Sun Tsu has written a few pieces of advice. I didn't heed them because he was writing on the art of war, and, as I've explained before, I have a hard time thinking of the cancer thing as a battle.
Sun Tsu's recommendation is that one should not underestimate one's enemy.
I underestimated radiation. I had my eye on the end-of-chemo-date as the prize, thinking that the next Big Thing in cancer treatment would not be much of a big thing at all. I thought it'd be a breeze.
Turns out that a "breeze" in the middle of December in Colorado is pretty uncomfortable. It would have been better if I went into radiation expecting a nightmare. Just think of how pleasantly surprised I'd have been!
So the Mayfield sympathizers among you are thinking, "See, Amy? You would have done well to be a little more martial in your approach. The war metaphor would have served you effectively here."
But is radiation really my enemy? No, no. It's my friend. At least, my enemy is cancer (this much we agree on) and the enemy of cancer is radiation, and Sun Tsu did say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I'm pretty sure he didn't have anything to say about under or over estimation of a friend's ability to burn out living tissue by means of relentless application.
So, again, we find the military metaphor coming up short.
In any case, I am over the shock of the realities of radiation. 1 week down, 6 weeks to go.
That first week was also accompanied by a snow storm and single-digit temperatures, all of which does not impress my Chicagoland readers as being all that terrible, but I have gone soft, friends. And it was miserable to drive in. And, don't forget, I'm also bald, which turns all things "cold" into things that are "awful damn cold."
But the sun came out today! We reached mid-50's! The snow is melted from the streets and I can look forward to my commute to the cancer center as 40 minutes of me-time.
I even checked out a book on CD for my own edification. Titled Manhunt, it's the story of the 12 day search for John Wilkes Boothe. Educational, interesting and yet completely irrelevant to my actual life. It's the trifecta of reading material.
So, then, just a few remarks to follow up on what I've reported from the first week:
1. I asked about the hole in the ceiling panel. Shared my observation that it didn't look very official. The tech--and they are all very nice women, these techs who zap me--shrugged and said, "We just needed a hole."
Then the other pointed out that the two side laser machines were housed in cabinets, the doors of which had been carved through as well. "It makes it so much nicer in here!" she said, meaning that it was "nicer" for these two machines to be covered instead of exposed.
I gestured at the enormous radiation machined in the middle of the room with the movable slab below it and said, "Yeah, those cabinets really make a difference. . ."
2. I offered to bring them a pack of washable markers. "I could get 8 of them for you for a mere 3 bucks! My treat!"
But, no. They have to use FDA approved surgical markers that cost $8 a piece and can only be used on one patient (that I understand). They write the patient's name on her marker and then stick it into a specially-designed marker-holder that, I'm guessing, cost about a hundred bucks.
3. Side effects: I have the expected ones. . . fatigue in that arm, a soreness in the treated area. But it's a soreness that feels like a lactic acid burn that comes after working out an un-worked muscle, so it's not too bad. And I stretch often.
The unexpected effect: nausea.
Following the first treatment, I felt yucky throughout the day and it built up until, by 6PM, I was very close to throwing up. Dr. X-Ray hadn't given me a number to call after hours, so I called Dr. Science, who, again, was completely generous with his time as I started out with, "So sorry to disturb you. . ."
I was to take the same medications I took to control the nausea from chemo. I did, and they worked.
Tuesday I felt fine. Wed through Fri, I took the meds again.
I find it all pretty disappointing, as I was really liking not being on any medications. But. Well. We'll see. . . I will try on Monday to go without, and see just how bad it actually gets.
I mentioned all this to Dr. X-Ray on Wednesday, of course. And asked, "Are you sure they are pointing that thing at the right place?"
He said, "I hope so." And then explained that the beam follows the light, and that the techs see the light on the closed-circuit TV. So they'd know if it was pointed at my stomach.
Turns out some people are just very sensitive to radiation, and I'm one of them. Not too surprising, because I get nauseous very easily. I can't even watch my kids jump on a trampoline without needing to toss the ole cookies.
4. Speaking of Dr. X-Ray. . . After having to call Dr. Science on Monday night, I went in to the Radiation dept on Tuesday in search of their after-hours-call number. I asked the RN who works in a booth right inside the department's door. I explained what had happened. In the future, what number should I call?
She asked, "When did you need to call?"
I said, "6 PM."
"Oh," said the nurse-in-a-booth, "That's after hours."
"Yeah," I said.
"Dr. X-Ray doesn't give out his number for outside office hours."
"Well," I said, "Shame on him."
She looked back at me with big eyes. This was an exciting development in her day.
I went on, "My surgeon gave me his number when I was in his care. My oncologist gave me his number. Seems to me that my radiologist should give me his. I'm in his care, am I not?"
Her eyes were still big. "People just call their oncologist if they have a problem."
Well. Fine. These guys are part of the same practice, and if that's their deal, fine. But mark my words: I'm going to mention this to Dr. Science.
You're thinking, "Mention it to Dr. X-Ray, too! I dare you!"
And I was going to. But then he walked in on Wednesday and we got down to the important business of the day--e.g. pictures of Amy! decapitated--and. . . I just like him a lot. He's very down to earth. Easy going. I didn't have the heart to read him a riot act about accessibility. It's not like it's a problem to call Dr. Science, after all.
Maybe I bring up the subject before the 7 weeks are up. As I tell you all about it, I realize that I'm pretty curious to know what he'd say. I've got just 6 weeks to find out. . .
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Radiation
4 treatments down. 31 to go.
This is why I haven't been in a big hurry to describe the process of radiation. What? Am I going to forget what treatment #1 is like? No problem. It was the same as treatment #18 or #23 or #31 will be.
But first, there were "work ups." Two different appointments in which a bunch of medical folks did a bunch of stuff that would be used to treat me in the right place at the right strength. At the time, I didn't know too much beyond the term "stuff," either. Bryan asked me, after the first appointment, "What did they do, exactly?" and I said, "Come to think of it. . .I don't know."
This is because these medical folks whisked me to and fro. Go in there and change. Come out here for me to take your photo to put on your file. Go in there for the "simulation" (simulation?). Lie down on that table. . .
And then this part happened slowly for me: the gown came off in a freezing cold room and I was shaking all over from the cold, which is not permitted for whatever "simulation" they'd be doing.
So the nurse--at least she claimed to be a nurse, but you be the judge from the following anecdote--put a warmed blanket on me and they waited for me to stop shaking.
During this wait, she commented, "You're a young person."
"Yep." And in the silence, I got to thinking of the advantage to this in the cancer center. The techs are always able to pick me out of the crowd waiting in the lobby or the barn as they know from my file that I'm 34 years old and they can see with their own eyes that there's only one woman sitting there who's under age 50.
