When I used to lift weights, I would refer commonly to what I knew as the "two-day rule." It means that after lifting, you can usually expect to be sore not on the day immediately following the lift, but on the day after that, the "second day." Depending on the intensity or duration of the lift, you might be sore the very next day as well, but generally I knew my body and could anticipate the length and severity of my soreness. That way, I was prepared for the necessary rest, replenishment, and recovery my body needed to get stronger.
Today is my second day removed from a five-day chemo treatment. It's not quite the same, but I feel like my body has been beaten. I feel like a couple of tough guys got together and roughed me up a bit. And while it wouldn't be the first time I've ever taken a punch, at least in the past there was someone against whom I could defend myself. Right now, I've got two tender cheekbones, my chest hurts to the touch, laying down makes everything sore, I think I took a few shots to the legs, and to top it off my stomach is a mess so I might as well have taken a swift kick to the nuts along the way, too. This chemo is one bully the likes of whom I've never crossed.
The real beauty is that even though this last round was five days long, they pushed the start back a day to get all of those tests and scans in beforehand, and since we're trying to compress everything to make sure I really have no recovery time, I'm already supposed to be back there a week from today. So, in seven days, I'll be tied to the whipping post once again.
I know I've marveled before at the body's ability to rehabilitate itself. We tear our skin off, and it usually grows back. We bang, bruise, and sprain our joints and bones and ligaments and, in most cases, our bodies can find a way to piece them back together. But it still amazes me that one simple mistake; one false move in a million routine patterns of seemingly functional insignificance could spell irreparable disaster. I mean, really, our cells divide and duplicate themselves all day long since the moment of conception, and all that has to happen is a "D" gets flipped for an "A" and the formula is ruined. The new creation is a tumor; a downward-spiraling, ticking timebomb of destruction in our brains or spinal cavities, and for some reason it isn't the same as any other kind of thing because our bodies don't have an answer for it. It just doesn't make sense how our bodies can be so evolved, yet so fragile and so vulnerable at the same time.
Where would we be without modern medicine? I was born with pyloric stenosis, which means that the opening between my stomach and small intestine was too narrow, so I wasn't digesting any food and if it hadn't been for a fairly modern surgery, I wouldn't even be around to be fighting this new and ever-more exciting medical anomaly. I don't even mean to joke about it; I'm afraid I should be a little weary of trying to beat this because maybe I'm just testing fate by relying so much on medical technology. Maybe it's just a matter of time before my body comes up with something ahead of our diagnostical capabilities, and then I'm screwed. I shouldn't even say that, though, lest I forget for a moment the monster in my bones whose wrath I'm praying will lie dormant for the remainder of eternity.
I've digressed so far from my original direction that I'm not sure anymore where I'm going with this. I suppose I could reiterate the point that as long as I'm still kicking, and as long as I've got a shot, things could always be worse. And that's a sentiment worth repeating. There's always someone whose monster won't go to sleep, no matter what Molotov cocktail of drugs and poison the medical miracle-makers can concoct to throw at it.
Good people, better than I, are doomed to such a fate. The thought of it just seems to drain all of the air out of the room. But it makes me want to be better. I know those people won't stop fighting until that final breath, and that's a lifetime's worth of inspiration for me. I will forever hesitate to take a simple moment in this life for granted, though it will probably take some getting used to, because I've never lived that way before. But, having thought about it, there's really no other way to live. It's all just too fleeting and too ephemeral to fail to take the time we do have here to try and be better. I'm going to be better to myself, more forgiving of my mistakes, better to those around me and to those close to me, because they deserve it. We all deserve it because if we don't start treating people better, nobody ever will. Nobody's going to do it for us, but if we each make that small adjustment to be a slightly happier, friendlier, more accepting or more welcoming individual, the implications could be enormous. Tragedy will still exist, and unspeakable misfortune will befall the few, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that fewer strangers means more friends and more love and that breaking down some of the other barriers that pervade our volatile social coexistence might only tempt fate to be more forgiving. Maybe it could work, and maybe fewer monsters would sneak up from inside of us. Maybe it wouldn't work, and not a whole lot would change, but foregiveness is still a powerful thought.
Forgiving my body its mistake won't erase the tumor it created, but holding onto that grudge and refusing to forgive won't get rid of it either, so it's a matter of the kind of person I'm going to be. I'd imagine that if those with gloomier prognoses than I can find it in their hearts to forgive their own conditions, then I sure as hell can, too. And if we could all learn to forgive just a little bit better, then fewer people might actually be recovering from an old-fashioned ass-whooping, or worse, the way my body's feeling today. That's something I'll gladly hope for.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Determination
When my ex-girlfriend and I began our "break," I thought it would be noble or worthwhile or fulfilling on my part to begin counting the days, or months, or even years until we could once again be together. After a few days, it occurred to me that the day might never come when we would reuinite, so my endeavor would be entirely in vain, trying to prove something to someone that just doesn't need proving. People grow up, people grow apart, people change in some of the most unforeseeable ways and there's just nothing that any of us can do about it. The truth of the matter is that the day may never come again when we make sense for one another, and chronicling my daily sufferance on a flimsy notepad was not going to change that.
