Goodbye, Oncologist...Oops, Not Yet

Last month I was excited to go to what I was led to believe would be my last, or next to last oncology appointment, either way 2015 would be my final year.  The visit before the phlebotomists asked me what I was going to do to celebrate my release.  They said it was tradition for most cancer patients to celebrate finally being free with a trip or a big purchase.  So, I already had my trip scheduled and booked, I had everything ready to go.  On the big day, I took my three year old to see the nurses.  They had heard so much about him I wanted him to be able to say "goodbye".
When I was first diagnosed, I was given the option after surgery of doing CT scans approximately every other day (or at least that is what the schedule they presented me with seemed to be) or do a round of chemo and have hardly any CT scans and be done with monitoring a lot sooner.  Well...doctors have a tendency to lie to get you to do what they want you to do.  I did the chemo, which seemed to be immediately followed by a CT scan.  I am not so sure I wasn't getting a CT scan during my infusion.  So anyway, that was the first clue that things weren't going according to the schedule I was initially presented with.
The bending of the schedule continued until my three year mark, which is when I distinctly remember originally being told I was going to be cut free.  Then the oncologist said it would probably be good to monitor until the five year mark, but we would do less CT scans...then he immediately sent me for a CT scan.
You never know when you are no longer a "cancer patient".  I mean the cancer was cut out eight days after we found it. Was that the end?  Was it after my chemo infusion?  Was it after my chemo brain fog left?  When?  I will admit, there are advantages to being referred to as a cancer patient.  If you get a Diet Pepsi instead of a Pepsi at the drive thru, normally, they would just give you a Pepsi to make up for the mistake.  If somehow you can work the words "cancer patient" into why you were devastated to get a Diet Pepsi, you get your Pepsi AND an ice cream.  But still I was done being the cancer patient.  I was hoping that the Oncologist Code said they could only lie about continuing monitoring one time, then they had to go back to lying about CT scans.
There is a stigma about being a cancer patient.  Among cancer patients there is the joke that you always here "you look good" out of a person's mouth first.  No one really knows what that means.  Do we look better than death?  Is that what they were expecting?  There are many colleagues that I see a few times a year with whom I used to have normal conversations, ever since my diagnosis they start off the same way. "How are you feeling?"  It's just front and foremost on some people's minds.  Which in turn, makes it front and foremost on my mind.  I was looking forward to being able to say, "I'm finally done with oncology so we can go back to talking about guitars, cars, or some sport that you care about and I don't."
My son and I walked into see the oncologist.  The phlebotomist had already said "bye" certain that I was being cut loose, just shy of five years.  I did my first and what I expected was my last introduction between my son and the oncologist, when I got the news...maybe it's still too early to cut me loose.  Maybe we should monitor tumor markers and CBC for a few more years, BUT no CT scans!  I expect to get an order for a CT scan in the mail any day now.
I didn't want to let on to anyone, but I was devastated.  I had been looking forward to being released, well, since the day I was diagnosed.  The nurse practitioner thought sure it would be today, the phlebotomists thought it would be that day, everyone in that office thought it would be that day...except the doctor.  Luckily, I had my son with me so the only things I was allowed to focus on were pancakes and Legos...not at the same time though...well OK, he did mention that we needed to buy more Legos while eating his pancakes.  I sent messages out of the news to those that were wanting to know.  Almost all wished me congratulations that I didn't have to do CT scans anymore and that it was good news.  Only one person asked me how I felt about that.  And the truth is I hated it!  I wanted to be done.  I wanted to be free.  I wanted to get on with my life.  I wanted to be able to say that I was a "cancer survivor" and not a "cancer patient".  I wanted to be free of the stigma.  I wanted to be free of the "How are you feeling?"  I wanted to walk out from under that cloud and finally be done. But now I have to let the cloud follow me around for a few more years.
So that's where life left me that day.  Still a cancer patient.  I had a special trip booked that instead of being a celebration of being done with cancer it's become a reminder that I am still a cancer patient.  And there I found myself, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, with a cloud still over my head, a bandage from a blood draw still on my hand, and a three year old giggling while he stabbed and ate the "eyeballs" off his pancake and demanded Legos.  Well, I guess life ain't all bad.

Old Feelings Die Hard

Four years ago this week, I first noticed my lump.  My wife had went on vacation with her mother and I stayed home alone to take care of work projects and watch the dogs.  The past three years, I never really paid any attention to this date.  After all, it's the date I just noticed something.  It wasn't the date I was diagnosed.  It wasn't the date I had my surgery or went through chemo or anything.  But that is the weird thing about cancer, it seems you are never really completely free.
This year we had planned to take my two year old to my parents to watch fireworks for the 4th of July.  From their house, they can see most of the fireworks.  And we thought if we take him there, and he doesn't like the loud noises, or the bright lights, or he just starts being...well, a two year old, we could just take him in the house and not have to deal with traffic or crowds or that one guy that has to describe every firework loudly.  After we had made these plans, my job made other plans, and my wife offered to take my son without me.  It was a plan that was seemingly perfect, my son could experience the fireworks for the first time and I could keep skittish dogs company in the country.
That is when it hit me last night.  I have been passing my scans without any problem, and my scanxiety has dropped to almost nothing.  I only have to go to the oncologist twice a year now  Even my dermatologist told me that she could tell I was really making a good effort to avoid skin cancer.  So I haven't been thinking about cancer much at all.  But last night was different.  I was back to that place four years ago, just me and the dogs.  The weird thing is, I didn't feel a lump, but I did have that feeling, a feeling I can't explain.
Most of us when we are diagnosed, aside from the shock of the "C" word, you get this "icky" feeling that something is growing inside of you that wants to kill you.  The surgery can't come quick enough, you just want that stuff out today.  That is the feeling I had last night.  The feeling that I was all alone again.  The feeling that something icky was going on.  What made last night even freakier, was without thinking, I picked up that PRS guitar I bought four years ago today to play with while they were gone.  It's not one I normally play, but it's what I grabbed last night.  The only one that was light enough for me to play after my surgery.  The one that got me through cancer.  Just as my mind flashbacked to the bad time four years ago, I also subconsciously reached for the one thing that helped me get through it too.
As I approach what I consider my fourth cancerversary, I have been thinking about when I am done.  Is it five years?  Is it ten?  Is it when you quit going to the oncologist...I hope it's not that one, because I think he has been saying "just a few more years" since my second visit.  As far as my health is concerned, I think I am done.  I have been getting clean scans.  I have finally been dropping the weight I gained while I was sick.   And for the most part, I feel better than before any of this happened.  But I guess it's harder to gauge the feeling that we are done mentally being affected by cancer.  Because last night, I sat alone and scared and realized I wasn't as done as I thought I was.  Or maybe I am, because I grabbed that PRS, just like I did after my surgery, and played until I didn't have cancer anymore.

Cancer Flashbacks With Paul Reed Smith

I am well aware that it has been a while since I last posted on here.  I do have a reason.  Trying to type with a toddler in the house means most of your writing looks like this "aklsjoun   saiolkjdfslak  klafjl;a".  And even if he were not "helping" me on the keyboard, it is hard to concentrate on writing when you have a two foot tall individual that moves just shy of the speed of light, that you are yelling things at like "get your fingers out of the dogs' eyes", "no, the remote control doesn't belong in the toilet", "we can't blow bubbles outside right now, it's 14' outside, and dark", "get your fingers out of the dogs' eyes", "where did you find that, get it out of your mouth", "get your fingers out of the dogs' eyes", "no, the table lamp is not a toy", and "get your fingers out of the dogs' eyes".  (In case you were wondering, learning the parts of the face was a very challenging time for our dogs' vision.  Maybe we will have to find them a "seeing eye person".)

So, because of the delay, I am writing about an incident that happened in June.  I think we have all been in a situation where a sound, or picture, or smell has brought you back to something in your past.  For instance, every time I smell VapoRub, I think back to that time as a little child that my great grandmother rubbed it into an open wound.  It still brings tears to my eyes.  Well, for the most part I feel I am over this cancer stuff.  Sure, I still have a few more years of CTscans, X-rays, blood tests, and all of the other monitoring.  I am not exactly sure how many years, because asking an oncologist how much longer you need to see him, is similar to asking your parents on a road trip "are we there yet?".  I think the answer has always been "4 or 5 more years" (for the oncologist visits, not the road trip...it just seemed like it took 4 or 5 years sometimes).  Other than the endless doctors' appointments, I really don't have much to do with cancer.  Oh there is still the solemn tone from friends you don't see very often asking "How are you doing?"  But for the most part, I am living my life.

I love playing guitar.  I play like I play golf, I don't play particularly well, but I don't take it too seriously and I enjoy doing it.  When I had my surgery, I was restricted in what I could lift.  Luckily, just before I was diagnosed, I had found some cheap used Paul Reed Smith guitars.  They were the lightest guitars I owned, and were pretty much the only ones I could lift and play for a long time.  They were the one thing that was able to get my mind off how bad things were for an hour or so at a time.  When I finished my chemo, my family all pitched in and bought me a nice Paul Reed Smith for Christmas.  The guitar means a lot to me for so many reasons.  First I just like the guitar!  But it symbolized closing the door on cancer.  It meant a lot for my family to pitch in and get me something like that.  And it was something I spent a lot of time with during my "chemo brain" months.  So, a coincidental introduction to PRS guitars, ending up having a pretty significant impact on that period of my life.

Which brings me to what happened in June.  Every year, Sweetwater Music has what basically amounts to "musician porn" at their campus in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Literally hundreds of manufacturers are there showing off all their new toys, letting you play with them, and they bring in dozens of endorsed artists (some more famous than others) to trick you into thinking that if you just had that equipment, you could make all those amazing sounds too!  Well, Paul Reed Smith was on hand.  Not just the company, Paul Reed Smith the actual person.  In my past, I worked for a record company, regularly hanging out backstage and on tour buses of multi-platinum and even diamond selling artists (diamond is ten million copies).  I was never nervous or star struck hanging out with rock stars, but being the geek I am, I was excited to see a guy that designs guitars.  

