
so it is, at the risk of repeating myself, my own damn fault. It's nice to feel useful, if chubby, again...

well, here's to next week, where an ending marks a beginning

cancer can kiss my ass,

E, the everlasting, entertaining, effervescing essence of everything egregious.

( and etymological, for that matter )

I'm done ... All in all, not an overly bad experience, I'd say. So, where do I stand? Glad you asked. I will get cat-scanned every 3 months or so for the next year or so, then it'll be every six months, then every year, then never. The next
scan ( in March ) will act as a baseline for future scans, it'll be the one they compare subsequent scans to see if I've had a recurrence, which will never happen, as that news would surely trigger my newly-acquired "supernova power". And there's no way the powers that be would allow that to happen...

So, I'm back at work full time, doing my new, sales-related job. It's pretty busy since I wear a lot of hats, ranging from dealing with existing customers' bug reports ( few, of course -ed) and enhacement requests, to overseeing the installation of new systems, to answering technical questions from every clown that reads our website. "Dear Sirs or Madams,
I am for the bridging design of the systems to speaking the protocol of many SS7, please for telling me help, urgent please" they always end in "Urgent" ... sigh ... but it's good. I do a lot of different stuff.

I'm still way out of shape, but should get to work on that soon, since I plan to go
windsurfing with the usual suspects in Cape Hatteras in April, see if I can bust some
more gear... henceforth, every now and then, I'll post something here about my general state of affairs, strange happenings, musings on life, etc...

ta, for now,

E

Good Lord, It's been almost 4 months now, hasn't it ... Jeezus ... Well, I doubt anyone's still reading, but for what it's worth: sorry. Two things spurred me to write this, ( oh, I'm sorry there's no witty graphic today, my system crashed a while back, and I haven't reloaded most of the apps I need to do stuff like that ) one is that my friend Phil from work made a sarcastic remark about my upkeep of the site, and the other is that I have something to say: "It's better to burn out/than to fade away" no, just kidding, that was for all the "Higlander" fans out here ( It's ok, non-geeks, have a nerd explain it to you ). No, really, I finally thought, or felt something that I wanted to talk about. But I'll get to that in a sec...

So I've basically returned to life as usual, I've started a new job within my company, and gone at it with a bit of a vengeance ( a bit of a vengeance? wat dat? -ed ) I have hair, and I'm generally back to normal. Way out of shape, but back to normal. There are some residual effects of the chemo, like a semi-permanent rash in a couple of places, nowhere embarrasing, and I find my memory is pretty scrambled, and I can blame the chemo, so I do. Apart for that, it's normal life...

Except every now and then, it hits me like a rock, out of nowhere: "Cancer ... what the *%$#*% ?". Exactly like that ... I'll be walking along, and boom. All of a sudden, I'll be shaking my head, wondering how the hell... It's like I've come full circle. Cancer is almost foreign to me again, and then all of a sudden I'll remind myself I have it, or had it, whatever, I'm not sure what the proper term is. It still surprises me. But in the end, the whole thing really has taught me to take things with a grain of salt. Stuff that probably would have had me passing bricks in the past, I'm now able to shrug off a bit more easily. It's much easier to remind myself that it's not the end of the earth if this little project or that client gets put off a bit.

It's funny, reading that over, I say that I put things off more easily, yet I'm travelling around like a maniac, pulling long hours. But I'm not stressed, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I'm at a point where I'm finally allowed to push myself a little, so I am.