"Hmm," the "nurse" went on. This "nurse," who was the very one to take my gown off. . .
"What kind of cancer do you have?"
I thought: Please tell me that you're only responsible for making coffee. And I looked at her with great panic.
Then the "simulation" guy came back in and got down to business. In retrospect, it's possible--I hope!--that this "nurse" meant, "Which kind of breast cancer do you have?" In which case, I might have said, "What difference does it make?"
The blanket came down and I was told to hold onto two handle bars above my head. Half-naked. Thoroughly cold. Gripping bars. Various people in the room who's function--and intelligence--is questionable to me. Just another humiliating moment in a year so far quite full of them.
And these medical folks, for as nice and professional and kind as they were, tottered about their business as they do all day, all week, all year long. When you're running a simulation, it turns out, you're really just mapping out whatever body happens to be lying on the slab.
After the scan, the "nurse" put big marks on my belly and each side of my ribs. Then, within these marks, she tattooed me. 3 little marks, each the size of a big freckle, but with black ink, so they don't look like freckles. They look like big ink dots.
The first one, on my belly, hardly hurt. That's because the nerve connecting that skin to my brain was severed during my surgery. Same with the dot on my right.
Then she did the dot on my left and I yelped from the pain--like a dog whose tail gets stepped on. It was exactly that noise. One dot! Owie owie owie!!!
Who submits to a series of these painful dots in order to get a full-blown tattoo? It really, really hurts!
The second work-up appointment happened on the table that's actually used to administer the radiation. Two techs worked together to take various x-rays of me. The machine hovered and swung around me much as the one in the dentist's office does, only this was was huge and the techs left the room and operated it by remote.
The part of the machine that actually fires the radiation, in various forms, does so through a glass plate. In it, I could see my reflection when it was stationed right above me. Huh. I'd never seen myself from that angle before, let alone while being naked. Then the light show began.
Green laser lights shone from various directions, demarcating the section of my body that would be treated. I could see them shining on me, gerrymandering my chest arm and neck into tidy portions. I felt like I was in the beginning of a production of the 6 Billion Dollar Woman whence high-tech gadgetry would perfect the bionic creature on the table.
The tech later used a marker to draw along these very lines so they could take a digital photo for the file. She said, "It's OK to wash all this off."
"OK," yes. But not possible, it seems. 7 days and 7 showers later, the marker is still there.
But the following was the most surprising part of the day: That machine moved out of my line of site and then I was staring up at the ceiling in the darkened room as the x-rays continued. And lo! There was a gadget above the ceiling, some kind of important equipment--perhaps even a source of one of the laser beams--shining down through a neat "X" that had been carved out of the ceiling panel.
But don't picture a panel that was specifically made for this radiation room. No. It was a regular floating ceiling, the kind that movie characters fall through when they're trying to escape by climbing out through the ventilation screens, and it looked like the "X" had been cut by a janitor armed with a saws-awl.
I mean, fine. If that's what gets the job done, OK. The equipment working all right? Good.
But in a country where the FDA requires surgeons to use a $100 crochet hook for a varicose vein procedure instead of a $1.50 crochet hook from Wal-Mart, I was kind of surprised that the radiation room wasn't simply built with a higher ceiling.
It's not like the lower ceiling was helping to keep the room heated.
(BTW--the crochet hook thing is something Mayfield told me about. But I don't remember if I mentioned it here already.)
And then, Monday, radiation began. This is the routine, to be repeated 5 days a week for 7 weeks:
I arrive, go straight back to the radiation department instead of checking in with the Center's secretaries, pull out a key card from a small, plastic organizer, and then zap it under one of those. . . zapper things.
Then I get changed into a gown.
Within minutes, the techs, alerted to my presence from my key card zap, take me back to the radiation room. I lie on the table. Gown comes down. Arms up to the handle bars. Head turned to the left. They put a rubber band on my feet to keep my legs from shifting during treatment. (This, I recommend, is very comfortable if you sleep on your back.) I lie on a sheet on the table so they can use the sheet to slide me a bit this way or that in order to make my 3 tattoos line up the same place each time.
Then they leave the room and the lights go down and the machines start whirring and hovering and moving about. Every now and then a signal beeps loudly and this means the waves are sent forth.
They say you can't feel it.
I think I feel it. That first day, especially. It felt like a deep, deep quivering in my muscle. I think, anyway. Because of the beep, I know when it's happening, so there's no telling what I've imagined.
After about 3 minutes, it's over with. I get dressed. That first day, they put my initials on a piece of tape and stuck it to a cubby hole in the changing room. I'm to stow my gown there instead of using a new one each day. And this was, up to that moment in my radiation experience, probably the most depressing condition for me to think about.
Who wants to have her own cubby in a radiation unit?
But it got worse.
On Wednesdays, patients see Dr. X-Ray after treatment to discuss any concerns or side effects. This was my first time seeing him following the "simulation," and at long last, he showed me what that procedure was all about and what my treatment would be.
He brought up a series of images produced by that CAT scan. These images were murky to me--various forms in various shades of gray or black, and though he explained which angles they reflect, I was never very good at those spacial reasoning questions that ask you to assemble shapes in your head. That is, I had no idea, really, what he was showing me. Kind of like when I saw the ultra-sounds of my babies in the early months. "That's a heart? OK. I believe you" and instead of worrying about it, I got lost in the wonder of it.
This time, it was more like, "Those are lungs? We're sure we aren't frying them, right?"
Then Dr. X-Ray said, "Oh, here we go--" and brought up a final image for me.
Following all the nakedness in cold rooms, and handle bars to grip, and lying on a slab and seeing myself sliced up by green beams and then drawn on with marker that doesn't wash off and having my own personal space reserved in the radiation dressing room, I looked at this image:
It was of my body with peach-tone skin computer-painted on. One breast. One scar. The body ended right above my lips and, on the bottom of the picture, right above my belly button and there, where the body was cut off, I could see my organs and a little white core of my spine.
So.
Now I know what I look like decapitated. As sometimes happens to meat on a slab.
All of which could be taken to be a little sad. A real bummer, right? But I am sure to look at one other section in the radiation room each time I go in, which is once a day, 5 days a week for 7 weeks. This is the shelf that holds a dozen white mesh head masks, each one labeled for the patient it's been molded to.
And I'm reminded that the kind of cancer I have is, in fact, just breast cancer and that it has not, it seems, spread elsewhere.
This is why I haven't been in a big hurry to describe the process of radiation. What? Am I going to forget what treatment #1 is like? No problem. It was the same as treatment #18 or #23 or #31 will be.
But first, there were "work ups." Two different appointments in which a bunch of medical folks did a bunch of stuff that would be used to treat me in the right place at the right strength. At the time, I didn't know too much beyond the term "stuff," either. Bryan asked me, after the first appointment, "What did they do, exactly?" and I said, "Come to think of it. . .I don't know."