One good thing is, I was right at home with my fellow geeks, because there was a full auditorium of us waiting to see him (although, I was one of the few that showed up an hour early to stand in line, and made it to the front row).  I watched his presentation in awe when he talked about all the technical things that make his company's guitars sound so good.  I had heard he was good about doing "meet and greets" with his fans, and throughout waiting in line, and his presentation, and...waiting in line again to meet him, I ran through my head exactly what I was going to say.  I was going to tell him, how his products got me through some dark times.  Thank him profusely.  And maybe talk to him about the technical nuances of a quality guitar (not that I know what I am talking about, but I can fake it).  

The problem with be one of the first ones in the auditorium for the presentation, is that means you are going to be one of the last ones out to stand in line for the meet and greet.  The whole time in line, I ran over my little monologue in my head.  Over and over again, as the line grew smaller and I moved closer and closer to this guy who really has no idea that his guitar helped me with my cancer fight (although his company does regular donate to cancer charities).  Then the big moment, I am standing before THE Paul Reed Smith...and I feel like I am at the oncologist's office for the first time, all the emotion came flooding back from that day.  I felt the fear, felt overwhelmed, I felt like I was going to burst into tears...but I WAS NOT going to do that...no matter what!

So, I stood before Paul Reed Smith, handed him part of my guitar to sign.  And was afraid if I said anything I would have an emotional outburst.  So, in an effort to hold back this flood of emotions, I stood there looking like I was probably about to punch him.  He asked me if I would like the autograph personalized and my big speech that I had practiced over and over again, was now reduced to one word, "Tom".  Yes, all that I had planned on saying, all that I wanted to thank him for was boiled down to me barely uttering my own name through clenched teeth.  He politely signed my piece for me and I briskly walked out of there, trying not to break into an all out sprint as I headed to my car, hoping if I went fast enough I could outrun this emotional avalanche.  But I was also hoping if I couldn't keep it together, I would be far enough away that no one would see me.

Now, let me just say one thing in my defense.  The surgery I had to help prevent a different kind of cancer, has caused me to be a hypoglycemic.  And sometimes when people have low blood sugar, they tend to get more intense emotions.  And, because I am a big geek, I got so busy looking at musician porn, and standing in line an hour early, and sitting through a presentation, and standing in line again, that I went about 14 hours without eating (not a smart thing for a hypoglycemic to do).  So I will blame part of this incident on that, so as not to appear to be such a wuss.

So, I didn't get to thank Paul Reed Smith.  And to be honest, I don't know what he would have thought about it if I did.  It's not like he found the lump, or performed the surgery, or administered the chemo, but he was still important to my recovery, even if that isn't why he got in the guitar business.  But this incident says a lot about us cancer survivors.  You never know what is going to help us get through a hard time.  It could be a book, a phone call, visits from a friend, or a cheap used guitar.  And it is hard to feel "done" with cancer when you are still going to doctors' appointments every few months.  They tell you it's over with, but in the very next breath, tell you to come back in November.  And just like any other major event in your life, you never know what trigger will bring you back a memory or a feeling, that you may or may not want to experience again.  At least, I got to meet him.  I got something signed to me personally.  And I got something to eat so something like that didn't happen again.

When Are You Done With Cancer?

As I write this I am about two and a half years out of my cancer diagnosis and treatment.  Aside from a little skin cancer scare (which turned out was nothing) one could say I have been done with cancer.  However, that is not exactly how it works in the cancer game.

There are so many questions as to when you are officially no longer a cancer patient.  Was it the surgery?  The chemo?  When you quit going to an oncologist?  Or when you finally pay off all your medical bills? (In which case I will never be done.)  In many ways I no longer feel like a cancer patient, but at the same time, at the beginning of every month I look at my calendar and see what doctors appointments I have this round.  It is hard to feel "well" or "cured" when you are sitting in a waiting room all of the time.  I mean who needs a People magazine subscription when you can read it for free every month while you wait for the nurse to call your name?  The good news is the frequency of the appointments slowly grows further and further apart.  I think I am down to CT scans once a year now (so I only have to drink a half gallon of nasty tasting water a year).

The funny thing is, because of the doctors' good reports you feel like your not well.  Because of the type of work I do, I tend to run into people that I haven't seen for months or even a year and they always ask how I am doing  With the frequency of doctors appointments my answer is usually,"Well, I was just at the doctor and they said I was fine."  That is the Catch 22 of being in monitoring, you have to see an "ist" each month (oncologist, urologist, gastroenterologist, etc.) but at least they say you are doing good each time.  You don't feel like you can say "Oh, the cancer thing is over." because you are still seeing an oncologist, but at the same time you don't feel like a real cancer patient because you are not having to go through any treatment.

On one hand, it is nice to have the peace of mind every month that you are safe for four more weeks.  On the other hand things get so routine, you wonder why you are paying more and more for something you could probably do yourself at this point.  Heck, I am in and out of my urologist's office so fast, I could probably just drive by his office slowly with my scrotum hanging out the car window and toss out my co-pay.  

I think the biggest part of not feeling "over" cancer is the mental aspect of it.  Every bump, twitch, even feeling tired when you don't think you should makes you wonder if just maybe it's something bigger.  And not even your thoughts are safe.  My one-year-old had been going through a phase where he wants me to hug me, or have me hold him, or just lean against me.  Most people would just understand it is the clingy phase that all toddlers go through, but my mind wondered if he wasn't sensing something, that maybe I wouldn't be around much longer and he needed to get his quality time in while I was still alive.

Even happy dreams aren't safe.  I know two people that have flatlined on operating tables and come back to life.  They both tell of people that have died greeting them at the end of the tunnel and telling them that it's not their time yet to go back to earth.  I have had some friends die and some family members die, but only one person in my life has died that I saw everyday, and would spend an hour just talking to everyday about whatever.  Well, that person was in my dream the other night.  He welcomed me into Heaven, showed me around, and we picked up on conversations we started before he died.  I woke up feeling so good knowing that if I died, this person would be the one that brought me through the tunnel and took me to see my other friends and family that have already passed.  But that good feeling quickly turned to dread, as I wondered why I was dreaming about dying and does my body know something that it hasn't shared with my brain yet.  Maybe part of my brain does know and it is just not sharing the information with the rest of my brain the same way it does when I ask it where I put the car keys.

The biggest joy I have in life is watching my son play, which we weren't even sure we were going to be able to have when all this started.  Even while sitting there just watching him run around like a drunk kamikaze gymnast, I worry about recurrence and not being around to watch him grow up.  Or not being around and maybe his only memory of me will be me yelling at him to quit splashing in the dogs' water dish (which to be fair is something I do approximately 1500 times everyday).

So am I done with cancer?  The doctors say "yes" but then tell me to schedule an appointment to come back and make sure it's still "yes".  Physically, outside of underwear not fitting quite the way it used to, I feel like I am done with cancer.  Mentally, the chemo fog has cleared up, but there is always that cancer cloud hanging over me, just like a summertime meteorologist's permanent "30% chance of storms".  The ironic thing is the more my son shines the more I worried I get about that cancer cloud.  But until then I will enjoy every second I get to spend with my son, even the hours on end I spend pulling him out of the dog dish, and hopefully live long enough to teach him how to check for testicular cancer on himself one day.

Cancer Scare Number 2

When I was a teenager, we lived six houses down from the community pool.  Every summer day was either spent poolside, or windowside waiting to see if the storm would dissipate so we could go to the pool.  A little bit later, I became a lifeguard at that same pool.  After doing that for a few years, I spent a summer working outside at a State Park.  And while all this was going on, I would take the occasional day job at a local farmer, or my friend's farm helping to bale hay.  What does any of this have to do with anything?  Well, I don't remember using sunscreen at all.  I am sure I did at least a few times, but I certainly don't remember it. At least I wasn't as bad as some of the girls I lifeguarded with, that used Crisco for a week.  Now you might think I am saying that just to be funny, but I am dead serious, they broke out the Crisco shortening and slathered it on, and I am sure you will be surprised by this, the next week they had sun poisoning and had to stay indoors for several days (meaning those of us who did NOT use Crisco had to pull double duty on the lifeguard chairs/sun).  As I grew older, bad habits with sunscreen certainly didn't improve.

That leads to today's topic.  It takes me about four hours to mow our lawn.  The first mow of the season, the sun didn't seem too bright or hot so I didn't think much about sunscreen...until I started burning, but by then I only had an hour of mowing left and it seemed silly to stop in the middle just to put some on, after all the damage was already done, right?  Well, over the next few days of painful and cold showers, I notice a raised  bump on my arm that didn't go away.  After having my experience with testicular cancer I determined the best course of action would be to ignore it and see if it went away.  After a month I started getting worried.  I looked up information on some medical websites that told me I had approximately 17 minutes to live before that bump completely took over my body.  Don't get me wrong there is some good health information on the internet, but a lot more horrible health information.  A search of any malady will lead you to results from  certain and impending death, to "just ignore it and lay your lifecrystal upon whatever hurts".  Somewhere in the middle lies the actual good information, and you have to figure out what that is, and if you knew what it was you wouldn't be doing a blind internet search for it to begin with.  I won't say where my advice falls on this spectrum, but it is probably near the ends.

After consistent (but correct) nagging from my wife, I decided to call my oncologist to see what dermatologist he recommended.  Have you ever heard of those restaurants that you have to wait three or four years to get a table?  Dermatologists' waiting lists are slightly longer.  Luckily, because of a cancellation (or death, I didn't want to ask) I was able to get an appointment just one more month away.  The whole time I am waiting, I am torn because although I want the bump to go away, I don't want to go to the doctor after the month wait and say, "Well, it was here and it looked really ugly, but then it got small and disappeared yesterday."  But I didn't have to worry, the bump stuck around.

