Reality Bites

Here’s a bit from a conversation my oncologist and I had last week:

Me: “Some people have been asking how much longer I’ll be on chemotherapy. I know it’ll be awhile, but can I tell them anything more specific?”

Sam: “Well, these people need to realize you have one of the most aggressive cancers I’ve ever seen” (he sounded a bit frustrated with you people)

Me: “Am I going to make it to remission?”

Sam: “No.”

…No. No hesitation, no beating around the bush, just a direct and definite “No.” Which I had kind of expected, or at least something similar, after seeing how my tumors behaved when I was off chemo for my surgery last November. I asked if it was time to sell my house and re-home my dog and all that other unpleasant stuff and he said no, but it is time to start looking at everything I do to make sure I have no regrets. So that’s weird. And it’s difficult to have that kind of talk and still burst out of the doctor’s office ready to carpe diem with a vengeance. I’ve been in one of those not-returning-emails/calls/text messages/Facebooks places for a few days. I don’t really want a lot of trivial distractions when I’ve got so much to process. Even if it’s not an impending thing, at least it’s official now.

And yes, I did notice that I am avoiding some heavy words.

So again, we have changed my treatment course. The goal now is to make sure my quality of life isn’t completely hampered by the side effects of chemo or radiation, so I’m just on two drugs now. The infamous Avastin *guitar solo* and a newer drug that behaves kind of like Avastin called Erbitux. It’s the drug that landed Martha Stewart in the hoosegow. The only real side effect from Avastin was bloody noses, and some of you probably witnessed my paranoia every time my nose would run-omg, is it regular snot or do I look like that one Andrew WK album cover??? Erbitux’s side effect is a lovely rash that will take over my face and upper body and make me look like the worst of the “before” shots on Proactiv infomercials. Which figures; just when I get myself ready for bikini season (minus a few gnarly scars), I’m destined for a face fit for a Burka. Suddenly Seattle’s lack of a 2011 summer don’t seem so bad. And I’m beginning to get a bit skeptical of this advice, but I’m told that a bad rash is an indication the drug will work. So I’ve spent the last week dreading its arrival, yet panicked that it hadn’t shown up yet. I woke up a little red, zitty and itchy today, so I think I can finally relax/freak out.

I’ve been reminding myself of my very first appointment at SCCA, when Deb told me about an upcoming memorial service for their favorite patient who had recently died of pancreatic cancer. I told her I wasn’t ready to hear about patients who didn’t “win”, but she told me when this woman first came to see them, she had been told she had another 3 months, 6 tops. She made it another 3 years. I hope my new regimen can outsmart this cancer at least that long, but we’ll see I guess.

STD!

Settle down, it’s an acronym for Short Term Disability.

Turns out radiation kicked my ASS. I ended up going to the ER for a rapid heart rate and didn’t get out for three days. First the doctors suspected a pulmonary embolism, then the next day they were worried about internal bleeding. This resulted in two CT scans within 24 hours (at 2AM and 3AM respectively), numerous blood tests and a couple of blood transfusions. Ever since my radiation treatment I’ve been tired and in some sort of pain. And every time I thought it was getting better, something new would pop up. It was getting frustrating, HOWEVER, as my oncologist said, if the tumors are breaking down and dying, it’s not going to feel pleasant. Based on how I’ve felt since radiation, it must be working. Really really working.

I went in for chemo last week and my RN said “Well, your labs all look great, but if you don’t feel well, I don’t want to give you chemo.” “Balderdash! Give me the chemo!” I cried. I really regretted that two days later when I hobbled, hunched over, back into her office for an “emergency” appointment. More blood tests with bonus urine tests. More missed work days. She asked what I was taking for the pain and I whimpered “nothing”. Once again I realized I have lots of medication at my disposal, and I should TAKE it. My love/hate affair with Percocet is back in the lust category (responsible lust, of course).