It seems to me that counting my remaining days of chemotherapy is much more timeworthy, especially considering that it has a planned end date.
Today is the fifth and final day of the current five-day chemo. Needless to say, I'm anxious to go home. After two Bone Marrow Biopsies, a bone scan, an EKG, and little to watch on television, I'm yearning for a comfortable bed.
After today, I will have completed 21 of 49 chemo days. It still leaves a lot to be done, but it's six of the fourteen rounds overwith and so far I've come out halfway alright.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect, and even having the audacity to expect it to be so is like asking for punishment. A relationship may disappear without explanation or understanding, health may deteriorate in a similarly mysterious fashion, and we are left to our own means of coping with the situations that arise.
Like I said, I still have a long way to go. Eight more rounds of chemo, plus scans and vaccines and radiation and whatever else they decide to throw at me, but right now, at the end of this lengthy cycle, the battle doesn't seem as far uphill as it has in the past. Maybe the nausea and dizziness will kick in and take care of that, but right now, in this very moment, I'm determined. And determination can certainly accomplish a lot of unlikely feats.
It seems to me that counting my remaining days of chemotherapy is much more timeworthy, especially considering that it has a planned end date.
Today is the fifth and final day of the current five-day chemo. Needless to say, I'm anxious to go home. After two Bone Marrow Biopsies, a bone scan, an EKG, and little to watch on television, I'm yearning for a comfortable bed.
After today, I will have completed 21 of 49 chemo days. It still leaves a lot to be done, but it's six of the fourteen rounds overwith and so far I've come out halfway alright.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect, and even having the audacity to expect it to be so is like asking for punishment. A relationship may disappear without explanation or understanding, health may deteriorate in a similarly mysterious fashion, and we are left to our own means of coping with the situations that arise.
Like I said, I still have a long way to go. Eight more rounds of chemo, plus scans and vaccines and radiation and whatever else they decide to throw at me, but right now, at the end of this lengthy cycle, the battle doesn't seem as far uphill as it has in the past. Maybe the nausea and dizziness will kick in and take care of that, but right now, in this very moment, I'm determined. And determination can certainly accomplish a lot of unlikely feats.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Nine More Years?
Today, I heard the results of yesterday's Bone Marrow Biospies, which found no tumors in the base of my spine! The Biopsies were still sent to a lab to be studied more closely, and the doctors expect that there will still be some tumor in the bones, since the bones are always the last to heal. My PET Scan from Monday also came back, and while the results weren't groundbreaking, there is still clear and substantial progress being made. The same was found to be the case with today's bone scan.
All of these tests and pre-test procedures are tedious, but it's really nice to know that all of the hard work and suffering is paying off. Though I've been told that the high rate of recovery I've witnessed so far will likely taper off towards a slower pace, my only hope is that the treatment continues to be effective, so I can get the disease into remission and head back down to NCI (National Cancer Institute) in Bethesda, MD for the vaccines.
Immediately before chemo started, I was lucky enough to take part in a vaccine trial for a variety of very rare tumors. It consisted of a number (six, to be exact) of Bone Marrow Biopsy samples to isolate the tumor, followed by a day of collecting my blood and platelets in order to create a personalized vaccine of my own, for my own particular illness. Though the trip to Bethesda was painful and postponed the beginning of chemo, the hope was that by administering the vaccine to me in the end, once the tumor is in remission, then my body will have a better chance at preventing the tumor from returning. Apparently, the second vaccine trial run was fairly effective and with new and improved research and procedures, the hope is that this trial will be even more successful than the last.
The logistics seem to add up, which is great. But we all know that numbers and statistics don't always hold true in the real world. When talking to my friend, who was really excited over the news of the past few days, he told me that "all I have to do is focus on the big picture; the light at the end of the tunnel."
He is exactly right. If I could focus all of my energy and attention on that day so many months from now when I hope to hear those magic words that I can go back to living my life, it would all be so much easier for me. Unfortuntately, that just isn't possible. I still have to feel the nausea slowly creeping in as I sit here in my chemo bed. I have to deal with the next two weeks of illness, which make the routine things in the day ever more difficult, lonely, and frustrating. I have to continue living in a body and a mind that I don't fully recognize, continuing to wonder when I might once again feel like myself.
My dad and I came to the consensus together the other day that at this point in time, it would be hard to see my life being any worse. The limitations on my daily opportunities combined with the constantly overwhelming sickness make it seem obvious that my life is a troubled one. Although it sounds awful, it really made me feel better to hear someone else agree with me that my life was just about as bad as it could get.
I joined Planet Cancer, which is an online social networking site for young adults with cancer. I didn't expect to meet a ton of people, but I want to get my blog out there to as many people as possible and maybe even to connect with some people with whom I share my struggle.