Finally, the day arrived for the dermatologist visit...literally one day after we got back from a Florida beach vacation.  Walking into a dermatologist's office really tan feels much like walking into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a quarter of a bottle of Rum Jumbie (I imagine...).  When I finally get taken back to the doctor, they give you a paper blanket (which is slightly smaller than a Kleenex) and tell you to disrobe.  See, just because a patch of skin hasn't been exposed to the sun, that doesn't mean you won't still get skin cancer there.  So the doctor checks everywhere...everywhere!  In the movies, when you see the doctor walk in the room and the patient is naked, there is usually some boom chicka wow wow music playing.  The real situation has no music, and is a whole different experience (which is good because I didn't want a pizza boy walking in the scene too).  Basically, you stand there while the doctor looks over every millimeter of your body occasionally poking or tugging at things while wrinkling her nose.  The whole time you have to fight the urge to make excuses on why you have abused your skin and been too tan in some areas, or too pasty in others, or too flabby in others, and remark on how cold it is in the room.  After feeling like you are a rental car being inspected to be turned back in, the doctor starts talking again and gets out a marker.  She points out various anomalies and explains what they are, what causes them, whether you need to keep an eye one them.  It was very informative.  For instance, now I know that there are such things as "penis freckles" that guys can get as they get older...I have probably said too much.  Moving on!  The next step is the marker.  Feeling much like the guy who passed out way too early at the party, the doctor starts drawing circles and "x"s and who know what else.  After getting dressed, she said, "This one I am going to freeze off and these two I am going to take."  Happy to have my clothes back on (and not to have any penis freckles marked), I didn't really stop to think what "going to take" meant.

The freezing was nothing.  A bit of itchy, burning type feeling, but no biggie.  Then, I found out what "going to take" meant for the other two.   First, they stick a needle next to the thing they are taking to numb it up.  Then they start shaving that thing down until it is either gone, or they have a big enough sample to test (which as near as I can tell requires you to shave down to the bone).  For the one on my arm, it was a breeze.  Slight stick, a little pressure, and a band-aid.  The other was right next to my eye.  Now the local anesthesia they gave me, not only made things go numb, but it caused my eye to blink uncontrollably.  We are talking like the little light that lets you know your hard drive is running type of uncontrollably.  Then they take the razor thing  NEXT TO YOUR EYE, and after giving the medication to cause spastic twitching they say, "Now hold still..."  I have had much more painful procedures, and much longer procedures, but this was definitely the most annoying in my life.  I am told I am free to go, with one eye open and the other neither remaining open or closed, giving me all the depth perception of walking with a strobe light.  Thinking "Safety First" I thought I should probably wait it out in the lobby before I try driving with "strobe eye".  "How long does this last?", I ask.  "It will wear off in about two or three hours.", was the reply, like it was no big deal to wink at everyone within a five mile radius for the next 180 minutes.  I decided to just drive carefully home, and whatever I do, don't get out of the car.  Hungry, I just pulled into a White Castle drive-thru, because I figured at White Castle a guy winking furiously would still not be the most memorable character they will see that day.

Luckily, I had an oncologist appointment the next day.  I say "luckily" because two weeks earlier I had a CAT scan, so when I received a clean bill of health from the oncologist I knew regardless of my skin results, it hadn't reached my lymph nodes and my blood tests were fine.  At first, the skin samples didn't bother me.  But the longer it took for the results to come back, the more scanxiety set in.  In the two weeks of waiting, I used sunscreen religiously.  I used it almost as much as I checked the mailbox, email, and phone messages waiting for the results to come back.  Finally, the letter came in the mail that said "benign (non-malignant)", which made me laugh because if you don't know what the word "benign" means, will you know what "non-malignant" means?  Maybe they should say "benign (you don't have cancer)" because that is all people want to understand about that.  

So, a good scare to wake me up.  But since part of what I do for a living requires me to know about "rems" and "rads" and all that good stuff, I know that radiation (yes the sun is emitting radiation) builds up over a lifetime, I know that my careless youth means I need to be even more careful now.  If there is something good that came of out this scare, it's that I am taking my lessons learned and applying them to my six month old before the damage starts.  So what if his skin is so pale it's almost clear, one day he will thank me for it.  

An Xray, 3 Blood Tests, And A CATscan Down, Now Shove A Camera Down My Throat

I am finishing up my latest round of scans.  In the past three weeks, it seems I have been tested every other day. I haven't actually been tested every other day, but medical providers have still found a way to bill me every other day.  So far I have finished a chest X-ray, a CATscan, CBC, tumor marker blood test, and in a matter of hours a upper endoscopy (with jumbo biopsies, YIPPEE!), oh yeah and peeing into the random cup every once in a while too.  I just hope I was supposed to pee in that one cup, because the nurse gave me a funny look, and I don't remember specimen cups saying "Moe's Southwest Grill" on the side...

The X-rays were as expected.  I raise my hands above my head while the nurse shoves me against the wall like she's on COPS and I am an unruly suspect (one time I accidentally yelled out "Don't tase me bro" during the test).  The blood and urine tests were pretty routine as well.  I get asked for a body fluid, and I deposit it into whatever receptacle they hold in front of me.  The only problem was a slight miscalculation on driving time/fluid intake, which required me to make the receptionist wait for my insurance co-pay until after I gave them a sample.

The one thing I wasn't expecting was a CATscan.  When I decided to do chemo over testing (mainly dozens of CATscans) I knew I would still have to get the occasional CATscan, I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon after my last oncologist appointment.  As soon as he ordered it, I had flashbacks of the taste of the contrast dye and the associated CATstipation.  Not wanting to roll around on the floor in impacted and backed up pain again, I had taken two liter bottles of water with me to do some mega-hydrating on the drive back from the hospital.  Luckily, I didn't start drinking them yet, because when I arrived I was told I would not be drinking the slightly flavored chalky substance.  They had a new water based contrast, but I had to drink a liter of it in an hour.  Still skeptical, I apprehensively took a taste.  It tasted like Terre Haute water, which for those of you that haven't been to/smelled Terre Haute, IN, it kinda taste like...well...have you ever put a cooler away and forgotten to drain it?  Well, it kinda tastes like that smells.  Not good, but not bad either, and definitely better than the nasty, chalky, constipatitiony, bottomless cup of sludge that I had to drink before.

Within a few days, I got all of my results back, X-ray's and scans were clean.  Urine and blood tests were normal, and tumor marker's still dropping.  So now I am preparing for my endoscopy tomorrow.  My preparation involves mainly not eating after midnight and not sleeping.  I have literally had more scopes than I can count, all I know is that I am in double digits, and I have developed a routine.  I stay up late the night before, I go into the hospital barely awake, I get some Demerol shoved in my vein, and I wake up with my wife giving me dirty looks because I apparently won't wake up and I ask the same questions over and over again.

See, in my long history of scopes, there are two things I don't like about them.  One time I woke up when they snapped the plastic guide between my teeth, and the feeling/sound was not a pleasant experience.  Now they say you don't remember anything from the scope, but obviously if I just told you about that, I did remember it, because they don't put that thing in your mouth before you go in there and it is out before you wake up, so the only way I would know about it is to wake up during the procedure, and remember it (and I also remember hearing the doctor say, "He's waking up, give him so more.").  The other thing, is for some reason the oxygen tube that they stick in your nose, makes me feel like I am drowning.  OK, OK, I will wait for you to quit laughing at me.  Are you done?  So, I don't know why I have that feeling, but I do.  If I am totally out, it's no big deal.  If I am kinda out, I wake up, thrashing saying I can't breathe (which just by saying "I can't breathe" it proves I can breathe, but anyway), and before I know it I am sedated again and I wake up with straps on my arms.  For the comfort and safety of myself and the nurses attending to me, I have found that we are all much happier, if I am completely out of it during the scope.

As far as tests go, an endoscopy really isn't that bad.  The bad thing is, they keep you from eating for so long before, and for my condition they take out large biopsies in my throat to send to a pathologist, which leaves me waking up starving, but yet it hurts to swallow.  It's like some cruel joke the doctor's and nurses play on me, maybe in some sort of retaliation for thrashing around during the procedure acting like I'm drowning.  At any rate, I am ready to get this test over with and anxious to hear my results.  With this test behind me I am through with doctors (for me) until November.  Hopefully, the nurses will loosen my straps tomorrow and I can come home and tell you how everything went.

After Cancer You Can't "Don't Worry About It"

Today I arrived early for my cancer support group.  Shortly after two others came in and we were talking a bit before the rest of the group arrived.  One person had missed that previous week and was asking about my results.  I told her I received the results of all my tests and that the lumps in my kidneys were just cysts.

This brought on a conversation amongst the three of us, all sharing the common bond of cancer.  When the lumps (or doctor's speak "masses") first showed up on my CT scan, I was told "It's probably nothing to worry about" and "Don't worry about it".  All three of us in the room had heard that message at one point or another in our treatment, and all three of us found it impossible "not to worry about it".  After you are told you have the Big C, any unknown is something to worry about.

Here are suggestions of things I can "not worry about".  A mechanic saying the tires will need replacing by next winter but in the mean time don't worry about it.  Not getting home in time to see a favorite TV show, it is now available on-demand so don't worry about it.  You forgot to send a obscene e-mail forward to your friend, you can always send it later, don't worry about it.  The restaurant you choose doesn't serve Pepsi, don't worry about it....well, that one actually is a pretty big deal.

My point is, doctors that haven't been through a cancer scare in their own life, don't know how hard it is not to worry about something when there is even the tiniest hint of a chance that it may be related to cancer.  A friend that has helped me a lot through my journey is living eight years cancer free.  For the past eight years they have flown through every exam without a problem...until this last one.  They had a questionable result and were told not to worry about it.  They told me that they did worry about it a lot.  Luckily it turned out to be nothing to worry about, for real.  But my friend's point to me was, the "not worry about it" syndrome never goes away, no matter how many good results you get in the mean time.  It's a perfectly normal reaction.