God ... me, me, me, ...


so how 'bout you? How are you?


take care,

E

Well, well, well. How soon I forget, eh? I guess mostly since my assumption is that this isn't being read, I haven't bothered with updates, particularly since it all seems 'over' ( knock on wood, knock real hard ). What do I say? I continue to get cat scans regularly, though the frequency's gone to about 6 months now. I guess the biggest thing is that I constantly second-guess every bad cold I get. A while back, I went to the optometrist because I was occasionally having blurry vision in one eye, but my imagination had a golf-ball sized tumor in my brain waiting to be discovered. Fortunately, it was all in my head ( yark yark -ed ) ... For a couple of years, I carried some extra weight, and was pretty sloth-like still, with varying degrees of energy, but I'm back down to just under 210 lbs, with a little more to go, and I just started playing ultimate again ( it hurt, a lot ). Since my last update, we eloped and got married in Newfoundland, where we hiked around a great park called Gros Morne, we also spent 7 weeks in Australia and New Zealand the following year. We've gone down to Belize, and I went back to Cape Hatteras North Carolina to windsurf for the first time since chemo ( this also hurt a lot ). It's funny, your body just expects to pick up where it left off with all these activities, and it's a rude shock when it can't do what it used to...

We also just bought a house, me move in Sept.

I guess one thing I can say looking back at the post-treatment period, is that I started with a great attitude about work: nothing was going to get to me ( I just reread the entry above, and yeah, that's exactly how I felt ). I would do my job as best I could, but if things didn't happen every time as they should, hey, it wasn't going to get to me. So, as the entry above says, I started to push myself, and very slowly, insidiously, stress returned to my life, culminating in a business trip that made me so sick it took weeks to get back to health, I was coughing up blood and had my first real scare about a cancer recurrence. That was a wake-up call. I changed jobs within my company a couple of times to accomodate less travel, which is good, and things have generally been ok. All this to say that it doesn't take too long to slide back into bad old habits.

BUT!! I'm aware. When I get stressed, I realise it, and I realise that I need to fix it, or I'll wind up sick again ( cold and flu sick, not cancer sick ), so that's one thing that's changed in my life permanently.

I guess I'll leave this entry as it is now, and hopefully I'll be diligent and add an entry now and then, if I think of something interesting to say.

Hope you're well,

E

Good lord, updates are few and far between, aren't they? Well, let's look at the last entry, and add news. In the last entry, I mentioned that cat scans were 6 months apart, now it's 12. I still second-guess my illnesses, in fact I'm currently experiencing some soreness in the right side of my neck which I'll have the GP check out with a quick feel-up... My weight's under 200 now, and I'd like to get down to 190, but who knows. I'm doing that diet where you try to minimise bread, pasta and rice, and get as much of your carbs from vegetables and fruit as possible. It works. I eat as much organic stuff as possible, milk, veggies, whatever, and I'm looking into an organic farmer who does freezer orders of chicken and beef. I was running a lot before it got cold, now I'm on a swimming kick.

So, I mentioned we were moving into a house. We did, but the same week we took posession, I got laid off. Yeah, bad timing, but the best part of the bad timing was that were just about to announce to our families and friends that "we" are pregnant!! She's due March 23rd, and we know it's a boy. So that's good news on the health front too. I was positive that chemo would have lating effects on the old 'million man march', but it worked out... So, I've been out of work for 4 months now, but I'm getting interviews, and once my severance package runs out, there's always EI... The pregnancy is going well, no nasty side effects, and a 7 months, she's feeling some pretty substantial kicking.

So, yeah, a lot has happened sonce the last update, but health wise, it's all good.

The rest is all just colour, isn't it?

E

Our son is 3 1/2 years old, and baby #2 is 9 months old, so life is busy. My hematologist has stopped ordering CT scans, as she considers me to be "out of the woods", we'll see if my radiation oncologist concurs, as I just went for what will hopefully be my last CT scan.
I decided to post all this stuff to a blog, which you're reading right now.
Re-reading all this, I see again what a wild trip it all was, and that I can't take anything for granted. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it. And when I look at my son, I hope to hell that all his genes lined up right and that he's not disposed to get this bloody thing, but at least he'll know to be aware of it. In any case: I'm healthy (if a bit tubby again) and have 2 beautiful kids, and a great life with a wonderful partner.
knock on wood,
E