The other night, around 12:30am, a girl sent me a message on the site's instant messaging system. Having been previously unaware of such function's existence, the instant message caught me by surprise.
She told me her name, and I reciprocated with mine. She asked where I was from, I answered and she answered back. To make a long story short, I was shocked that this girl, who happened to be fourteen years old, was meeting people on this site at 12:30am on a Tuesday, or a Wednesday depending on how you look at it. I would like to believe that even if things are bad, like even as bad as cancer, that 12:30am is still pretty late for a fourteen year-old girl on a weeknight.
More disturbing to me still was this child's revelation that she has been battling cancer since the age of 5. That makes nine years. Nine years makes my four months seem trivial and easy, though a simple length of time cannot begin to explain this experience, nor can one use time as a means of beginning to understand it.
My experience has been undoubtedly different from hers. How? I can't be sure, though hearing her say "nine years" made me feel deeply for her and put my own six-or-so more remaining months in a much different perspective. It also made me wish so strongly that I will be done with this thing after whatever chemo, radiation, vaccines, etc. they say need to be done are done.
Nine years? It's a scary thought. But I've always said I would take this one day at a time. And today, on a daily basis, my life is a colossal struggle. At least I can find solace in the fact that my tests came back nicely, so the treatment is working. I'm dedicated to being in remission and on with my life way sooner than nine years from diagnosis.
All of these tests and pre-test procedures are tedious, but it's really nice to know that all of the hard work and suffering is paying off. Though I've been told that the high rate of recovery I've witnessed so far will likely taper off towards a slower pace, my only hope is that the treatment continues to be effective, so I can get the disease into remission and head back down to NCI (National Cancer Institute) in Bethesda, MD for the vaccines.
Immediately before chemo started, I was lucky enough to take part in a vaccine trial for a variety of very rare tumors. It consisted of a number (six, to be exact) of Bone Marrow Biopsy samples to isolate the tumor, followed by a day of collecting my blood and platelets in order to create a personalized vaccine of my own, for my own particular illness. Though the trip to Bethesda was painful and postponed the beginning of chemo, the hope was that by administering the vaccine to me in the end, once the tumor is in remission, then my body will have a better chance at preventing the tumor from returning. Apparently, the second vaccine trial run was fairly effective and with new and improved research and procedures, the hope is that this trial will be even more successful than the last.
The logistics seem to add up, which is great. But we all know that numbers and statistics don't always hold true in the real world. When talking to my friend, who was really excited over the news of the past few days, he told me that "all I have to do is focus on the big picture; the light at the end of the tunnel."
He is exactly right. If I could focus all of my energy and attention on that day so many months from now when I hope to hear those magic words that I can go back to living my life, it would all be so much easier for me. Unfortuntately, that just isn't possible. I still have to feel the nausea slowly creeping in as I sit here in my chemo bed. I have to deal with the next two weeks of illness, which make the routine things in the day ever more difficult, lonely, and frustrating. I have to continue living in a body and a mind that I don't fully recognize, continuing to wonder when I might once again feel like myself.
My dad and I came to the consensus together the other day that at this point in time, it would be hard to see my life being any worse. The limitations on my daily opportunities combined with the constantly overwhelming sickness make it seem obvious that my life is a troubled one. Although it sounds awful, it really made me feel better to hear someone else agree with me that my life was just about as bad as it could get.
I joined Planet Cancer, which is an online social networking site for young adults with cancer. I didn't expect to meet a ton of people, but I want to get my blog out there to as many people as possible and maybe even to connect with some people with whom I share my struggle.
The other night, around 12:30am, a girl sent me a message on the site's instant messaging system. Having been previously unaware of such function's existence, the instant message caught me by surprise.
She told me her name, and I reciprocated with mine. She asked where I was from, I answered and she answered back. To make a long story short, I was shocked that this girl, who happened to be fourteen years old, was meeting people on this site at 12:30am on a Tuesday, or a Wednesday depending on how you look at it. I would like to believe that even if things are bad, like even as bad as cancer, that 12:30am is still pretty late for a fourteen year-old girl on a weeknight.
More disturbing to me still was this child's revelation that she has been battling cancer since the age of 5. That makes nine years. Nine years makes my four months seem trivial and easy, though a simple length of time cannot begin to explain this experience, nor can one use time as a means of beginning to understand it.
My experience has been undoubtedly different from hers. How? I can't be sure, though hearing her say "nine years" made me feel deeply for her and put my own six-or-so more remaining months in a much different perspective. It also made me wish so strongly that I will be done with this thing after whatever chemo, radiation, vaccines, etc. they say need to be done are done.
Nine years? It's a scary thought. But I've always said I would take this one day at a time. And today, on a daily basis, my life is a colossal struggle. At least I can find solace in the fact that my tests came back nicely, so the treatment is working. I'm dedicated to being in remission and on with my life way sooner than nine years from diagnosis.
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