Later in group, completely unrelated to our pre-group conversation, the topic came up where two people mentioned how their "don't worry about it" diagnosis went on for years and later turned out to be cancer.  Now I am not saying that one shouldn't listen to their doctor's advice when told not to worry about it, but those of us who have lived through cancer and those of us who know someone who should have worried about it, we can't not worry about it.  Luckily, more often that not it really is nothing to worry about.

The ironic thing is as I was preparing to write tonight, I noticed a raised bump on my eye.  As most of us do in this modern age, I did a little internet research on what it could be.  Most of the things on the internet say "don't worry about it" but see a doctor immediately.  I bet you can guess what I am going to do as soon as the doctor's office opens.

Scanxiety, The New Caffeine

I really didn't think this week's test would bother me as much as it appears to be.  The cancer insomnia is back in full swing, as bad or worse than it was when I first got diagnosed.  I can operate on just of few hours of sleep and not seem to be tired at all.

My wife has been picking up on it, but hasn't found a way to make me sleepy, outside of poisoning me, and I catch her before she is able to slip stuff in my meals like "vegetables".  She sometimes convinces me to lay down when she does, but I lay there for an hour or two, then get back up again.  Once up, I stay up for another two or three hours until I decide I had better lay back down before she gets up for work, or she will beat me (it's happened before).

The worst part of all of this, is just like last time, there is very little productivity in all of these extra waking hours. I wish I could exercise, but that late at night all of the wheezing, moaning, huffing, puffing, crying, and whimpering would wake up the rest of the house, and that is just from putting on my exercise shorts (because I have found you can't work out in a camouflage snuggie, it keeps getting tangled on the uneven bars).  I don't really do anything creative, either.  If I were to play my American made, twenty four fret, double cutaway, Paul Reed Smith in the dead of night, it would also wake up the rest of the house (although every note that comes out of it is pretty much a sweet lullaby in my hands...).  I haven't done anything like written a great novel about giraffes ruling the Earth and starting their own Puritan society until some giraffes with poor morals start wearing turtleneck sweaters and that risqué clothing starts eroding their moral fiber and the giraffes start fighting so much within their own group they don't notice that the impalas are starting their own society which is a lot better because all impalas are cool (provided they were made before 1996).  I have spent some of the time late at night in the insomnia hours looking for jobs, but the jobs you find yourself looking for at 3am aren't the same jobs you would apply for at 10am.  Apparently the later in the night it gets, the better your perceived abilities are.

When I finally do get to bed and it is really late (or early) that is when my mind starts running rampant.  I am usually still not tired physically, but my mind is completely fatigued and not working correctly.  I lie there, still wide awake, and in the still of the night I hear every little sound outside.  I can hear that damn raccoon farting in my workshop, and I just know he is doing it on Michelle the Impala.  Then I lie there thinking of elaborate ways to assassinate flatulent raccoons, but I know the squirrels will never cooperate with the plan and I just plain don't trust the 'possums.  The longer I lie there, the more my mind conjures up weird thoughts that scare me awake, like images of little trolls doing backflips on trampolines with cutlasses in their mouths, kinda like lederhosen wearing, green Shawn Johnson's, but not near as cute.  And I don't know whether I should tackle them and steal their swords, or jump on the trampoline with them and pinch their little cheeks (because that is what I would do if I were jumping on a trampoline with a green Shawn Johnson, is that weird?  Hmmm, I guess it is.  Forget I said any of that last bit.  Unless your Shawn, you're into that sort of thing, and have a place for me to stay after my wife kicks me out and beats me...not necessarily in that order.  I'll bring the lederhosen.)

I tried listing some of the crap that I am trying to unload on ebay while I was up that late, but nowadays everyone always waits until the last minute of an auction to bid, and what I found out, is people are not on ebay at 3am, they are either asleep, coming downstairs to ask me why I'm not in bed, or looking at porn.  Maybe if I could sell porn on ebay I would have the perfect combo, but first I would have to get some porn to sell.  I doubt I could make any myself, because I don't think there is a market for "husky" guys with one nut.  If there is, how much does that sort of porn pay, and will there be trolls or a trampoline involved?  (I'll provide the lederhosen.)

I am definitely counting down the days until I do this latest test and I get my results.  Hopefully I will find my normal sleep patterns again.  If I can't get my normal sleep patterns back, I hope I at least find something productive to do with my time.  Maybe I could rearrange the basement while no one is awake to get in the way.  You know, if I move the couch over there, and the TV there, and the computer desk there, I should have just enough room for a trampoline and I tripod,hmmm....I gotta run, I think I just found a way to make money and occupy my time.

2011: The Year Of The Doctors' Appointments

After the surgery and chemotherapy, I am now to the "observation"  phase of my treatment and I will be at that phase for a few years to come.  So far I have had four doctor's appointments this month, and I have three left.

First, I have swimmers!  Before you start chemo, they tell you that the chemo will probably make you sterile, which is obviously the part that the lawyers of the people who manufacture the chemotherapy make them say.  The oncologist followed that up by saying he didn't know anyone who had that particular type of chemo that actually became sterile (for example, Lance Armstrong and I had the same chemo, and he has had two successful swimmers in the past two years).  What was funny, is the nurse from the urologist's office acted like she had devastating news for me, saying that my count of swimmers was low.  For me, having just cleared the time period when I should be able to start making swimmers again, and after being told I may never make swimmers again, I was ecstatic.  All I need is one swimmer!  Maybe two, my wife and I are still arguing that point.  Personally I am hoping when my swimmers do make it to the finish line we get triplets.

My second doctor's appointment was with my G.I. doctor.  The best news there was I am not due for another buttsporation for another four years!  The colonoscopy itself isn't too bad, it's just the prep that has you wishing you hadn't ate all of that food over the past three years so you could get off of the toilet and move on with your life.  I have an upper scope in July, but all you have to do for that one is not eat after midnight then go to sleep when they inject you with the good stuff.  The only bad news I received from the G.I. doctor, wasn't from him at all.  He had been wanting to do a CT scan on me for a while, but we couldn't really justify it.  So, since we already had one done, I had sent the scans over to him.  He got to see what he wanted to look at and said everything seemed good.  In fact the only thing they marked on my scan was the two cyst type things in my kidneys.  The only problem with hearing that, was I hadn't heard that before then.  So now I have something new to worry about.  I asked him if going through chemo would help my Barrett's Esophagus at all, and I was told it wouldn't because esophageal cancer doesn't respond to chemo.  Not what I was really hoping to hear, but then he reiterated that is why it is so important to do the scopes when he says to.  I guess I will see you in July, doc!  Other than that, some of my G.I. issues are doing so well that I have been able to back off some of my meds!

Appointment three was a blood and pee test.  The only bad thing about these tests, is you do them at the same time (well a few minutes apart), and they want you to not eat anything that morning, yet still be able to pee.  So I was left chugging water on the whole way to the doctor's.  The vampire was nice (she always is) and let me in on a little secret. I have veins that like to roll around when stuck, and most nurses are fine when I say that they usually need a "butterfly" to stick me, but every once in a while I get a cranky don't-tell-me-how-to-do-my-job one, who manages to stick me several times before grabbing the butterfly.  This nurse said the main reason nurses are like that is that the butterfly needles cost considerably more than the regular ones.  And some employers will actually ration the number of butterfly needles a nurse gets in a week.  Yeah, that makes sense, stick a person nine times before you break out the more expensive needle (and I speak from experience).

Saturday, I had my regular doctor appointment.  I had a year's worth of questions to ask him, which just about every answer was to quit worrying about it.  I asked him about my kidney cyst looking thingys.  He said  just about everyone has those and he is sure that my oncologist is watching those if he is worried about them.  He also said it looks like a stitch may be trying to push to the surface from my incision and to have the urologist look at it.  I don't know what the heck I will do if I see a string poking out my belly?  The kid in me will want to pull it, which has me running all sorts of scenarios in my mind, most of them involving me unraveling.  The good news is since a CT scan is much better than getting poked in the butt, I was able to avoid having to get the dreaded prostate exam (or the finger wag as my dad calls it).  I don't think either one of us has been looking forward to that.  Since this is my no nonsense doctor, he spent most of the appointment telling me I was doing great after my cancer treatment, and now it was time to lose weight!  Sometimes I don't feel like I am doing as well as I would like after my treatment, but I definitely agree with him on the losing weight part.  I want to lose the weight as fast as possible, then think of a reason to go to him just to prove I could take off the weight.  What am I talking about?  I am sure I will probably manage to hurt myself sometime before next year's check up.  I'll probably end up hurting myself while trying to lose weight.

So, four appointments down and three left this month.  I don't know exactly what to expect from the urologist and oncologist.  At least the X-ray will be another one of those laydown and don't do anything tests.  I am good at those tests.  Oh well, nothing I can do but show up to them and then blog about what happened...

Back Home Again From Indiana

I am back at home, and more importantly, back at my own computer.  While there I borrowed my parents' laptop which has the convenient feature of having the cursor randomly jump on the page if your palm happens to brush the touchpad while typing.  Sure it was annoying, but at least it made proofreading interesting.

Yesterday, I definitely felt the effects from my big day on the town Friday.  I don't know how much longer I can blame this on the chemo and when I have to just admit I am a big lazy wimp.  For right now, I will still blame chemo.  But at least I felt good enough to pretty much stay awake all day and watch the crazy dogs.  All six were in rare form, ranging in size from, I don't know, like nine pounds to about two fifty.  Just a rough guess on those numbers.  My wife and I ran into a hippo costume for dogs, and thought it would be a wonderful gift for my sister, who when she is not working to save the lives of your pets, has a hobby of finding new and innovative ways to torture her own pets, such as dressing them in hippo costumes.  I will have to say, her dog looked nothing like a hippo, unless hippos are about a foot high and run around at high speeds doing figure eights and back flips.  Something I did learn from the experience is apparently all dogs have the innate urge to chase hippopotami, all dogs except African bloodline basenjis, which is quite ironic.  I guess since she was the only dog in the room who's bloodline would have actually seen a hippo, it was nothing novel to her.

