The Man With The Chemo Plan

Today was one giant doctor's visit, but it went well!  The day started out with a last minute appointment at 10am to a doctor that will be talked about in a later blog.  Luckily since the appointment wasn't about my testicular cancer surgery, I was able to resist the reflex to drop my pants and let every white coat in the room "see how things are healing up".  The funny thing is, even though this appointment had nothing to do with my testicular cancer surgery, before the end of the appointment, I had my pants tugged down so she could see the scar.  And no, I am not just randomly flashing everyone in a white coat, it was by request...kinda.  It is funny how this is a fairly routine surgery, but how few people in the medical profession outside of oncologists and urologists realize it does not involve slicing the gentlemen's bits.  I think half of these doctors and nurses are just asking out of curiosity, "Oh THAT'S where they cut you."  Luckily, the only pain I experienced at the first doctor's visit was from having to go to the bathroom from the moment we got in the office.  Well, not the exact moment, just as soon as I heard one of the nurses say "the bathroom is downstairs".  Still leery of walking too far with my hair trigger incision pain, I had to make the mental calculations on which I was more afraid of, the random pain or peeing my pants.  I decided I would rather take a chance on peeing my pants.  Luckily neither happened.

After leaving the first appointment, we barely had enough time to grab some lunch before the oncologist at 1pm.  Today, chemo class!  We only had little argument with the nurse when she talked about "vomitus".  We assured her there wouldn't be any, and she kept wanting to go into details about what to do if it did happen.  Finally, she glanced at my chart, saw my stomach surgery notes and it dawned on her that I can't vomit anymore.  So, we were able to skip over that part, although I am a little curious what was so important that she was dying to talk about.  Maybe chemo vomit is her specialty and I stole her thunder.  We moved onto all of the other random bodily excretions that must be cleaned up with a positive ventilation Level A haz-mat suit and a leaf blower.  The whole time I am thinking that if this stuff is so nasty coming out of me, shouldn't I be concerned that it's going IN me first?  Overall, the class was great.  She answered all of our dumb questions (and I had a lot of them) and I made pages and pages of notes.  It's a good thing I did, because all I can remember after this long day is I am supposed to gargle with salt water every four hours and flush twice with the lid down.  Or am I supposed to flush every four hours and gargle twice with the lid down?  I can't remember, at least I still have a week to study.  The nurse was very nice and very reassuring as she scared the crap out of us with all of the stuff that requires an emergency call to the office.  She scared me so much, I think I am already getting some of those side effects and I don't take chemo for another week!  Eventually, she decided we were thoroughly terrified and she sent us on our way with a nice new canvas book bag.  Or maybe it's a bag to hold mutant vomitus and other toxic bodily fluids.  I think I will just use it for books for now.

After leaving there, we had about an hour to kill before the next appointment.  Luckily, my random incision pain, while still not predictable, is getting to the point that I can feel when it's about to "snap" and shoot through me.  So, I move a little like the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz, walking and slowly freezing up, feeling the pain about to start, but stopping mid-movement and slowly backing out of whatever way I was swinging my arm or moving my leg.  So as the Tinman, I move slightly slower than a turtle using a walker.  My wife decides shopping would be a great way to kill some time.  This mostly involves her walking into large stores like Kroger or K-mart, running from front to back and all points in-between, all in about the same time it takes me to get from the entrance to the register.  At least we make it to the check-out at about the same time.  My snail's pace Tinman walk has resulted in no shooting pains today, I just walk like C3PO with one broken leg and the other leg's asleep.

We arrive at doctor's appointment number three.  It is for my gastro-intestinal doctor, and he shares the building with my family doctor.  While waiting, we get to talk to my family doc, and more importantly, I get to thank him for all the support he has been to both of us the past five weeks or so.  Between finding me good referral docs and reassuring me on e-mail (for free!) he really has been the one constant in all of this helping guide us when we don't know which direction to head next.

We make it back to the GI doctors office.  My wife, the doctor, and I form a little circle, then we break it down.  Nausea, diarrhea, constipation, we form our game plan.  Now I know what you are thinking, I just said nausea but I said earlier that I couldn't produce vomitus, and I can't, but that doesn't stop my body from going through the motions.  So, anything we can do to stop the tummy turnovers is greatly appreciated.  The meeting takes forever!  But surprisingly it is not tedious or boring at all.  We make a game plan.  A very complicated and convoluted game plan, but one that sounds like it will work.  Chemo hits everyone different and acts different ways at different times.  You may be constipated these days and the exact opposite those days.  And since I am usually on that exact opposite side, I have a drug cocktail to regulate that pretty well.  What he decides is so brilliant and simple, it amazes me.  We are stripping my going too much medication to the minimum, and that is pretty much all we are going to do on a regular basis.  That should keep the not going enough side effects from intensifying.  However, the big gun in the bowel plugger arsenal is my secret weapon.  If I am getting too much toilet time, I just hit it occasionally with my Mother Of All Blockers pill and keep things flowing at the speeds they should be.  We come up with a few more plans for various "what if" situations and I walk out of there completely ready for chemo.

Today may have been a long day of plastic waiting room chairs and drop ceiling offices, but my spirits are higher than they have been since this fight began.  I am the Man with the Chemo Plan.  I am ready to start, I have my road map, I am ready to end, and I am ready to go back to my normal life.  All of my medical ducks are lined up in a row, and I am ready to put all of this behind me.  I just have to hurry up and wait for a week.