This is because these medical folks whisked me to and fro. Go in there and change. Come out here for me to take your photo to put on your file. Go in there for the "simulation" (simulation?). Lie down on that table. . .
And then this part happened slowly for me: the gown came off in a freezing cold room and I was shaking all over from the cold, which is not permitted for whatever "simulation" they'd be doing.
So the nurse--at least she claimed to be a nurse, but you be the judge from the following anecdote--put a warmed blanket on me and they waited for me to stop shaking.
During this wait, she commented, "You're a young person."
"Yep." And in the silence, I got to thinking of the advantage to this in the cancer center. The techs are always able to pick me out of the crowd waiting in the lobby or the barn as they know from my file that I'm 34 years old and they can see with their own eyes that there's only one woman sitting there who's under age 50.
"Hmm," the "nurse" went on. This "nurse," who was the very one to take my gown off. . .
"What kind of cancer do you have?"
I thought: Please tell me that you're only responsible for making coffee. And I looked at her with great panic.
Then the "simulation" guy came back in and got down to business. In retrospect, it's possible--I hope!--that this "nurse" meant, "Which kind of breast cancer do you have?" In which case, I might have said, "What difference does it make?"
The blanket came down and I was told to hold onto two handle bars above my head. Half-naked. Thoroughly cold. Gripping bars. Various people in the room who's function--and intelligence--is questionable to me. Just another humiliating moment in a year so far quite full of them.
And these medical folks, for as nice and professional and kind as they were, tottered about their business as they do all day, all week, all year long. When you're running a simulation, it turns out, you're really just mapping out whatever body happens to be lying on the slab.
After the scan, the "nurse" put big marks on my belly and each side of my ribs. Then, within these marks, she tattooed me. 3 little marks, each the size of a big freckle, but with black ink, so they don't look like freckles. They look like big ink dots.
The first one, on my belly, hardly hurt. That's because the nerve connecting that skin to my brain was severed during my surgery. Same with the dot on my right.
Then she did the dot on my left and I yelped from the pain--like a dog whose tail gets stepped on. It was exactly that noise. One dot! Owie owie owie!!!
Who submits to a series of these painful dots in order to get a full-blown tattoo? It really, really hurts!
The second work-up appointment happened on the table that's actually used to administer the radiation. Two techs worked together to take various x-rays of me. The machine hovered and swung around me much as the one in the dentist's office does, only this was was huge and the techs left the room and operated it by remote.
The part of the machine that actually fires the radiation, in various forms, does so through a glass plate. In it, I could see my reflection when it was stationed right above me. Huh. I'd never seen myself from that angle before, let alone while being naked. Then the light show began.
Green laser lights shone from various directions, demarcating the section of my body that would be treated. I could see them shining on me, gerrymandering my chest arm and neck into tidy portions. I felt like I was in the beginning of a production of the 6 Billion Dollar Woman whence high-tech gadgetry would perfect the bionic creature on the table.
The tech later used a marker to draw along these very lines so they could take a digital photo for the file. She said, "It's OK to wash all this off."
"OK," yes. But not possible, it seems. 7 days and 7 showers later, the marker is still there.
But the following was the most surprising part of the day: That machine moved out of my line of site and then I was staring up at the ceiling in the darkened room as the x-rays continued. And lo! There was a gadget above the ceiling, some kind of important equipment--perhaps even a source of one of the laser beams--shining down through a neat "X" that had been carved out of the ceiling panel.
But don't picture a panel that was specifically made for this radiation room. No. It was a regular floating ceiling, the kind that movie characters fall through when they're trying to escape by climbing out through the ventilation screens, and it looked like the "X" had been cut by a janitor armed with a saws-awl.
I mean, fine. If that's what gets the job done, OK. The equipment working all right? Good.
But in a country where the FDA requires surgeons to use a $100 crochet hook for a varicose vein procedure instead of a $1.50 crochet hook from Wal-Mart, I was kind of surprised that the radiation room wasn't simply built with a higher ceiling.
It's not like the lower ceiling was helping to keep the room heated.
(BTW--the crochet hook thing is something Mayfield told me about. But I don't remember if I mentioned it here already.)
And then, Monday, radiation began. This is the routine, to be repeated 5 days a week for 7 weeks:
I arrive, go straight back to the radiation department instead of checking in with the Center's secretaries, pull out a key card from a small, plastic organizer, and then zap it under one of those. . . zapper things.
Then I get changed into a gown.
Within minutes, the techs, alerted to my presence from my key card zap, take me back to the radiation room. I lie on the table. Gown comes down. Arms up to the handle bars. Head turned to the left. They put a rubber band on my feet to keep my legs from shifting during treatment. (This, I recommend, is very comfortable if you sleep on your back.) I lie on a sheet on the table so they can use the sheet to slide me a bit this way or that in order to make my 3 tattoos line up the same place each time.
Then they leave the room and the lights go down and the machines start whirring and hovering and moving about. Every now and then a signal beeps loudly and this means the waves are sent forth.
They say you can't feel it.
I think I feel it. That first day, especially. It felt like a deep, deep quivering in my muscle. I think, anyway. Because of the beep, I know when it's happening, so there's no telling what I've imagined.
After about 3 minutes, it's over with. I get dressed. That first day, they put my initials on a piece of tape and stuck it to a cubby hole in the changing room. I'm to stow my gown there instead of using a new one each day. And this was, up to that moment in my radiation experience, probably the most depressing condition for me to think about.
Who wants to have her own cubby in a radiation unit?
But it got worse.
On Wednesdays, patients see Dr. X-Ray after treatment to discuss any concerns or side effects. This was my first time seeing him following the "simulation," and at long last, he showed me what that procedure was all about and what my treatment would be.
He brought up a series of images produced by that CAT scan. These images were murky to me--various forms in various shades of gray or black, and though he explained which angles they reflect, I was never very good at those spacial reasoning questions that ask you to assemble shapes in your head. That is, I had no idea, really, what he was showing me. Kind of like when I saw the ultra-sounds of my babies in the early months. "That's a heart? OK. I believe you" and instead of worrying about it, I got lost in the wonder of it.
This time, it was more like, "Those are lungs? We're sure we aren't frying them, right?"
Then Dr. X-Ray said, "Oh, here we go--" and brought up a final image for me.
Following all the nakedness in cold rooms, and handle bars to grip, and lying on a slab and seeing myself sliced up by green beams and then drawn on with marker that doesn't wash off and having my own personal space reserved in the radiation dressing room, I looked at this image:
It was of my body with peach-tone skin computer-painted on. One breast. One scar. The body ended right above my lips and, on the bottom of the picture, right above my belly button and there, where the body was cut off, I could see my organs and a little white core of my spine.