And speaking of that little African bloodline basenji, Daisy was a completely different dog this weekend.  She was letting people walk up and pet her.  She was very affectionate.  She was exploring the house.  Then we crossed back over state lines and she turned back into her old abused and neglected self.  Well, she is a little better, but certainly not the dog she was at my parents' or even in the car.  But it does give us hope that a normal dog is in there somewhere, er...as normal as a basenji can get.  We may have to move out of state or build a house that looks like the inside of a car, but at least we have options.  

Back home, I am wore out.  Tomorrow we have to get up at around five and head to a urologist appointment.  I am excited and apprehensive both about this one.  I am anxious to hear what he thinks I can do physically and how my recovery is coming along.  However, he still can request the dreaded CAT scan, and I have no idea if he will or not.  If I were a betting man, more that just two bucks on lottery tickets once a week, I would bet I will just have a few ultrasounds on the boys, I mean, boy.  Ultrasounds require significantly less effort on my part than a CAT scan.  You just lay back, flop out your junk, they run some magic wand over the goodies, and tell you to pull your pants back up.  That's something I can handle, even in my post chemo, lazy, wimpy state.  

So tomorrow I will have the final piece of information in my cancer treatment.  I certainly won't be done by any stretch of the imagination.  Cancer treatment involves years of watching, testing, and of course waiting long after what most people consider the "treatment" part is done.  But at least tomorrow, I will know the plan.  This is the last doctor I have to get my medical test road map from and for that I am excited.  Hopefully it will be a plan that doesn't involve sliding into a big metal tube and pooping sensations.

Can I Be Normal?

Yesterday was the oncologist visit.  I had been half dreading this day and half looking forward to it.  I didn't want to hear when my next CATscan was, but I am ready to get on with my life.

We get to the oncologist's office and I take the required blood test.  I think my mind set is switching from dropping my pants every time I see someone in a white coat to rolling up my sleeve and telling them they are going to need a butterfly.  We had a very nice chatty nurse.  She was fairly painless as well, but today it bruised pretty bad.  I don't know if she was that good or just I have been stuck in the same places so many times that I can't feel anything there anymore.  I don't care about bruising, I will take the bruise over the pain any day.  She gives me my CBC (complete blood count) numbers and tells me I'm perfect.  Tell me something I didn't know...oh, apparently she was referring to my CBC.  I don't necessarily agree with her.  They are within tolerances, but my white and red blood cells are still down considerably from my pre-chemo numbers.  However, my platelets are almost up to normal, so I can bleed as much as I want.  Maybe that is why she bruised me, just to show how good the numbers were.

Next we are led back to the doctor's waiting room.  The wait seemed forever and the walls were paper thin. We could hear him talking to a breast cancer survivor and saying things to lighten her mood, and it was working, we could hear her laughing.  However, if he starts doing a comedy routine while playing with my balls...ball, I don't think I will be laughing.  He finally comes in and seems to be in a good mood.  As a cancer patient, you want to see your oncologist in a good mood, because that means he is telling you good things...unless he is a very bad and inappropriate oncologist "Well, the good news is you want live long enough to pay off this bill!"  He looks at my CBC results and says they are the best he's seen all day.  I tell him that could mean I am doing good or that he has seen a bunch of really sick people all day.  Not missing a beat he said that both were the case.  I mention some of my concerns with my numbers and some other things and he said I worry too much.  Of course I do, I am the cancer patient!

We then come to the part I am absolutely dreading, the follow up schedule where I find out how many CAT scans I have to do.  He starts talking and I go into a trance.  I hear him say every three months this year, every six months next year, and then just once a year.  Not what I wanted to hear, but at least it's significantly less CAT scans than if I didn't do the chemo.  Still in my daze, reliving in my head all the nastiness that happened last CAT scan, when my wife says something that snaps me back to reality.  "So, he will only have to do the X-rays?"  He says yes.  I was so dreading hearing about CAT scans, I didn't even pay attention to what he said at first.  I was focusing on the schedule and thinking about all the constipation and chalk and garlic I would be tasting.  I am so flabbergasted I have to ask him myself.  He affirms that chest X-rays will be able to show him what he needs to see.  Now I am in a good mood!  And it's about to get better.

Still trying to have a baby, my wife and I are trying to get the all clear from all of our respective doctors to resume our procreating.  I ask the doctor the most delicate way I can, without making it sound like I am prepositioning him.  The literature about chemo is kind of vague, some say you are safe to babymake after three days, and others say you have to wait months.  The oncologist said, "Start tonight."  That is good news!  I look at my wife and say, "You heard the doctor!"  Then she reminds me that we are still waiting for a couple more "all clears" from some other doctors before we can resume.  I press the issue later on since this is the one time I am not so interested in a second opinion and she exclaims, "Well you aren't trying to make a baby with me yet."  Which leads me to think she is saying it is OK to try with other people.  She said that is not what she meant and refused to drop me off anywhere to find willing participants.  The oncologist also suggested that I may be a good idea for me to look at enrolling in a sleep study.  You know, where you go to sleep and some doctors watch you on camera to see what you do at night.  At first I think that must be pretty boring for some doctor to sit there an watch me blog and pee, but I guess that is still more exciting that watching someone sleep.  I may be the most exciting thing to hit the sleep study in years.

I was almost feeling like a normal person...until I got home that night.  I am sitting there, I rub my head and a hair gets caught between my fingers.  Curious I do it again.  And again.  And again.  I finally go up to the bathroom and rub my scalp and lots of hair falls out.  It finally did slow down, and you can't really tell that I lost much, unless you happen to look in the sink.  Who knows if I am done molting or not.  I really don't care either way, I am just hoping that if I do molt some more it will be while I am at home and not out somewhere...like I go out anywhere.

So here I sit with a little less hair, a little more blood pumping through my veins, and a lot less CAT scans.  I still have to wait to see if the urologist will order any, but more than likely if he does it will just be one more.  I can be chalky, garlicy, and constipated one more time to be sure I stay cancer free.  Now I can focus on cultivating my pathetic mustache and trying to be normal again.  Wish me luck on that, I will need it!

I Was Too Tired From Acting Normal To Blog

If you haven't guessed by the delay in posting, being a real person kicked my butt!  The whole day was a lot more work than I had planned, but I enjoyed most of it.

First, I forgot how much time it takes to actually get going in the morning.  I had my time all planned out, including stopping for a not so nutritious breakfast at the arches, time to eat it, and getting to my volunteer meeting early to chat.  My schedule went just as planned until I walked out the door...and back in...and back out...back in...back out, I was like Lindsay Lohan and jail.  It had been so long since I had actually planned on being out and about all day, I kept remembering all the things I would need to make it through the day.  I finally got on the road a little later than I hoped, so I figured I would just eat in the car.  I also forgot about school buses.  By the time I had stopped for them stopping at EVERY SINGLE KID'S HOUSE, time for breakfast was gone too.  And if we are so paranoid that kids can't walk to a bus stop anymore, if two kids' houses are side by side, can't they at least stand in the corners of both of their yards so the bus can stop and pick them both up at the same time?  Anyway, I finally make it to my meeting, with minutes to spare.  So much for my plans so far today.

First I explain my silly, pathetic excuse for a mustache.  After that, the meeting went fine, except I was expecting to take a few notes, and instead I was given two three ring binders.  I am not really complaining, because that meant I didn't need to take near as good of notes.  My next plan was to grab a bite to eat, when I was asked if I could do some volunteer work for a few hours.  Since the volunteer work is also training for the job I hope to get, I jumped at the chance.  I mean, I have eaten breakfast every other day this week, one day won't hurt.  The volunteer work was fun.  Part of what I went over was "new" Americans with Disabilities Act information, information that was out of date about ten years ago, but we had to print out these sixty two pages of "new" stuff.  I think if people with these "disabilities" saw what was written about their needs, the would sue the Americans with Disabilities Act for prejudice and defamation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  I worked on a few other projects and soon it was time to meet my friend for lunch.

I get to Cracker Barrel (our usual spot), explain my pathetic and nearly invisible excuse for a mustache, and as usual we both order breakfast for lunch, which comes in handy because I am using this lunch as breakfast...and lunch.  I should be getting used to this, but I am still a little taken aback as my seventy nine year old friend is telling me about the latest cool apps for our Androids.  We spend lunch trading apps and solving the worlds problems.  The big difference between us being that he actually was an elected official at one time that could solve some of the world's problems, and I just sit around and complain about them.  Don't get me wrong, I don't just sit around all day complaining about the world's problems, I sit around all day and complain about a lot of other things too.  You know like, why isn't my favorite show on, how come my ice cream is so hard, how come the people that are employed by the unemployment office never seem to work, why does my butt have to hurt from sitting around all day, stuff like that.  Our check comes and we do the typical wrestling over who gets to pay.  One of these days I am just going to pay the waitress in advance and really get the jump on him.  It's getting close to my next appointment so my friend and I part ways vowing to finish saving the world next week.

I drive towards my cancer support group and I get stuck behind another school bus!  This one has literally about thirty cars backed up behind it, which I thought was against the law when I took driver's ed, and won't pull over for two minutes to let them all pass while he stops at every   single   house!!!  Luckily I have been stuck behind this bus before so I allowed myself a little extra time to get behind him and cuss.  I get to group with a few minutes to spare, and I am a little bummed.  First of all I am bummed walking around with this pathetic excuse for a mustache that I am tired of making excuses for and two of my favorites from group are missing this week.  However, there are still enough of us cancer patients to have as good a time as a room full of cancer patients can have.  And then the one my heart really goes out for walks in.  He always looks tired, and I imagine from his treatment he is exhausted.  My heart breaks for him because he has two young children and a very poor prognosis...that is until this week!  Let me clarify, he still has the two young children, but now he has a different prognosis.  His doctors finally found something that is not only working but working extremely well...especially for something that they didn't know if they would be able to treat at all to begin with.  I must not be the only one that really feels for him, because there were instant smiles and cheers around the room, and that is not an easy thing to do with a room full of cancer patients.  We eventually get to the subject that we have gotten on several times and that is how much we all hate CAT scans.  We talk about it a lot.  And we relive every single thing we hate about them.  We also talk about how someone was told that the ones in the city aren't even very good so we are all pretty much going through CAT scan hell for nothing.  All this talk is very interesting considering the next day I have an appointment to hear when my next CAT scan will be.  We also complain about something you wouldn't think the cancer patients would complain about.  We have complained several meetings about "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" and for several reasons I won't get into the conversations, mainly because they are supposed to be confidential, but one person in the group said the most profound thing about it that really summed up the conversation and how everyone in the room (including the breast cancer patients) felt.  They said, "Breast Cancer Awareness Month has turned into Christmas.  Everyone is wearing pink and buying pink, but it has been so commercialized that people don't know the reason the are doing all the pink things anymore."  Wow!  They so succinctly put into words what so many in that room frustrations were with the month.