So with all I went through and am still trying to get past with that radiation treatment, and with one more still to go, my time away from the office was getting embarrassing. But should I really be embarrassed?? I have mother. effing. cancer. And I’ve been dragging my ass to that office on days when I really should be in bed. My oncologist is always telling me to work less. Do I really need to keep being a tough guy? Will staying at my desk until 5 make the tumors go away? I have always said a lot of my treatment side effects rival those of pregnant women, so why not take maternity leave? It’s on, and coincidentally my first day of Short Term Disability falls on my one year anniversary of being diagnosed.

Sara's Favorite Things

Some work buddies and I went out for my STD Send Off Extravaganza today. The restaurant sold Ding Dongs for dessert which I think was uber appropriate. I bought a round for everyone and had quite the Oprah moment throwing them around the table screaming “YOU get a Ding Dong! And YOU get a Ding Dong!” Dedo even did the Oprah Ugly Cry, but he’s like that with food.

Now it’s off to get better, schedule the other half of my liver, recover from that, then get strong and get back to my chemo loving self. And my oncologist even said we may be close to the point where we start removing drugs from my chemo cocktail, which would be huge. I know, leaves of absence and short term disabilities and cancer usually mean bad things, but as usual I’m being unconventional.

PS if you use my work email address to get ahold of me, don’t do that for awhile.

Later haters! If anyone finds those contracts I was supposed to leave on Tina's desk, let me know...

12 Stories High, Made Of Radiation

At nearly every appointment at SCCA, nurses ask me if I’ve fallen recently-with the foot neuropathy my balance is supposed to go haywire. I’m not as nimble as I used to be when boating, and I can’t jet down the stairs in the dark anymore without getting kind of dizzy, but as far as biting pavement I’ve been about as klutzy as I was before. I slipped on my stairs this weekend and was kind of excited that I’d get to mix things up when it comes to answering that question. Tuesday night, before my radiation procedure the next morning, I started to feel a little pain on my right side. I figured it was either a reaction to my minor fall a few days earlier, or scaredy cat pains over the pending radiation.

I checked in Wednesday morning at 6:45, changed into those fashionable gowns, had my vitals taken and had my port accessed. Dr. O, one of the docs who does the Y90 procedure came in to talk to me for a bit. I wasn’t sure what to make of this guy when I first met him, but over time I’ve really grown to like him, so it was a bit sad to hear it was his second to last day before he moves to Boston. Man, Boston gets all the cool sports trophies and doctors. As he was leaving he paused and said “You really have a great attitude about things, don’t you?” I try.

Then it was off to the procedure room. I told my nurse I remembered a lot of stuff from the last mapping and he vowed to hook me up and knock me out as much as possible. The doctors were all running around getting things prepped and we had a great time making inappropriate comments, teasing my nurse when he got flustered over some orders, and just not acting like I was about to get roofied and radiated. My nurse wasn’t lying; I was knocked out good for most of the procedure, and it went by quicker than the mapping.

After I was packed full of radioactive beads it was off to get scanned. Still being full of drugs, I slept through most of this, but I think it takes around 45 minutes. By the time I was wheeled up to my recovery room I was starting to come to a little. My roommate was great, and it turned out our days had practically mirrored each other. They won’t be able to radiate my left liver, so we’ll go back in a month and inject it with straight chemo drugs. Same went for her. She said “Some 37 year old woman was in before me and they said she couldn’t get the procedure at all!” I’m not sure if that was referencing me, but I am a spring chicken at 35, thank you. Once she mentioned having my same doctor and was on the same prescriptions I had to speak up. I yelled “I think we’re treatment twins! Can I come over?” We talked briefly about the procedure and how we had the same issues; she was pretty awesome.

My growing frustration with being stuck at the UW caught up with me and I pretty much had a meltdown that afternoon. My nurses and doctors are all wonderful, I think it’s just the facilities I find so depressing and confining. GOD BLESS the nurse who diffused that time bomb, she was amazing. As a compromise she told me I could get dressed while I waited for the doctor, and that helped. I did feel bad though when Dr. O came up as I was putting my shoe on and with a shocked look on his face asked where I thought I was going. Obviously nowhere in those hospital clothes.