So.
Now I know what I look like decapitated. As sometimes happens to meat on a slab.
All of which could be taken to be a little sad. A real bummer, right? But I am sure to look at one other section in the radiation room each time I go in, which is once a day, 5 days a week for 7 weeks. This is the shelf that holds a dozen white mesh head masks, each one labeled for the patient it's been molded to.
And I'm reminded that the kind of cancer I have is, in fact, just breast cancer and that it has not, it seems, spread elsewhere.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Half Time Remarks: Part 3 of 3
The Big "C"
It's time for the Big Reveal. If The Big "C" is not about cancer, then what is the Big "C"?
Well, cancer is a little "c." It's just a circumstance. It has posed some challenges. But it has also been the vehicle of great blessings--and I'm not even done with it yet.
The Big "C" is Christ, the Name above all names, the One who can make and keep cancer a little "c" in my life, in anyone's life.
Many have remarked in the comments, through e-mail, and in person upon "Amy's faith." Something along the lines of "It's so strong. . ."
I know that, universally, all of these comments are meant to encourage and support, and I do receive them gratefully as love. But now it's half-time, and I want to clarify something:
There is nothing about me that has created this faith, that is responsible for this faith, that should be admired for this faith.
There is nothing I know about God that you cannot know.
Nothing I experience with or in God that you cannot experience.
God loves you as much as God loves me, and His desire is for you to know and experience that love.
Some of you already know God and have a relationship with Him such that you've been able to relate to a lot of what I've written.
Some of you are simply not interested. You've got your reasons. Fine.
But some of you, I do believe, are interested. There's curiosity there. Maybe some wonder, some yearning. Maybe there's some pain that could really use the kindness of a Savior. This Half Time post is for you.
*********
The message is this:
God created a perfect world. Then sin entered the world through the sin of one man, and all of creation suffered the consequences. There's no point in being annoyed with that first man because we all know that if he hadn't messed it up, we would have. All fall short of the glory of God--we're all imperfect creatures walking around in an imperfect world.
The worst part about our fallen state is one that we're not even naturally aware of--that our sin interrupts our relationship with God. We can't have unity with a perfect God on this side of Heaven if we are imperfect, and we can't be unified with a perfect God on the other side, either, if we are imperfect.
Cut off from our Creator. Forever. The wage of sin is death, and you and I earn that wage every day.
But there is a free gift offered by God: eternal life through Jesus Christ.
How's that?
Way back, just moments after that first sin, God promised to send a Savior through Whom people could be restored to a relationship with God.
The Bible, among other things, is a series of stories of how God worked in people's lives to communicate His love, and these stories, again and again, presented symbols and pictures of the coming Savior.
God delivered His people out of Egypt, and the symbol He used was lamb's blood.
He gave a ritual law to His people in which He described what their yearly animal sacrifice should look like--to atone for their sins, they were to shed the blood of an innocent lamb. This was a symbol of what Jesus would become.
He spoke through His prophets with specific descriptions of who, what and where the Savior would be.
Then Jesus was born. He lived a quiet life until the age of about 30. He had a public ministry of preaching and miracle working for about 3 years. Then He was crucified by Roman decree and when He died, He completed an earthly life during which He had not sinned. He was that innocent lamb. He was buried in a tomb. Then His body resurrected from the grave and He appeared--to various women, then to His other friends, then to whole crowds of people.
And now there can be "eternal life through Jesus Christ." That is, if you believe that Jesus' death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice for your sins--that He paid the price for your sins with His death--and you believe that God resurrected Him from the dead, then God no longer sees you as an imperfect sinner.
Instead, God sees you as someone whose sins have all been covered, have all been paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And you can have unity with Him--here on Earth, and after you die, in Heaven, too.
I write all this out because I don't want to assume that everyone knows the basic Christian Gospel. If you are one of those who is interested in the "God stuff," well, there it is. I hope I said enough to lay out the basic story, and I hope I have not said too much. . .
The best place for you to begin from here--for us all to begin, actually--is with 2 steps.
1. Talk to God. The only prayers He listens to are the honest ones. So if your prayer starts with, "I don't even know whether I believe in you or what I believe about you . . ." then that's the prayer to say.
2. Read the Bible. If you don't have one, you can read online at www.biblegateway.com , or you can stop by a bookstore, or you can e-mail me and I'll send you one.
You can start at the beginning and read straight through if you're feeling ambitious.
Or you can start with one of the biographies of Jesus' life: These are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
If you really like a lot of symbols and poetic language, start with John. If you want a straight-forward, nuts and bolts, Life of Jesus, start with Mark. If you want the accounts that have most of the famous stories of Jesus, including His amazing Sermon on the Mount and most of His parables, read Matthew and Luke.
And as you do these 2 things, be ready to see how God grows faith in you. Be ready to hear His voice. Be ready to get to know your Creator.
It's time for the Big Reveal. If The Big "C" is not about cancer, then what is the Big "C"?
Well, cancer is a little "c." It's just a circumstance. It has posed some challenges. But it has also been the vehicle of great blessings--and I'm not even done with it yet.
The Big "C" is Christ, the Name above all names, the One who can make and keep cancer a little "c" in my life, in anyone's life.
Many have remarked in the comments, through e-mail, and in person upon "Amy's faith." Something along the lines of "It's so strong. . ."
I know that, universally, all of these comments are meant to encourage and support, and I do receive them gratefully as love. But now it's half-time, and I want to clarify something:
There is nothing about me that has created this faith, that is responsible for this faith, that should be admired for this faith.
There is nothing I know about God that you cannot know.
Nothing I experience with or in God that you cannot experience.
God loves you as much as God loves me, and His desire is for you to know and experience that love.
Some of you already know God and have a relationship with Him such that you've been able to relate to a lot of what I've written.
Some of you are simply not interested. You've got your reasons. Fine.
But some of you, I do believe, are interested. There's curiosity there. Maybe some wonder, some yearning. Maybe there's some pain that could really use the kindness of a Savior. This Half Time post is for you.
*********
The message is this:
God created a perfect world. Then sin entered the world through the sin of one man, and all of creation suffered the consequences. There's no point in being annoyed with that first man because we all know that if he hadn't messed it up, we would have. All fall short of the glory of God--we're all imperfect creatures walking around in an imperfect world.
The worst part about our fallen state is one that we're not even naturally aware of--that our sin interrupts our relationship with God. We can't have unity with a perfect God on this side of Heaven if we are imperfect, and we can't be unified with a perfect God on the other side, either, if we are imperfect.
Cut off from our Creator. Forever. The wage of sin is death, and you and I earn that wage every day.
But there is a free gift offered by God: eternal life through Jesus Christ.
How's that?