I leave the meeting and left to do a little shopping that I had been meaning to do, but hadn't been able to.  One of the places I had to stop was a former employer.  I was hoping I didn't see any of my former coworkers, because I didn't want to explain that I had been laid off from the job I left them for, and that I had gotten cancer, and that I knew I had a stupid, pathetic excuse for a mustache but it was for a good cause.  Luckily the only person I knew there was too busy talking to notice there was a customer, so I was able to get in and out without any problems.  I finished up my shopping by stopping at one of my pre-chemo favorite restaurants for some take-out.  It doesn't really sound good to me, but I am really hungry, and out of habit, this is the place I love to go when I am really hungry.  I walk in and the smell hits my chemo nostrils and overwhelms me.  I am not sure why I came in here, I am really not wanting this at all.  Still, I order my usual and head home.  By this point, I am not only hungry, but completely wiped out from my day pretending to be normal, and dying of thirst.  Obviously, I have not recovered from chemo as much as I thought I had.  I get home, still not looking forward to my former favorite meal, but yet I still devour it and it doesn't taste bad...doesn't taste as good as it does when I am not on chemo, but it doesn't taste bad either.

What did I learn?  I learned that I am still recovering.  I also learned that I can kind of pass for a normal person.  I learned that it is possible to get too tired to blog.  And finally I learned that I am tired of making excuses for my pathetic mustache and wish it would come in quicker, but as hair falls out every time I touch my head, I don't have high hopes on that one...but more about that in tomorrow's entry.

Heading Towards Healing!

Today we met with the new oncologist.  Today was a good day!  Our new oncologist is nothing like Dr. Jekyll that we had last week.

First of all, even though this facility is also in a high traffic area, it's in our high traffic area.  So we cut about twenty minutes on our drive each direction.  And the office was colorful and inviting, the previous place had all the ambiance of Driver's License Branch with longer lines and wait times.  The old place, because of the long lines, put the nurses stations nearly right on top of each other.  When they took my vitals, my temperature was 197.2' because I was so close to another patient the thermometer measured both of us.  The new place was spacious and friendly.  It had room for my wife to come in while my important numbers were gathered.  It was so swanky, I could have sworn I saw someone walk by with a tray of hors d'oeuvres, but it may have just been a tray of specimen cups, it's hard to tell from a distance.  What I am getting at is before we even met the new oncologist, we are already in love with this place.

The doctor walks in.  Talk, thin, older, soft spoken with glasses, kind of what you would expect a compassionate doctor that is getting ready to talk about very serious things to look like.  And what made me really feel at ease, he asked me to start from the beginning.  He had gone over my chart already, but he wanted to hear it in my own words.  I'm glad.  Who knows what Dr. Jekyll wrote on my chart?  I imagine it's something like, "Patient has cancer or something, somewhere in the lower half, wants some treatment, I wonder what's for lunch, Jimmy John's, no had that yesterday, wonder where the nurses are going, I thought I heard one say Arby's, that sounds good, although their chicken is spicier than it used to be, I'll just get a roast beef, that's always a safe bet, I wonder where this guy's going to eat, oh that's my patient, what's he still doing here, I think he just asked me something, just tell him he's good and we'll schedule another appointment next week, maybe I'll get Jimmy John's after all"  The fact that we are starting over from scratch doesn't seem so much like we are going backward in my treatment, it feels like a fresh start.  He listens intently to both of us and doesn't once make any notes on my chart about lunch.  He asks about my gastro-intestinal issues.  Dr. Jekyll's way of dealing with my GI issues was to just say that I didn't have any.  I feel like I am in a dream things are going so well.

After our initial conversation, we move to treatment options.  He agrees that chemo is the best option, BUT he wasn't completely sure, so he called a colleague he knew at Indiana University (nice place!) that has a little bit of experience with testicular cancer.  He was one of Lance Armstrong's doctors!  Now at first we are very impressed (and we still are), but I imagine Lance probably had more than one oncologist.  But hey, if he wants to work some Lance magic on me that will be just fine.  I don't need to win the Tour de France, I will settle for just being able to walk down to the end of the driveway without having to wobble and collapsing on the couch when I get back.  And how much Lance magic will he be working on me?   Will I have to follow in his footsteps and divorce my wife, hook up with Sheryl Crow and one of the Olsens?  I don't even like Sheryl Crow, and I guess if I have to take one of the Olsens, I'll go for Lizzie.  She won't be as stuck up as Mary Kate or Ashley, but she still probably has some of their billions.  Oh, the doctor's still talking to me.  He says he was leaning towards a single larger dose in my case and Lance's doctor agreed.  Dr. Jekyll wanted two smaller doses.  For those uninitiated to the wonderful world of chemo (including me until just a few days ago) although two smaller doses sounds like the easier option, it's actually worse.  It seems the longer you are on chemo, the more the side effects compound onto each other.  One large dose can get the job done just as effectively with far less complications.  Good news, except now I have to get that haircut.  He said I may loose a little from the treatment, but definitely not all.  If there is one thing worse than shaggy hair with widow's peaks, it's splotchy shaggy hair with widow's peaks.

Obviously I am still concerned about the GI issues.  I tell him about the appointment I scheduled with the GI doc to help regulate my medications during the rest of my treatment.  I ask for the exact dosage and name so I can take the information to my appointment.  He said he will send a note to that doctor, but "I will just tell Steve when I see him at the hospital today."  What?!?!  I know I am in a dream now.  Not only does he acknowledge that I have GI issues, and wants to work with me, he knows my GI doc on a first name basis and sees him everyday at the hospital where they both do procedures!  He does a quick physical exam, including lifting my shirt, where he seems my GI surgery scars and makes a comment about the "old way" that involved about an eight inch gash rather than five small holes.  Hmmm, someone should tell Dr. Jekyll if I am making up this GI thing, I went through an awful lot of trouble to create scars twelve years ago just to mess with him.

He explains my situation to me in depth.  He explains the differences in types of stages of cancer and that I am a "Clinical Stage I".  He is throwing out percentages of reoccurring, chances of living cancer free, all the stuff we never heard from the last guy.  We still have questions.  He keeps patiently answering them.  Should we hold off on the baby making?  An emphatic YES.  Wow, Dr. Jekyll said don't worry about it.  I would hate to think about the kid we may have made.  Who knows, they may have been able to glow in the dark and been their own night-light.  Do I need to stay away from babies?  Another very strong YES, and especially their dirty diapers.  That one I try to practice on a daily basis anyway, but I appreciate the reinforcement.  Dr. Jekyll also told us not to worry about that.  If there is one thing worse that creating your own luminescent child, it is turning your friend's kids into glowworms. Dr. Jekyll said my bathroom routine doesn't have to change, where this doc says I could get seriously ill if I floss when my white blood cells are at their lowest and for the duration of my treatment I will always have to flush the toilet twice.  I am still not quite sure I understand this one.  I have already been accused of having atomic turds.  Maybe it is just to flush the incandescent pee to keep fireflies out of the house.  Whatever the reason the water company will thank me.  Then he tells us there will be plenty more that we haven't or won't think to ask that we will need to know about as well.  That is why they give all of their chemo patients and their families/support system a "class" on what to expect, what to do, what not to do.  I am waiting for someone to come around the corner with a camera and tell us this is all a prank.  This is so different from our last doctor and so exactly how an oncologist appointment should go.

We finish up by scheduling our next several appointments including the class, chemo, blood-work, follow-up appointments, as well as taking blood-work right now to make sure my white blood cells and platelets are high enough to start chemo.  This can't be real.  Someone pinch me.  OOWW!!  That wasn't a pinch, more of a stick with a large needle and two vials of blood, but at least I know I'm not dreaming.  This is real.  She tests the blood real quick and clears me to start chemo.  I am heading towards healing again!  November 15th, that's when I can breathe.  That's when I can say I'm done with "treatment" and only have to worry about "observation".  Two doctor's appointments next week.  Chemo the week after that.  Ten days later I will feel like crap.  But within two weeks or so of that, I should feel like a new man, or at least half a new man since I lost one of my dangling bits.  A definitely cancer free man!  I can't wait.  Today is a great day!

Oncologist II: The Search for Doc

Our appointment with the oncologist Tuesday was a complete opposite of what it had been the week before.  The doctor, let's call him by something other than his real name, let's just call him Dr. Jekyll was first distracted by the patient in the other room.  Everyone that walked by, Dr. Jekyll was sure to mention he had to spend a lot of time with the next patient.  This is while he is walking back and forth looking for my CATscan results.  He did know we were coming.  It was written down.  You would think he would make an effort to get those ahead of time, especially since he needed to spend a lot of time with the patient after me.  For what was close to half an hour we would see him walk by, mutter something about still waiting from my results, and loudly shout to whoever hasn't heard yet that he needs to spend a lot of time with the next patient.  He then wanders back by and tells us he doesn't want to keep us any longer, then tells us he has to spend a lot of time with his next patient and he doesn't want to make us wait.