Although they told me before the procedure that side effects would be minimal, I’m focusing on the advice I was given afterwards. Any fatigue or pain was a sign that the radiation is doing a number on those tumors. Oh and there’s been some pain. I’m not sure if it’s due to the pain that set in before the procedure or what, but I was yelping when I’d roll over that night. Remember how after my surgery I turned down Percocet for Tylenol? Yeah, I took three Percocets the night after Y90. It’s getting better though, and if it means my tumors are breaking down and dying, I’ll take it.

Big In Japan

Monday I had another mapping for the Y90 radiation procedure. Same thing I did in December, just a healthier me this time. And since we’ve waited, a new form of the Y90 beads have come out-this time more concentrated and encased in glass. The exciting part of the new beads is that it lessens the chance they’ll cram too much radiation into my arteries and have them back up then find their way to my stomach or lungs.

I wasn’t really looking forward to this. It’s not terribly difficult or scary but there’s just something about being put under in a stark, white room surrounded by doctors you know but don’t recognize because they’re covered up to their eyes in scrubs. I didn’t blog too thoroughly about the first time, but they go in through an artery in an area that let’s just say rarely gets a suntan. So you wake up with a virtual stranger SQUEEZING you for fifteen minutes to seal the artery afterwards and you just hope they’re some sort of medical professional and not some carnie trying to work off his court mandated community service hours. You either have to have an open mind, or a dirty one. At my last mapping I didn’t pass up the opportunity to make an off color joke about it, and they must have remembered me. The Brazilian doctor who did most of the lifting for this recent one fired up the shaver (how appropriate) and sang “Now what shape do you want!” I sqealed “A unicorn!” Thankfully I suppose, he was more adept at medical procedures than very personal hairstyling, but a unicorn would have been a pretty awesome souvenir.

The nurse who had taken my vitals and all was the one who stuck with me for the mapping. She gave me a lovely cocktail of some sort of painkiller and some sort of anti anxiety drug and possibly kittens. The anti anxiety drug was supposed to give me amnesia so I wouldn’t remember anything, but I did. I actually started remembering parts from the previous procedure when I was definitely out of it. I told her a few times that I could tell what was going on and all, and she said “Oh, but you won’t remember”. I do though! And honestly it wasn’t that bad. I had a numbing shot in my artery they were exploring, and I thought sometimes I could feel where the tiny scope was in my veins, but it wasn’t freaky at all. I was just staring at ceiling tiles, holding my breath when told to do so, and occasionally asking for more of those yummy drugs.

Afterwards I had a long scan in some weird room, but I was still floating with kittens and don’t remember too much. Then I was moved to a room where I had to keep my leg still for 2 hours, then lay around for another 4 hours more I think. I am not a good hospital patient. It puts me in a nasty mood and since I know better than to take it out on the nurses, my visitors (aka my parents) bear the brunt of it. If I ever ask you to come visit me in the hospital, wear protective gear and assume we won’t be friends afterwards.

The official medical diagnosis from this most recent mapping is “Sara. You have a very complex anatomy”. No shocker there. I wear a size 12 shoe, rarely can find jeans of an appropriate length, and most of my shirts are ill-fitting; why should I assume the rest of my body would cooperate? We can do the Y90 on the right side of my liver, but for the middleish and left, my veins are too wonky and there’s a good chance the radiation would go wandering elsewhere. Instead of radiating the other side, we’re going to blast it with Irinitican, one of the drugs in my chemo cocktail. Right side in two weeks at the same time as chemo, then the misbehaved side two weeks after that, also with chemo. I suspect this chemo combination means more hospital time, but it also lines up better with the opening day for Raft Club, so I’m pretty thrilled.

