So. Chemo.

CHEMO. CHEMOTHERAPY. CANCER. DEATH. life.

Maybe it's just me.  But that's the pre-cancer view I had on chemotherapy.  Yes, life was in there.  But, ...man.

It's an ugly word to hold so much hope.   Chemo just isn't a word that brings images of flowers and kittens to mind.  Or playing with your children, or friends. Or riding a bike, or running.  Chemo does not create envy. It's a word wrapped in fatigue and vomit.

Mixed in, there is a degree of fear that it won't work.  That the person you know on chemo is going to get very sick and they might die anyway.  I thought that way.  I see that some of the people I talk to now, think that way about me.  I get this little gut, what?  But, my cancer is 80% curable!  Still, I get it.

CHEMOTHERAPY. LIFE. CHEMO.                                    cancer.                         death.

I've never quite felt like having hit the lottery before.  Once cancer is a given, forget wishing it was otherwise: what matters is what you have and how far has it gone?   I have Hodgkin's Lymphoma IIA.  And that means that chemotherapy is my best friend.

Still, it's an unfortunate moniker.   But, now Chemo brings to mind images of running with Sarah, biking with Helen or, doing SCA medieval combat with my friends.  Chemo will kill my cancer and, maybe, it will make me sick.   But compared to what I'm going to get from it, nothing has been that bad. It's been...factual.  I kind of look forward to my treatments and the aftermath.

I've also been associating the word Chemo with how I feel about Milkshakes.  Try it, it's pretty good!

Make it So.

While I lay in the operating room, awaiting the implantation of my port, I realize I am looking forward to the moment when I will make the jump through hyperspace into my future consciousness.  This is new.  It's always been a Blue Jaunt before.

Just before the jump, mask in place, oxygen flowing, hair net applied, I gaze up at the ceiling and think, “Heh, this is a unique moment I never pictured being in.”

I exit hyperspace into the physical coordinates of the Recovery Room.  The nurse, seeing my arrival, welcomes me.  My pre-chosen, post-travel meal arrives.  When they take the port out, I’m getting two of the chocolate coconut brownies.

From There to Treatment - Inside

Thumb up, thumb down.  Dying is no longer a theoretical, but a real and present possibility. Each test is another trial where, wrapped tightly, I present myself for examination. I live with a new kind of fear of my body. As if I am waiting to be told whether the vehicle that carries me about is rotted out.

"Blow up the world?", exclaimed The Tick, "But, that's where I keep my stuff!"

For most of my life, my body and I have had an ambivalent relationship. Only in the last few years have we begun to reconcile. Feelings of betrayal mix with fear. My body was thinking of dying out from under me! Can't we talk about it? I love you!

I keep feeling my neck and the enlarging growth there. I'm sorry, Uncle Charlie! Anguish, hope, fear, resolve, sadness all underlaid with surreal horror. It got me. Jeez. Then, back to the business at hand, the next day, the next test.

The results are in, each weighed and measured. I have cancer. But, I am lucky. Science is on my side. I am fighting with the odds, not against them.

From There to Treatment - Outside

August was spent being tested and seeing an oncologist.  The diagnosis was in by mid-late August: Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  That helped a lot: there's a  lot of hope in that diagnosis.  More testing.  Final Diagnosis, classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Stage IIA.

Starting with a CBC blood test and a CT (with contrast) with positive results, the path to this diagnosis was: A needle biopsy to positively determine malignancy and gross differentiation. An excision biopsy under general anesthesia to remove a lymph node for fine differentiation.  A PET/CT scan to determine the extent of cancer activity throughout the body.  A bone marrow biopsy. 

So many times I've commiserated with friends about the time from their diagnosis to treatment. It's a time of hurry up and wait. This is just how it goes. It's okay, it doesn't effect your outcome.  Everyone goes through it.  It's natural to want to get started treating tomorrow.  You'll get started soon enough.

Campfire Stories

"How did you find out?"

I had a few lymph nodes in my lower left neck that became enlarged. They didn't change or grow or anything.  At the time, I was seeing doctors for a possible skin infection. Enlarged lymph nodes would have made sense. When everything cleared up and they didn't go down, my doctor checked them. Total time: about four months. He ordered some blood work and a CAT scan.

Then things got weird.

Every journey of a thousand miles, etc...

I've decided to post my thoughts and updates here on how things are going.  The list concept is untenable. Here, I can speak to everyone, family, friends, clients, patients, as individuals, about what’s happening and about the journey that I and my family are on. 

For everyone coming here who has just found out: I want to say first that Hodgkin's Lymphoma is curable 80% of the time.  While there are no givens, I believe, Helen and Sarah believe, and my doctors believe, that I am going to be cancer free and cured at the end of my treatment.  Everything we live and that I share, is with that goal in mind.

Feel free to share and comment on any post.