It's at this point I am glad I am not the next patient, who we are pretty sure was already in the next room and can hear the shouting.  With cancer your mind is constantly bouncing back and forth between the best possible outcome and the worst case scenario.  "A lot of time with the next patient" doesn't sound like a confidence vote for "you cured, see ya later!"  And the fact that he has been announcing it very loudly for at least a half an hour, makes one wonder if this is the first time he talked to anyone about anything that serious.

He tells us, we will just wait for the results he didn't bother to get, so we can leave and come in some other time.  We ask if real quickly we could talk about the three possible options he gave us, since we know he had to get to that patient he has to spend a lot of time with.  My wife mentions that she went to the website he gave us, and was only able to pull up a few pages without paying.  He looked annoyed and asked if she was able to pull up any at all.  She said she was only able to pull up the basics.  He looked even more annoyed and said he was surprised by that.  A very curious reaction to us going to a website Dr. Jekyll told us to go to.  We then tell him about the "episode" the day after the CATscan (well, we give him a very abbreviated version).  That is when he decided to argue with us about that.  He had never heard of any such reaction to a CATscan.

It's funny that a guy that works with CATscans as part of his job, has a CATscan machine in his building, had never heard of such a thing.  The people that gave me the CATscan know about it.  Our friends in the medical profession know about it.  The pharmacist knew about it.  My family doctor knew exactly what I was talking about when I told him.  Even my sister, who does CATscans on sheep, mice, and dead giraffes knew about it!  Although I don't know if dead giraffes feel ALL of the side effects.  How could Dr. Jekyll argue this point?!?!  AND WHY DOESN'T HE KNOW ABOUT IT?!?!

Trying to change the subject to something we think he won't be so confrontational on, we switch to treatment.  We then say we have decided that chemo is the best option.  Now he looks surprised, even though that seemed to be what we all agreed would be the best option last meeting, including Dr. Jekyll!  He says, "Fine we'll start...ah...a week from Friday." and starts to walk out of the room.  We stop him and ask if there is anything we should do to prepare because we had a few questions about what I can and can't do on chemotherapy.  He looks more annoyed that we are actually asking about the thing he told us to do last time that apparently he didn't actually plan on us doing.  This appointment is getting stranger and stranger.  He says to book the chemo and he'll see us later.  We ask about the medicine he said he would give us to take the day before the chemo, and he said to book a second appointment a half an hour before chemo and pushes us on our way.  "I'm going to be spending a lot of time with this next patient!!!" we hear as we head down the hallway.  Apparently there were a few new people in the waiting room that hadn't heard yet.

We book our appointments in a total daze about what just happened.  I was supposed to be on the path to recovery, and now I don't even know which road I am going down.  My wife, God bless her, knows just by looking at me that I am very distraught.  She's says "Call them back now".  I can't, I am way too mad, lost, upset, and confused.  We stop for a bite to eat and I end up letting my food get cold while I type away on my phone a letter to the clinic.  I feel better.  But I still feel like I am not in a good place.  "I don't think I want him to be our oncologist." I say.  "Whatever you want."  she says back, and I can tell she means it.  I think she was feeling it too, but wanted me to make the choice.

I get an e-mail back from the clinic by the time we get home.  It's from the "Operations Manager".  Wow!  Didn't plan on it getting that high that quick.  She was very apologetic and said she would work with us to get things back on track.

At seven thirty that next morning the phone rings.  It's Dr. Jekyll.  He apologizes and it all starts out very nice. Like the old Dr. Jekyll.  I didn't really appreciate the early phone call, but it's OK.  I try to be understanding, after all cancer patients definitely know what it is like to have a "good day" or a "bad day" be it physically, mentally, emotionally, we have them all.  As I am starting to give him the benefit of the doubt, I tell him we aren't really comfortable having our meeting to get the medication that I need to take the day before I start chemo, a half an hour before I start chemo (in other words, about twenty-four hours late).  He then starts trying to argue with me saying that's not what he said at all and raises his voice.  I just stop him right there and say, "I think we are going with a different oncologist."

I would be feeling a lot worse, but I had e-mailed my family doctor about our oncologist not taking into account my GI issues and some of the other problems, and he suggested a friend of his that he knew would take good care of me.  I wait for the Operations Manager to call me back, and when I don't hear from her, I call the guy my doctor suggested.  October 15th is the first chance I have to get in.  I am back to despair.  I don't want to wait that long.  She suggests another oncologist that will see me the next day.  I reluctantly agree.  I tell my wife what transpired and she has a list of other suggestions that would have been good to know before I made the call.  The rest of the day is filled with internet research on doctors and me feeling like I am just playing Russian Roulette with oncologists now.

You hear stories of people that just walk away from their cancer treatment.  They put their fate in the Hands of God rather than in the science that God helped give us.  Right now I know exactly how these people feel.  I feel like I am drowning in mud with all of the things that are bombarding my brain at this point.  Walking away and taking my chances seem like the best option.  I mean, I was cancer free yesterday, I should stay that way for a little while without chemo or any other treatment, right?  I half made up my mind that's what I would do.  My wife calls.  I have no idea what she was talking about, I couldn't focus on listening.  All I know is at some point she said, "Do you want me to call?"  In what felt like a hour long pause, I respond that I am tired of dealing with things, I can't deal with things anymore.

My wife calls on her way home with a lot different tone in her voice.  She is excited!  She called the Operations Manager, who asked about the "apology".  My wife, who could hear the apology on the other side of the room when he started shouting, told the nice lady how the "apology" went.  Apparently Dr. Jekyll left out some details of the phone call when he told his boss he called me back.  And turns out he left out some details when he told her about the previous day's appointments.  Turns out he was leaving out details everywhere.  Maybe the guy he had to spend a lot of time with got all these missing details, that must be why he had to spend so much time with him.  The operations manager made some phone calls.  Had my wife make some phone calls.  Some phone calls were made back to my wife. And within an hour, we had a long appointment scheduled with the doctor I want!  I am very excited!

See, our family doctor is amazing.  He honestly has obsessive compulsive disorder, which means your appointment is always when you booked it an not a second later, and he makes a habit of knowing how each and every patient likes to be talked to.  He knows which patients he needs to sugarcoat things with.  He knows which patients he needs to talk about all the possibilities with.  And he knows which patients (like me) just want it exactly the way it is.  He will set me down and say I am 80% sure it is "blah", but there is a 15%  chance it could be "blah-blah", and a very slight possibility it could be another thing, but don't even worry about that.  If our family doc is recommending this oncologist, he knows he is the right one for me or he would have just said "Sorry, I don't know who I could send you to."

I feel like I am back on the path to recovery.  No, I feel like I may be on the highway now!  The only thing is I have to wait a week for the appointment.  Another, hurry up and wait.  Whatever, I have been at this cancer stuff for three weeks now, so I am a veteran now.  But I am still not used to the hurry up and wait yet...

The ugly truth about CATscans

The rest of my Friday involved greeting my parents and drinking every non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated beverage that wasn't nailed down.  After all, the nice nurse did tell me I could get dehydrated from the CATscan dye.  With my parents in town to check on my recovery, I decide to "go crazy" and have a twelve ounce Pepsi with dinner, the only caffeine all day.  After all that's just a little caffeine and the CATscan was 10 hours earlier.  We make plans for Tom's Big Day Out the next day, since I have basically just been a crotch icing hermit for the past week.

I get up in the morning excited to start the day.  I take my medication and get ready for the fun filled day ahead of us.  We have so many plans!  Shopping for tools.  Fixing the boat.  And other great feats that would have me more than 100 feet from the house (and that number is relevant later).  Then I have a feeling...downstairs...in the back.  It kinda feels like I have to go.  But I kinda don't have to go.  Then the feeling kinda feels stronger.  I go into the bathroom, sit down and...well, how to explain it.  Remember the old movies where the army grabs the battering ram and hits the two huge doors to the castle and they don't budge?  Something like that.

You know, it is at this point I remember reading somewhere on that checklist before the CATscan "Have you ever had any adverse reaction to the dye?"  We checked "No" because somehow, I have never had this particular medical procedure before.  Because of my gastro-intestinal issues, most of my medical tests involves me being violated in some way.  I have things done to my body that would be considered obscene outside of the operating room, I even think that some are illegal in Alabama, (and a bar show in Tijuana).  But I have never had a CATscan.  I remember hearing the guy just down from us filling out his form while I was trying to choke down the orange flavored cement "What the heck is the dye?  Squid ink?"  I didn't pay any attention, because if I have been poked, stuck, sampled, scanned, scraped, sliced and diced, I can walk through this test and it's wimpy dye!

Then it hits me again.  I feel like I am going to pass out.  Now I have the same army, with a slightly bigger battering ram, except this time they are trying to break through the mail slot, and still aren't getting anywhere.  The pain is immense.  Because I have had so many tests, I am familiar with a little painkiller back up, but nothing like this.  It feels like I have the back up of constipation with the urgency of diarrhea.  In between contractions, I grab a liter bottle of water.  I must have gotten too dehydrated yesterday.  I down the water and fill it up again.  And again.  Embarrassed beyond belief, I beg my wife to run to the pharmacy and get me some relief, ANY RELIEF!  Still sore from the surgery, I can't stand up completely straight, and now with this going on, it hurts to sit in a chair...or lie on a bed...or breath...or blink.  I park myself in the bathroom waiting for something, anything to happen.  I start sweating, but feel chilled at the same time.  I take off my clothes and think about jumping in the shower between squeezing and slamming.  Maybe the hot water will help, I don't know.  It can't hurt.  My wife arrives and walks in to something a spouse should never have to walk in on.  I am on the toilet, weak from all of this, and naked from almost, not quite, thinking about getting in the shower.  The ordeal to this point has produce just a few brown dots in the toilet (another thing a spouse should never have to see).  She says "You were successful?  You don't need this?"  I snatch whatever it is in her hand and start to rip it open. She told me that the pharmacist said this happens sometimes in reaction to CATscans and gave me some other instructions.  He also told her that if this didn't work, I would have to use an enema.  At this point, I am upset that she didn't grab an enema too.