Cancer Is Totally Hot

Today I participated in Surviving With Style, a fashion show to benefit Gilda’s Club, a support organization for people affected by cancer. The Gilda in Gilda’s Club is Gilda Radnor, so the event was very upbeat. My sister works for them and I’m a bit embarrassed to say I haven’t taken advantage of their services yet, but I think that’ll change soon enough. They do wonderful things for kids going through cancer treatment or who have family members with cancer, have a lot of different types of support groups for adults impacted by cancer, and my favorite new feature: cooking classes led by local chefs. I’m bummed I missed a recent one by the chef of one of my faves, Le Pichet. He cooked the things he would eat while going through chemo. I bet you wish you had cancer now, don’t you.

Biggest takeaway: cancer patients are HILARIOUS. Don’t think for a second I was the funniest one there; I was upstaged by SEVERAL models. One woman who absolutely did not look 91 years old would use her post mastectomy prosthesis as a pin cushion while sewing. She also solicited suitors on the runway, that sassy minx. Another woman’s coworkers from her firehouse pounded the runway with fistfuls of dollar bills as she walked by. One flashy fella was backstage having his wife take pictures of him surrounded by gussied up ladies. The two other models I had the most fun with were a breast cancer survivor and a prostate cancer survivor. We were pretty much a trifecta of the sexiest places to get cancer. I won’t say I never got misty, but the event was anything but a depressing parade of sick people.

I think my friends who skipped work and came out for the event showed up more for Gilda’s Club in the end than they did for me, and I’m very thankful for both.

Almost Famous

Wow, it’s really been a long time since I’ve posted. It’s nothing to worry about, I just feel alarmingly good lately.

A few weeks ago I discovered I was growing bangs. Yes! Little patches of hair are starting to grow back in! So weird! My hands seemed a little lighter and there were a few other things I’d had a break from while on chemo that seemed to be creeping back. All of these good things led to some panic though. Okay really, is this chemo working? And what happens if it doesn’t? I have all sorts of smart medical people telling me I’m on the toughest possible regimen for colon cancer so this HAS to work. I wrote to my nurse, who copied my oncologist and said adjusting to the chemo was actually something to celebrate. I made Sam repeat it the next time I saw him. This week I saw Charlie, and he finally put me in my place. The chemo has less cancer to fight now, so it’s not wreaking as much havoc. Between all the tumors and cancery horridness I had before, AND a bunch of toxic chemicals, no wonder I felt kind of crappy. Now there’s no fist-sized tumor, the other tumors are running scared, and this leaves me more time and energy to be out past my bedtime whooping it up in sketchy bars. I’ll take it!

Cancer, how do you think you’re going to win when I’ve got wizards?

Two cycles ago we got back to Party In The SCCA standards. I’ve really been slacking on the celebrity guests, but Aislinn brought things back full force two weeks ago with not just dinosaur temporary tattoos, but with this magical sculpture of a wizard riding a three headed dragon. We even got Sam to rock a dinosaur tattoo.

Last week’s cycle didn’t have any wizards or neck tattoos but Judy, my little meatball, still managed to shake things up. I was in the middle of a nice Lorazepam-sponsored nap when she told me there were film crews coming for a PBS show and they needed to film a woman getting chemo. Okay! I heard her tell another nurse in the hallway “I asked Sara, she’s going to let them film her” and the reply was “Oh! She’ll be so good at that!”  Yes! I AM good at being a woman getting chemo thankyouverymuch! The film crew showed up and I channeled the ghost of Liz Taylor. It’s really not that exciting, it was just several shots of me tooling with my cell phone, but the camera man went for at least one artsy angle to get my Converse in the shot. Oh, PBS. It will likely all get cut down to 3 seconds while some intelligent doctor or mega scientist talks over it.

And in other treatment news, we’re back to looking at that Y90 radiation procedure again. I met with the radiologist today and things look much better than they did when we met in December. First, I’m healthy (looking) and not on the verge of a 5 day surprise hospital stay. Second, there’s a new variation of the radiation that’s more concentrated, thus cutting down the risk of the radiation backing up in my arteries and heading towards my stomach. If that happens, we rename my guts “Ulcer City”, but that’s really the worst that would happen. I’ll do two more cycles of chemo to get the Avastin out of my system, then we’ll do the mapping again, and a week later do my right lobe, then a few weeks after that hit up the left lobe.