Way back, just moments after that first sin, God promised to send a Savior through Whom people could be restored to a relationship with God.
The Bible, among other things, is a series of stories of how God worked in people's lives to communicate His love, and these stories, again and again, presented symbols and pictures of the coming Savior.
God delivered His people out of Egypt, and the symbol He used was lamb's blood.
He gave a ritual law to His people in which He described what their yearly animal sacrifice should look like--to atone for their sins, they were to shed the blood of an innocent lamb. This was a symbol of what Jesus would become.
He spoke through His prophets with specific descriptions of who, what and where the Savior would be.
Then Jesus was born. He lived a quiet life until the age of about 30. He had a public ministry of preaching and miracle working for about 3 years. Then He was crucified by Roman decree and when He died, He completed an earthly life during which He had not sinned. He was that innocent lamb. He was buried in a tomb. Then His body resurrected from the grave and He appeared--to various women, then to His other friends, then to whole crowds of people.
And now there can be "eternal life through Jesus Christ." That is, if you believe that Jesus' death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice for your sins--that He paid the price for your sins with His death--and you believe that God resurrected Him from the dead, then God no longer sees you as an imperfect sinner.
Instead, God sees you as someone whose sins have all been covered, have all been paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. And you can have unity with Him--here on Earth, and after you die, in Heaven, too.
I write all this out because I don't want to assume that everyone knows the basic Christian Gospel. If you are one of those who is interested in the "God stuff," well, there it is. I hope I said enough to lay out the basic story, and I hope I have not said too much. . .
The best place for you to begin from here--for us all to begin, actually--is with 2 steps.
1. Talk to God. The only prayers He listens to are the honest ones. So if your prayer starts with, "I don't even know whether I believe in you or what I believe about you . . ." then that's the prayer to say.
2. Read the Bible. If you don't have one, you can read online at www.biblegateway.com , or you can stop by a bookstore, or you can e-mail me and I'll send you one.
You can start at the beginning and read straight through if you're feeling ambitious.
Or you can start with one of the biographies of Jesus' life: These are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
If you really like a lot of symbols and poetic language, start with John. If you want a straight-forward, nuts and bolts, Life of Jesus, start with Mark. If you want the accounts that have most of the famous stories of Jesus, including His amazing Sermon on the Mount and most of His parables, read Matthew and Luke.
And as you do these 2 things, be ready to see how God grows faith in you. Be ready to hear His voice. Be ready to get to know your Creator.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Half Time Remarks: Part 2 of 3
The Difficult Parts
I haven't written too much about the tough spots of this experience because
a) my parents are reading this and the whole thing is hard enough for them already and
b) complaining doesn't make for good art.
But I'm writing a bit about them now because
a) they are part of the experience and I don't want to lose them and
b) you've all been assuming that this has been hard, so why not fill in the details?
1. Chemotherapy
Dr. Science told me, on that first day of chemotherapy, "It's not that bad."
I've seen for myself and can now judge: This is like the OBGYN who tells women that labor doesn't hurt "that much."
I'm going to suggest a different statement for his use. "The physical toll of chemotherapy is not that bad." It's not. I had a drug to manage all the physical side effects with the exception of the hair loss and the styes. (One of which I still have.)
But the hair loss is not a big deal to me, and the styes are not too much to bear.
The difficult part of chemotherapy is the emotional toll. It sent me into menopause, which wrecked havoc with my hormones and my sleep cycle, so already I wasn't going to be managing the emotional content with a whole lot of sanity.
Given all this, undergoing chemotherapy itself was just a sad, sad thing. I have a feeling it's a feminine response to feel this way. The men under 50 in the chemo barn had a completely different countenance about them. They'd sit with their laptops, working away, checking their pagers and cell phones and watches, coming off their drips with a chipper step, on their way back to work as though a stop through the chemo barn was nothing more than an extra-long stop at the Barber shop.
Was it just a brave front for them? Or is this just how men meet the physical challenge?
Because, to me, it mostly felt like a physical assault. And I'd just try to distract myself from what was happening in the chemo barn, and how it left me in the days afterwards.
2. Physical Deformity
I've written a lot about this thus far. On the one hand, it's not a big deal. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't impair any function. If I dress a certain way, no one need even know about it.
But Bryan and I know about it. And there's no escaping that intrusion.
3. A Husband's Helplessness
I've said nearly nothing about Bryan's handling of his wife's cancer. This is partly because he decided to handle it by being stalwart throughout. I would ask him now and again how he was doing and he'd say, with great sincerity, something very reasonable and calm and supportive.
And on those many, many moments when I'd cry at the end of a day, he'd hug me and say, "It won't always be like this." That was always a great comfort to me.
The struggle, for him, leaked out in little ways, harmless ones: He's been doing many projects around the house ever since the diagnosis, and in the last 4 months, he has purchased 3 firearms. . .
This past week, that season for being stalwart ended. Something about the chemo being over with has signaled to us both that the worst parts are finished. And he finally let loose with all he's held onto. We both just cried and cried and cried together. He hates that he wasn't able to "do" anything to save me from these worst parts.
I told him, of course, that his love and support for me and help with the kids was all I needed. That I did not need to be saved from, just helped through. He can believe me with his head, but the man in him can't really believe that in his heart. And that's just his own grief to bear.
Here's the part where a lot of people would say that their marriage is stronger because of the struggle, or somesuch. How the chief Good Thing to come out of the cancer walk is new-found love or commitment or realization of love. I completely believe how that is true of many people's experiences.
But Bryan and I are kind of like, "Eh, we could have done without this."
The chief Good Thing to come out of this cancer walk, I do believe, will be in a different department.
4. The End of Chemotherapy
In all the little booklets about How to do Chemo, no one ever mentioned the deep sadness that comes when it's all over.
But there's grief here, all right.
Something about. . . the excitement waning. Since early June, I have been She Who Has Cancer, and now I'm not. You might think I'm jumping the gun, after all, there's radiation ahead and we wouldn't do that if I didn't have cancer.
But, I really sense somehow that I'm not sick anymore. And we're doing the radiation, in my mind, because it's standard course and I'm a good patient.
So it's time to get back to our life. I cancelled our account with the Merry Maids and we all cleaned our house together yesterday. I had to ask Bryan the other day, "What did I used to do with my time before I was diagnosed?"--because since then, my time has been spent at medical appointments or in recovery or in a state of fatigue.
What does normal feel like?
It's an adjustment. And there were several days there when I felt like I didn't want to go back to being Amy Ponce!, superhero of the Every Day.
God has been showing me what our new old life should look like. It's exciting to have new plans. By the time my hair grows back in, I'm sure I'll be just fine with the Every Day.
I haven't written too much about the tough spots of this experience because
a) my parents are reading this and the whole thing is hard enough for them already and
b) complaining doesn't make for good art.