Satisfied that relief is just around the bend, I grab the pills and take a swig of water.  The funny thing about drinking three quarts of water in a short amount of time, you run out of space.  None of it makes it past my mouth.  I set the pills down, and then things get worse.!

People with severe gastro-esophageal reflux disease (and in my case paired with an esophageal ulcer and a hiatal hernia) can have a surgery called a laparoscopic Nissen fundiplication (and those three words just made my spellcheck start smoking).  It is a great surgery and only really has one side effect.  You can longer regurgitate.  Your mind and stomach don't know this, but your throat is one way only now.  So, the signals keep getting sent, and the muscles react, but everything stays where it started.  This is really not that big of a problem...unless you just drank three quarts of water and then tried to take one more drink with two pills.

The heaves start.  For some reason, even though I had this stomach surgery twelve years ago, I still lean over the toilet out of habit.  Something else a spouse should never witness, although there is a small part of me that is glad she finally witnessed this anomaly.  When people ask about the surgery, and you tell them about the side-effect, you usually get a skeptical glance back.  Now I have a witness!  This goes on for what seems like hours, but was probably about twenty seconds.  I finally stop, get to my feet, when my wife asks, "What's that?"  Newton's third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  In the midst of everything else going on, the pushing and lack of motion in the front, led to a pushing and lack of motion in the back...except for a few brown spots on the carpet.  I am positive now my wife can walk in front of any judge in the world, relay what she has witnessed  in the past five minutes, and be granted an immediate annulment.

I manage to choke down the pills.  I jump in the shower as I wait for them to work.  I get out and read the package.  "Expect results in 6-12 hours."  I wish she would have gotten the enema too.  I manage to awkwardly get onto the bed.  It has only been fifteen minutes, I might as well get comfortable...uh-oh, better take a walk, a really quick walk.  I sit down, and minimal success.  The army is still there.  I try to lay down again, no I don't.  Army isn't budging.  I decided it is best to remain upright so I can move quicker and walk outside to talk to my parents...I mean back inside...standing army...back outside....inside.  I bet that my parents are really glad they came to see this!  Within an hour, the medicine worked.  I feel like the Octomom after baby six or seven, but I can sit comfortably now.

I am ready to go on with my plans with my parents.  We need to go to the store, then fix the boat...  Then I remember what the pill bottle said, "Expect results in 6-12 hours."  Did it work so fast because I hadn't eaten anything in twelve hours?  Did it works so fast because I drank half of Lake Erie this morning?  Or am I 5-11 hours from expecting results.  Over the next twenty minutes or so, I do get some more results, and then nothing.  But I am scared.  I am very scared.  If this stuff worked that good within an hour, what are results going to be like in the optimal time.  We decide to call off shopping or anything that involves me in a vehicle with upholstery until the twelve hours is up.  We will work on the boat later.  Later comes.  The boat is in the backyard in my workshop.  Without a bathroom.  We can fix the boat later.

Six hours came and went, as well as twelve without incident.  As I recover from the day's event, I read up on the literature the oncologist gave me.  The active surveillance option for my treatment calls for about twenty- five CATscans over the next ten years, including every four months for the first few years.  I think we can throw the active surveillance option RIGHT out the window.  I continue to recover from my surgery and "labor" until the oncologist visit Tuesday.  I tell the oncologist about the horrific reaction to the dye, and how I would like to limit the times I have to go through that test.  The formerly nice oncologist tells me I didn't have that reaction.  My wife chimes in to say that I most certainly did have that reaction (she probably has it permanently etched in her memory).  The distantly nice oncologist again states that I didn't have that reaction. It must be the painkillers...that I have been off of for a week...and have already experienced and gone through that with a lot less trouble...which I would have told him had he given me the chance.
Tomorrow, I will talk about my search for a new oncologist!

CATscan and first Oncologist visit...

Thursday, we head back to the surgeon.  One piece of paper said to come back in a week, another said two weeks, but then he kinda said a week and a half.  But the scheduler put me in for today, so I am half expecting to be turned away.  I see my surgeon and he says I am healing up nicely.  He tells me to lay back and he will take my bandage off.  The "advice" I got earlier told me this is worse than the surgery.  My whole body tenses up and he grabs the bandage and slowly pulls.  It has all the pain of...peeling off a wet bathing suit.  Boy, do I feel stupid.  Not that I am complaining that I didn't have the excruciating hair pulling pain I was told about.  Maybe it's because sometime under anesthesia I was shaved from my nipples to my kneecaps with just a little landing strip going down my entire left side for some unknown reason.  He tells me to schedule a CATscan, assigns me an oncologist, and sends me on my way (I also got a grape lollipop).  

Anxious for answers, anxious to get on with my life, we ask for the earliest CATscan, regardless of where we have to go to get it.  Tomorrow morning?  Perfect!  We immediately call the oncologist.  Tomorrow afternoon?  Perfecter!!  Everything has been moving so fast, which we are both thankful for.  

I wake up Friday like it is Christmas morning.  I am so excited to finally be on the road to recovery/treatment.  I am also very hungry on this road since I haven't been allowed to eat or drink anything today.  Luckily, they have a nice big jug of slightly orange flavored chalk for me to drink for my test.  For those unfamiliar with this,  the consistency of this wonderful concoction is just slightly more liquid than setting concrete.  I get about a third of it down when they call me back.  That's all I can do.  The nice nurse says that will be enough and tells me to lay down on the sliding table...that doesn't have hand rails...and I can't really bend at the waist.  She looks at me standing there.  I look pitiful.  Then it dawns on her that I need help getting down there.  She comes over and helps me lower myself into position.  She throws a sheet over me and tells me to slide down my shorts so the zipper doesn't show up.  I have a zipper?  Because of the location of my incision and the location of the offending part's removal, I have been wearing over-sized boxer shorts (which look just like shorts) underneath over-sized shorts (which look just like boxer shorts).  Since I want to put as little pressure on the aforementioned areas as possible, I don't wear any that would be tight enough to require the use of a zipper.  Still unable to bend at the waist, I try to shimmy my way out of my shorts.  

The nurse comes over and sticks my vein.  She looks for the one vein that doesn't have a big bruise on it already from the previous two weeks of jabbing and jabs me there.  As she starts the dye, she says I may feel a warm or cold sensation in my arm followed by the taste of garlic in my mouth.  Right on cue, it happens.  First a pleasant little hint of garlic.  Then the sensation of burping after eating a slice of garlic bread.  Then the overwhelming feeling of having just sucked the life force out of eight cloves of garlic followed with a garlicy gargle.  WOW!  I was hungry about 3 seconds ago, but now, not so much.  Then, I am really glad she gives me the next warning.  She says, "Some people will later have the sensation that they have went to the bathroom in their pants.  But don't worry, it's just the dye moving through your system."

She walks out of the room and the scanner begins its whirring.  I think to myself how funny it is that some people feel a little wee down there.  "Take a deep breath."   "Hold."   "Release."  I hear that several times as the slide pushes me in and out of the tube like I am riding on an old mechanical type writer, and then it happens.  "Take a deep breath."  "Hold."  And I just crapped my pants!  "Release."  I think I did already.  Did I crap my pants?  It certainly feels like I am sitting in a pile of crap...well, I don't know exactly what that feels like, but I imagine it feels a lot like I what I am feeling right now.  Dear God, please let this be that side effect she was talking about.  I thought she was talking about a little wee, not a giant mushy poo, which is what I think may have happened.  I keep being pushed in and out of the tube.  I can't check.  I guess when this is over the nurse and I will find out at the same time whether I crapped my pants or if this is just a drill.  At least if I crapped my pants, my shorts will be clean since I had to shimmy.

The test finally ends.  The garlic subsides and the pooing sensation was the dye, either that or me and the poo are now at the same temperature, because I don't feel like I am sitting in anything warm anymore.  The nurse tells me to slide on my shorts and get up.  The problem is, I have shimmied beyond my non-waist-bending reach and cannot pull up my pants until I get up.  Now, how do I ask a nurse to help me up and then I will pull up my shorts without sounding like a bad punchline to a schoolyard joke.  I decide the best thing to do is to lay there and look pitiful.  It works.  I explain, while very slowly in a non-creepy, non-Chris-Hansen-attention-grabbing way, show her that my "underwear" is basically shorts and I need help upright so I can then be able to pull up my shorts shorts.  Luckily, she smiles and says "Oh, I keep forgetting your surgery was just a week ago."  The nice nurse sends me on my way, while telling me about one more side-effect.  I need to drink plenty of fluids to keep from being dehydrated, while staying away from caffeine.  We have a long, heated discussion about what exactly is "staying away" from caffeine (i.e. Pepsi) as she pushes me out in the lobby.  She gives us a CD-ROM of my scans for the oncologist and I KNOW today is going to be a day full of answers!

A couple hours later, I am at the oncologist's office.  It is a large building with several oncologists.  You see people in the waiting room at all stages of care.  We go back to the room and the very nice gentleman sits me down and says "Don't worry, you are going to survive this and be free of cancer."  I start bawling like a little baby, and I don't know why.  I never thought for a second I wouldn't beat this. I don't know why I am crying.  I feel so stupid.  He asks if I had my CATscan yet and we proudly whip out the CD, to which he replies, "Oh, I can't read those.  We'll wait for the results."  He talks about my options.  Twenty to thirty scans over the next ten years, while waiting for results on each one (and possibly really crapping on the table because you think the sensation is just the dye).  We already don't like that one.  Option two is chemo.  Less scans and less chance of anything popping back up.  OK.  Option three is radiation, that may cause more and worse cancer than it kills.  Hmmm.  Option two is sounding better and better.  

We didn't get our answers, but we are on our way.  We met a very nice oncologist and in a few days, everything will be in place.  I wait for my parents to show up for the weekend.  I am looking forward to getting out of the house.  I hydrate all day long, limiting myself to one small Pepsi.  Life is starting to look up.  That is until.  The Wrath of CATscan.....which I will talk about in way too much detail tomorrow.