So perhaps that will shake things up enough to get me back to bloggin’. Either that or we’ll need more wizards.

Scans Are Heah!

eternity –noun, plural -ties. The time spent in a doctor’s exam room waiting for test results.

Seriously, it’s the worst thing ever. The nurse takes you back, checks your vitals, then you just sit there waiting for the doctor. I’d spent the two days since my CT scan smiling and telling everyone “Fingers crossed!” I had good feelings about how things were going but didn’t want to be too cocky until I had proof.

My CEA levels might have been proof. When I first met with Sam my CEA level was around 12. He said “I’ve seen them go over a thousand, but you let me worry about that.” Through my first round of chemo my CEA levels went over 100 but never reached 200. After surgery and two months off chemo in December my CEA levels had shot up to over THIRTEEN THOUSAND. I didn’t think that was possible. Sam had one other patient with levels around that high. During my most recent round of chemo my CEA levels dropped dramatically, sometimes by 4,000 points between cycles. I was around 1,200 at my last chemo. Huge improvement but still a ways from where I started.

Two months of treatment might seem like a long time. Two days to get test results was nothing. The twenty minutes between the nurse leaving and the next knock on the exam room door felt like two lifetimes. I don’t have beef with that wait time; I’ve waited much longer for other doctors and I appreciate that my doctor spends so much time with his patients. If I had waited for two minutes, it would have felt just as long.

An oncology fellow came in with the radiologist’s report and to sum it up, it was good news. No new cancer, and my existing tumors are shrinking. I hadn’t paid much attention to the size since the measurements are all in centimeters and my obsession with Canada never really translated into a love for the metric system, but a coworker and I sat down with a ruler once I got back to work. The biggest tumor in my liver was about 3.3 inches across in December. That was longer than the lid to the grande-nonfat-with-whip mocha sitting on my desk. It’s now down to about 2 inches. Still a pretty big wad of cancer considering, but I’m quite pleased with the progress.

By the time Sam came in I had read the full 4 pages of the radiology report and felt pretty good about things. I think we spent more time talking about GPS trackers for cats than cancer. A few hugs and high fives later and I was on my merry way.

Obviously we’re not going to change anything, I’m diving right back into my 2 week chemo schedule. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. But two more months or two more years of chemo will still feel shorter than that wait for test results.

Let’s Get Blue!

Colorectal cancer will kill as many people this year as breast cancer and AIDS combined. Got your attention?

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. We all know what steps to take to avoid HIV, and we’ve seen the diagrams on how to give self breast exams (even some of you fellas- I’m on to you), but how much do you know about colon cancer?  Here are some of the symptoms:

• Blood in stool
• A change in bowel habits
• Diarrhea, constipation, vomiting
• Unexplained weight loss
• Persistent fatigue
• Gas, bloating, fullness, cramps

How many of those did I have before getting diagnosed? NONE. I was at Stage IV when a CT scan revealed a large tumor in my colon and several tumors on my liver. My oncologist guesses my tumor started growing 3 to 5 years ago. If there was a way to look 5 years into your future to see if you come down with some deadly disease and there was a way to prevent it, wouldn’t you want to know? Colonoscopies are that crystal ball. They can spot and remove the polyps that turn into cancer.  Colon cancer is very, very sneaky; most people don’t find it until the later stages but is 80% preventable when detected early through colonoscopies.

“Sara, should I run out right this second and get a colonoscopy?” I would love to say yes, let’s all go for the group rate, but unless you are over 50 or have a family history of colon cancer your insurance company probably won’t cover it and your doctor might chuckle at you if you don’t show some of the symptoms. If you do have a family history, colonoscopies are recommended when you are ten years younger than your family member was when he or she was diagnosed. 75% of the people diagnosed have no family history, so if you have a relative with colon cancer, consider it a mixed blessing that you were given a potential heads up for your own health. Are you sure what kind of cancer Grandpa had? Despite the valiant efforts of Sir Mix A Lot, people are still reluctant to talk about butt related matters, so discussions about colon cancer often get brushed under the rug.