But I'm writing a bit about them now because
a) they are part of the experience and I don't want to lose them and
b) you've all been assuming that this has been hard, so why not fill in the details?
1. Chemotherapy
Dr. Science told me, on that first day of chemotherapy, "It's not that bad."
I've seen for myself and can now judge: This is like the OBGYN who tells women that labor doesn't hurt "that much."
I'm going to suggest a different statement for his use. "The physical toll of chemotherapy is not that bad." It's not. I had a drug to manage all the physical side effects with the exception of the hair loss and the styes. (One of which I still have.)
But the hair loss is not a big deal to me, and the styes are not too much to bear.
The difficult part of chemotherapy is the emotional toll. It sent me into menopause, which wrecked havoc with my hormones and my sleep cycle, so already I wasn't going to be managing the emotional content with a whole lot of sanity.
Given all this, undergoing chemotherapy itself was just a sad, sad thing. I have a feeling it's a feminine response to feel this way. The men under 50 in the chemo barn had a completely different countenance about them. They'd sit with their laptops, working away, checking their pagers and cell phones and watches, coming off their drips with a chipper step, on their way back to work as though a stop through the chemo barn was nothing more than an extra-long stop at the Barber shop.
Was it just a brave front for them? Or is this just how men meet the physical challenge?
Because, to me, it mostly felt like a physical assault. And I'd just try to distract myself from what was happening in the chemo barn, and how it left me in the days afterwards.
2. Physical Deformity
I've written a lot about this thus far. On the one hand, it's not a big deal. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't impair any function. If I dress a certain way, no one need even know about it.
But Bryan and I know about it. And there's no escaping that intrusion.
3. A Husband's Helplessness
I've said nearly nothing about Bryan's handling of his wife's cancer. This is partly because he decided to handle it by being stalwart throughout. I would ask him now and again how he was doing and he'd say, with great sincerity, something very reasonable and calm and supportive.
And on those many, many moments when I'd cry at the end of a day, he'd hug me and say, "It won't always be like this." That was always a great comfort to me.
The struggle, for him, leaked out in little ways, harmless ones: He's been doing many projects around the house ever since the diagnosis, and in the last 4 months, he has purchased 3 firearms. . .
This past week, that season for being stalwart ended. Something about the chemo being over with has signaled to us both that the worst parts are finished. And he finally let loose with all he's held onto. We both just cried and cried and cried together. He hates that he wasn't able to "do" anything to save me from these worst parts.
I told him, of course, that his love and support for me and help with the kids was all I needed. That I did not need to be saved from, just helped through. He can believe me with his head, but the man in him can't really believe that in his heart. And that's just his own grief to bear.
Here's the part where a lot of people would say that their marriage is stronger because of the struggle, or somesuch. How the chief Good Thing to come out of the cancer walk is new-found love or commitment or realization of love. I completely believe how that is true of many people's experiences.
But Bryan and I are kind of like, "Eh, we could have done without this."
The chief Good Thing to come out of this cancer walk, I do believe, will be in a different department.
4. The End of Chemotherapy
In all the little booklets about How to do Chemo, no one ever mentioned the deep sadness that comes when it's all over.
But there's grief here, all right.
Something about. . . the excitement waning. Since early June, I have been She Who Has Cancer, and now I'm not. You might think I'm jumping the gun, after all, there's radiation ahead and we wouldn't do that if I didn't have cancer.
But, I really sense somehow that I'm not sick anymore. And we're doing the radiation, in my mind, because it's standard course and I'm a good patient.
So it's time to get back to our life. I cancelled our account with the Merry Maids and we all cleaned our house together yesterday. I had to ask Bryan the other day, "What did I used to do with my time before I was diagnosed?"--because since then, my time has been spent at medical appointments or in recovery or in a state of fatigue.
What does normal feel like?
It's an adjustment. And there were several days there when I felt like I didn't want to go back to being Amy Ponce!, superhero of the Every Day.
God has been showing me what our new old life should look like. It's exciting to have new plans. By the time my hair grows back in, I'm sure I'll be just fine with the Every Day.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Half Time Remarks: Part 1 of 3
"Half Time" as in "Chemotherapy is over, Radiation ahead" -- and I might just come to think of subsequent surgeries at Over Time.
Part 1 is some bits and pieces:
1. After Half Time remarks, the nature of this blog will be a bit different. I plan to keep the record of the radiation experience, because you're all desperate to know what that's all about, right? But I won't try to post something each day.
The change in the nature of the blog is due to the change in the nature of my little adventure. In the past months, there was a lot going on--medically, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Writing about all of it was a terrific way for me to process all of that while bearing the additional fruit of the record of my experience.
But now, it seems like there's less to process. So there's less to write about. So there'll be less writing.
2. Many of you have sent along various items relating to Mammogate, e.g. that government task force recommendation regarding mammograms and when women should get them AND, in an extra-brilliant addition, whether doctors should teach women about self-exams.
There's nothing I can say about this that you probably have not already said for yourselves.
Except for this, which you might not know about: The American Cancer Society, for their part, notes that under the House health care bill, this task force recommendation would make pre-50 years mammograms a Class C preventative measure, and proposed insurance requirements would cover only Class A and B preventative measures, so officials looking to calm the storm my suggesting that this task force's work is meaningless are being a bit disingenuous.
While Leslie was here, we were in Wal-greens, scouting for a lip liner that had been discontinued--and we found 3 of them in the discount basket! Not sure what Leslie will do after those are used up, but I feel her pain, as Clinique discontinued a lipstick that was the perfect color for me and I've yet--8 years later!--to find another that suits me as well.
There we were, rummaging for lip liner, when a woman said to me, "Do you have breast cancer?"
Well. I was bald and wearing my pink "Chicks Fly" hat that Aunt Jill bought me. And I think it's my age that tips people towards guessing cancer of the breast. . .
"Yes," I told her, "And I recognize you from the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center, right?"
Conversation ensued. It was the day after Mammogate broke open and we soon were talking about it. I registered in just a few seconds: This woman was taking it personally.
So was another women I talked with in the chemo barn the following week. So was my Dad, who brought it up over the phone and got so upset I had to tell him, "OK, take a deep breath. . ."
So do I. I'm mostly annoyed over the comments on self-examination. Granted, I'm one of 0.5% of breast cancer patients--those of us under 40 with no family history of it. If we don't find it ourselves, it will kill us, because mammograms don't start until you're 40 under current recommendations.
And, as one of the 0.5% of breast cancer patients--a statistical blip to a bureaucrat--who is alive today directly because of all the awareness programs and professionals who've made self-examination as commonplace and teeth brushing--I pretty much feel like telling this task force, "Fuck you."