Colon cancer is mostly found in people over 50 but can occur at any age and while rare, is on the rise in young people like myself. It affects women and men equally. It is not fun.

This Friday, March 4th is Dress In Blue Day to promote colon cancer awareness. If anything I mentioned here surprised you, wear something blue on Friday. Make sure the people you love who might be at risk are taking screenings seriously. Wear something blue to support me for going to chemo every other week. Pass this blog post around-clearly I’m not shy. Just don’t be quiet.

Cancer Is Boring

Apologies for the lack of an update after my last chemo cycle. I am not dying. Quite the opposite really.

The weekend before my last chemo was jam packed with greatness. Seriously. Dressing up, dancing, displaying my athletic prowess in the ever exciting sport of bowling (and by prowess, I mean I was the person with the second-worst score). It really feels like I’m getting my social life back. Even on the weekends right after chemo I’m managing to get out a bit, when last cycle these were the weekends I didn’t leave the couch. Things still come up on the chemo weekends-I feel bad for bailing on a birthday party this past Sunday because I was having a technical difficulty but I think everyone knows I have a decent excuse.

My last cycle had some interesting tidbits. My platelets were right on the verge of being too low for chemo. Actually, they were under the recommended guidelines but Sam is okay with pushing forward even when patients are just under the bar. Unlike my white cell counts which I get Neulasta shots for, or my potassium which I can solve for with pills or diet, there’s no good way to control my platelet count, so I may be headed towards another snow day but we’ll see. My potassium was  also low this time, probably because I forgot to fake out my blood tests by drinking coconut water on my way in. Have you guys heard of coconut water? Read up, it seems to be quite the miracle drink. Anyway, we solved for the potassium by giving me a big bag of it via IV, but it pushed my chemo start time back by about two hours.

I met with Charlie instead of Sam. Have I introduced Charlie here yet? He’s Sam’s RN, and I suspect that as I keep plodding through chemo I’ll see Charlie more and Sam at the important checkpoints. As with every SCCA employee, I adore Charlie. He’s a sweet man who I imagine has a special way to communicate with woodland creatures. Over the past couple months I guess I’ve been a little more cancer-aware and feel like moles or little spots are popping up all over my body. Truthfully they’ve probably been there all along. Also I have suspected my hands were getting darker, and Charlie picked up on that. It turns out the 5-FU has a tendency to increase pigmentation in some folks. You guys should really check out my hands, it’s pretty bizarre.  I’m not exactly pulling a reverse Michael Jackson but the lines on my palms are definitely brown. He said this will go away once I stop the 5-FU, but I find it more amusing than problematic.

For my infusion I got my favorite room yet. I can’t recall describing the setup for my infusions, but I get my own room for the day. I lay in one of those adjustable hospital beds, there are a couple of chairs in the room and I have my own tv. Some of the rooms have curtains instead of doors, but I suppose it’s nice to not have to spend the day in a recliner surrounded by other patients. So this week’s room, Room 16, had a door, was right outside the snack center, and was a lot bigger than other rooms. I slept for the first two hours while waiting for my drugs to be delivered. They show up in pieces and I would just hold up my arm band with my name and patient number for the nurses to verify, without even waking up. My nurse (who was also not Judy this time) remarked at one point “You’re on a LOT of chemo”, which made me feel kind of awesome. I look pretty normal, I’m not spending my life retching into the toilet and I can still get out and do stuff, all while being under what a professional considers a heavy treatment regimen.  Suck it, cancer.

I was NOT looking forward to getting unhooked two days later. Since I started chemo so late I was going to have to get disconnected around 8 PM, and at 8 PM after three days of chemo I just want to be in my house, either on my couch or in my bed, not driving and sitting and getting shots. Thankfully I got a really fast nurse and was back in the car driving home in no time.

This Tuesday will bring the last chemo I’m booked for, then things get interesting the following week. I’ll have a CT scan on March 8th, and I meet with Sam on the 10th to get the results. For my first scan I went in scared and got amazing news. (I was reading my surgery report recently and they called me “a young woman who has enjoyed a robust response to chemotherapy”. Oh I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, Bob.) For my second scan I went in cocky and got some not terribly great news.  Needless to say I’m going in with high hopes and low expectations this time.

 

Happy Groundhog Day!

Sure, the title has nothing to do with cancer, but I love Groundhog Day.  If only my colon tumor was still around so it could pop out, take a gander and tell me how many months of chemo I’m in for.  Instead of Punxsatawny Phil I have Sam Whiting who told me today, “chemo, chemo, and more chemo”.

Today was Infusion #4 out of 6, or so I thought.  I have 6 on my schedule right now and thought maybe there’d be a free week or two in between to frolic around, but then, so might my tumors.  My every other week schedule will go on and on and on.  Once we see the chemo’s working well we’ll lighten it up a bit.  Once we get to that point, first order of business is to take out the Oxaliplatin, which makes my hands freeze up in cold and causes me to play hot lava monster on hardwood or tile in my bare feet.  The one I’d most like to see retired are the two drugs making my hair thin out, and those are the two that I’ll be with for the long haul.  Gaaaah, cancer is so unfair!

This past month I’ve really come to accept that I’ll be doing chemo for a really long time, and I’m fine with that.  I expected a few free weeks in between, so this is a slight bummer, but I know if I have anything big I want to do, like a trip to Europe or Raftdependence Day (cough cough Nick BL), we can work around that.  I had a great visit with Dr. Whiting.  I have felt so much better on chemo this round it’s been really encouraging.  I didn’t realize how sick I was in December; I thought it was all still surgery recovery but I guess it was just something that needed several hits of poison.  Really, I haven’t thrown up at all since being back on chemo, and the nausea is much, much better; it only takes a couple of pills to get me through the day.  My energy is coming back a few days earlier than before, and the colitis seems to have gone away.  I really need to clear about half these prescription bottles out of my purse.  I’m still playing it cautious and reserved for plans the weekend right after chemo, but this past weekend I got quite a few activities in.  I might slowly get my social life back.

As for Infusiapalooza, I asked who my nurse would be and found out it would be Judy!  It turned out to be Fake Judy, the other nurse named Judy.  I had a celebrity guest in mind but didn’t get around to putting that together, we’ll save him for next time.  I didnt blog for my last infusion, but that celebrity guest was totally boss.  Sit down, take deep breaths…  It was the Biebs.  Some friends visited this week on their lunch hour and I spent the rest of the time sleeping.  I really love the visitors; sometimes I feel like a talk show host when friends from different circles show up, but I’m also kind of digging this new nap thing.  It’s even funner when I imagine napping while you chumps are at work.  But I’ve got the cancer, so who’s cool now.

On our way out from Infustion my dad and I got on the elevator at the same time as a young man and his mom.  The kid looked at my port and I thought “ooooh, he probably plays the same game I do, guess who’s the cancer patient.  Winner!”  When I leave the hospital hooked up for 2 days, my port has a big patch of tape and plastic over it, and I wear shirts that let the nurses get to it easily, so it was kind of out there.  He stole another couple of glances at it, and his mom said “He’s getting his port put in soon too.”  Oh yay!  It’s my chance to be a cancer sherpa!  I’m not the freshman this time!  I showed him the rest of it and gave him all the tips on how to apply the Lidocaine.  He was already in agreement that a port was going to be much, much better than getting his veins stuck all the time.  We were parked on the same floor, so the conversation kept on.  We talked about living close to SCCA, bragged about our doctors’ rankings, my dad and I told them how absolutely wonderful SCCA is.  For a mom with a newly diagnosed son, I thought both of them were handling it really well.  The boy said again “Sorry for looking at your port, I was just curious.”   I shot back “Listen man, my tits are down here, alright?!”  Ice breaker or totally awkward in front of parents?  Whatever.  If you can’t laugh at cancer, what can you laugh at?