A larger point is that, as 1 in 10 women develop breast cancer, everyone knows someone with it. And therefore, nearly everyone takes this personally, especially the half of the population that both knows someone with breast cancer and who has breasts of her own.
Makes me wonder about the timing of these recommendations, given that the public reaction was entirely predictable. I'd almost say that this whole thing was a plot by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to plague Obamacare, except that I don't think there are currently any Republicans with the power and enough cleverness to have engineered it. . .
3. Speaking of Leslie's visit, we had a delightful time. Something about Rounds 5 and 6 were a lot more comfortable than 1-4. I had no GI discomfort at all. The fatigue was a little worse, but my body felt generally better.
So, whereas during Round 3 when Laura was here, I mostly just sat there and watched her cook copious amounts of food for our freezer (which lasted right through to round 6!), I was able to do a bit more with Leslie, and that was fun.
She cooked for us, too. But without the mission of freezing meals for us, she made the kind of meals that require stove top cookware instead of a crock pot and stock pot. All of which is to say that she cooked one meal in my house and then declared that I had to buy new pans.
We were off to the TJ Maxx Home Goods store where she picked out two pans for us, and then she was very happy to use them all week.
She's gone. The pans remain and guess what: It is a delight to cook with terrific cookware! I don't know what it is, but using these pans that are genuinly non-stick and that heat so evenly has changed the very meaning of cooking for me. I love to use them! I look forward to cooking now!
Who knew? Seriously. Who among you knew this and never told me?
4. While Leslie and I sat in the chemo barn awaiting my last neulastin shot (woo hoo!), we chatted with this gal across from us. She had a helper dog with her, and you know how dogs are great for stating conversations.
(Note on the chemo barn: Several patients bring their dogs. I've seen at least 3 little ones and 1 big one and this lady's animal was the only certified helper dog among them.)
She was a beautiful woman. Mid-50's, with a brain tumor that had spread into her neck. She soldiers on.
She learned that Leslie was my sister and then said, "Oh, sisters!" She had to spend 2 months in the hospital to get a stem cell transplant and her sister took a leave of absence from her job in Boston, flew to Denver and stayed in the hospital with her. "There's nothing like a sister," she said.
Leslie and I were both crying.
Very true. There's nothing like a sister.
Part 1 is some bits and pieces:
1. After Half Time remarks, the nature of this blog will be a bit different. I plan to keep the record of the radiation experience, because you're all desperate to know what that's all about, right? But I won't try to post something each day.
The change in the nature of the blog is due to the change in the nature of my little adventure. In the past months, there was a lot going on--medically, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Writing about all of it was a terrific way for me to process all of that while bearing the additional fruit of the record of my experience.
But now, it seems like there's less to process. So there's less to write about. So there'll be less writing.
2. Many of you have sent along various items relating to Mammogate, e.g. that government task force recommendation regarding mammograms and when women should get them AND, in an extra-brilliant addition, whether doctors should teach women about self-exams.
There's nothing I can say about this that you probably have not already said for yourselves.
Except for this, which you might not know about: The American Cancer Society, for their part, notes that under the House health care bill, this task force recommendation would make pre-50 years mammograms a Class C preventative measure, and proposed insurance requirements would cover only Class A and B preventative measures, so officials looking to calm the storm my suggesting that this task force's work is meaningless are being a bit disingenuous.
While Leslie was here, we were in Wal-greens, scouting for a lip liner that had been discontinued--and we found 3 of them in the discount basket! Not sure what Leslie will do after those are used up, but I feel her pain, as Clinique discontinued a lipstick that was the perfect color for me and I've yet--8 years later!--to find another that suits me as well.
There we were, rummaging for lip liner, when a woman said to me, "Do you have breast cancer?"
Well. I was bald and wearing my pink "Chicks Fly" hat that Aunt Jill bought me. And I think it's my age that tips people towards guessing cancer of the breast. . .
"Yes," I told her, "And I recognize you from the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center, right?"
Conversation ensued. It was the day after Mammogate broke open and we soon were talking about it. I registered in just a few seconds: This woman was taking it personally.
So was another women I talked with in the chemo barn the following week. So was my Dad, who brought it up over the phone and got so upset I had to tell him, "OK, take a deep breath. . ."
So do I. I'm mostly annoyed over the comments on self-examination. Granted, I'm one of 0.5% of breast cancer patients--those of us under 40 with no family history of it. If we don't find it ourselves, it will kill us, because mammograms don't start until you're 40 under current recommendations.
And, as one of the 0.5% of breast cancer patients--a statistical blip to a bureaucrat--who is alive today directly because of all the awareness programs and professionals who've made self-examination as commonplace and teeth brushing--I pretty much feel like telling this task force, "Fuck you."
A larger point is that, as 1 in 10 women develop breast cancer, everyone knows someone with it. And therefore, nearly everyone takes this personally, especially the half of the population that both knows someone with breast cancer and who has breasts of her own.
Makes me wonder about the timing of these recommendations, given that the public reaction was entirely predictable. I'd almost say that this whole thing was a plot by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to plague Obamacare, except that I don't think there are currently any Republicans with the power and enough cleverness to have engineered it. . .
3. Speaking of Leslie's visit, we had a delightful time. Something about Rounds 5 and 6 were a lot more comfortable than 1-4. I had no GI discomfort at all. The fatigue was a little worse, but my body felt generally better.
So, whereas during Round 3 when Laura was here, I mostly just sat there and watched her cook copious amounts of food for our freezer (which lasted right through to round 6!), I was able to do a bit more with Leslie, and that was fun.
She cooked for us, too. But without the mission of freezing meals for us, she made the kind of meals that require stove top cookware instead of a crock pot and stock pot. All of which is to say that she cooked one meal in my house and then declared that I had to buy new pans.
We were off to the TJ Maxx Home Goods store where she picked out two pans for us, and then she was very happy to use them all week.
She's gone. The pans remain and guess what: It is a delight to cook with terrific cookware! I don't know what it is, but using these pans that are genuinly non-stick and that heat so evenly has changed the very meaning of cooking for me. I love to use them! I look forward to cooking now!
Who knew? Seriously. Who among you knew this and never told me?
4. While Leslie and I sat in the chemo barn awaiting my last neulastin shot (woo hoo!), we chatted with this gal across from us. She had a helper dog with her, and you know how dogs are great for stating conversations.
(Note on the chemo barn: Several patients bring their dogs. I've seen at least 3 little ones and 1 big one and this lady's animal was the only certified helper dog among them.)
She was a beautiful woman. Mid-50's, with a brain tumor that had spread into her neck. She soldiers on.
She learned that Leslie was my sister and then said, "Oh, sisters!" She had to spend 2 months in the hospital to get a stem cell transplant and her sister took a leave of absence from her job in Boston, flew to Denver and stayed in the hospital with her. "There's nothing like a sister," she said.
Leslie and I were both crying.
Very true. There's nothing like a sister.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Some Pink I Actually Liked
Copied from an e-mail Sister #2 sent me:
Pink Glove Dance for Breast Cancer Awareness
" Our daughter-in-law, Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created,
directed and choreographed this in Portland last week
for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast
cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves.
I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.
"When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge
contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It's an easy and great way to donate to
a wonderful cause."
Ap!: It made me laugh, and then cry and cry and cry. But that might just be the standard after-effect of a chemo-round. . .
If it doesn't buffer well, you can find it at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
And I'm not certain if watching it on this blog will count towards the 1 million hit donation. . .
Pink Glove Dance for Breast Cancer Awareness
" Our daughter-in-law, Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created,
directed and choreographed this in Portland last week
for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast
cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves.
I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.
"When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge
contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It's an easy and great way to donate to
a wonderful cause."
Ap!: It made me laugh, and then cry and cry and cry. But that might just be the standard after-effect of a chemo-round. . .
If it doesn't buffer well, you can find it at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
And I'm not certain if watching it on this blog will count towards the 1 million hit donation. . .
Monday, November 23, 2009
Radi-elation
I'm glad to be looking at radiation because it means chemotherapy is behind us. Here's what the approach of radiation has looked like:
Plan A: When Dr. Science mentioned radiation at my first appointment with him, I swear he said "3 weeks." I figured I'd knock it out soon after chemo and be done by the new year. Plan A lasted until Chemo Round 5, when Plan B was unveiled.
Plan B: 5 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week. He swears he never said 3 weeks. . . So. I figured I'd rest up after chemo, spend 2 weeks over Christmas with Bryan and the kids in Florida, by his parents, then come back and start the radiation in January.
I had gotten pretty keen on Plan B. I liked the idea of being recovered from chemotherapy, and of having a nice break from treatment, and of enjoying the whole month of December without having to use any cancer words.
Then Leslie and I went to my appointment with Dr. X-Ray.
He has a real name. But he is a radiologist. Am I supposed to resist giving him a name with a bit of jazz?
We both liked him. Very down-to-earth guy. Grew up on Long Island. Lived in Hinsdale, IL for many years before relocating to the Springs. We talked suburbs for a while. Very personable fellow.
When he told me the radiation would likely be 7 weeks long, I did not like him any less.
I posed Plan B to him, e.g. waiting until the new year, and his first response was to say that we have no data on how waiting 6-7 weeks affects the outcome. But, he said, if I really wanted to wait. . .
No, no. I'm not here to make medical history. Staying within normal parameters seems like a fine idea, and that means starting within 3-4 weeks of the last chemo treatment. And that means starting 7 December or so. And that makes for Plan C: 7 weeks, 5 days a week, starting early December.
We hope to get down to Florida in late January.
Other notes from the Dr. X-Ray visit: he noted that I am "thin."
I finally said out loud, instead of just writing about it, "I love it when doctors tell me I'm thin."
He laughed at this. But he's got a wife and a daughter, so he knows the score.
He mentioned the side effects of treatment: fatigue, possibility of lymphedemia, sun burn on the skin that will turn into a tan.
About the fatigue--I am hoping it will be of a different sort than what chemo produces. It comes from the body's efforts to rebuild cells, and that seems friendlier than the body's efforts to process poison and all the drugs taken along with them to control side effects.
About the lymphedemia--25 - 30% chance that radiation will trigger it. Let's pray against this. As you all know, it's the one thing I really want to avoid.
About the skin issues -- Dr. X-Ray concluded the description of burn into tan by saying, "So, it will end up looking pretty good."
"You mean, aside from the missing breast and scar running across my chest."
This made him laugh a little, too. "Yeah, aside from that" and then went on to describe what radiation of 20 years ago did to the skin. Ugh. Once again, I am so thankful for the technology that has come before me.
So there is your scoop. To paraphrase the Ghostbusters, shortly before they cross beams and nuke the StayPuff man: "Plan C. I like this plan and I'm excited to be a part of it."
Plan A: When Dr. Science mentioned radiation at my first appointment with him, I swear he said "3 weeks." I figured I'd knock it out soon after chemo and be done by the new year. Plan A lasted until Chemo Round 5, when Plan B was unveiled.
Plan B: 5 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week. He swears he never said 3 weeks. . . So. I figured I'd rest up after chemo, spend 2 weeks over Christmas with Bryan and the kids in Florida, by his parents, then come back and start the radiation in January.
I had gotten pretty keen on Plan B. I liked the idea of being recovered from chemotherapy, and of having a nice break from treatment, and of enjoying the whole month of December without having to use any cancer words.
Then Leslie and I went to my appointment with Dr. X-Ray.
He has a real name. But he is a radiologist. Am I supposed to resist giving him a name with a bit of jazz?
We both liked him. Very down-to-earth guy. Grew up on Long Island. Lived in Hinsdale, IL for many years before relocating to the Springs. We talked suburbs for a while. Very personable fellow.
When he told me the radiation would likely be 7 weeks long, I did not like him any less.
I posed Plan B to him, e.g. waiting until the new year, and his first response was to say that we have no data on how waiting 6-7 weeks affects the outcome. But, he said, if I really wanted to wait. . .
No, no. I'm not here to make medical history. Staying within normal parameters seems like a fine idea, and that means starting within 3-4 weeks of the last chemo treatment. And that means starting 7 December or so. And that makes for Plan C: 7 weeks, 5 days a week, starting early December.
We hope to get down to Florida in late January.
Other notes from the Dr. X-Ray visit: he noted that I am "thin."
I finally said out loud, instead of just writing about it, "I love it when doctors tell me I'm thin."
He laughed at this. But he's got a wife and a daughter, so he knows the score.
He mentioned the side effects of treatment: fatigue, possibility of lymphedemia, sun burn on the skin that will turn into a tan.
About the fatigue--I am hoping it will be of a different sort than what chemo produces. It comes from the body's efforts to rebuild cells, and that seems friendlier than the body's efforts to process poison and all the drugs taken along with them to control side effects.
About the lymphedemia--25 - 30% chance that radiation will trigger it. Let's pray against this. As you all know, it's the one thing I really want to avoid.
About the skin issues -- Dr. X-Ray concluded the description of burn into tan by saying, "So, it will end up looking pretty good."
"You mean, aside from the missing breast and scar running across my chest."
This made him laugh a little, too. "Yeah, aside from that" and then went on to describe what radiation of 20 years ago did to the skin. Ugh. Once again, I am so thankful for the technology that has come before me.
So there is your scoop. To paraphrase the Ghostbusters, shortly before they cross beams and nuke the StayPuff man: "Plan C. I like this plan and I'm excited to be a part of it."
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