Constant Coughing or First Word?

Let me start this off by saying, I am not trying to be one of those people that has a health complaint every time you are around them.  No, I just have a health complaint that I would like to keep to myself, but unfortunately affects everyone around me.

See, about a month ago we traveled down to Florida.  It was sunny and hot everyday, most days getting into the 90's.  And as things usually go in that kind of weather, I caught a cold.  OK, I can tell that you are confused, here is what happened.  One night we went out to eat, and whatever it was did not agree with me, so I was up until the wee hours of the morning dealing with that night's dinner.  And as anyone with a baby knows, you certainly are not going to be able to catch up on your sleep in the morning, because the baby doesn't care how late you stayed up, he just knows he is hungry/wet.  The next night, I was looking forward to some restful slumber when the weather radio went off stating a tornado was in the area.  In the area of the country I spend most of my time in, I would have turned on the TV for a detailed report and if need be, pulled out the futon in the basement and dragged everyone downstairs until the danger was over.  Unfortunately, most homes on the Florida coast do not have basement and if they do they are called indoor pools.  My wife, being very supportive, decided not even waking up to the loud alarm next to her head would be the best course of action.  Not wanting to push everyone into a closet (the only interior room in the house we were staying at) I decided to check out the situation and move everyone in the safe spot only if the situation warranted. What I found out is that in Florida, where several sports teams are named after weather, they apparently don't have anyone at the TV stations that actually knows anything about weather in the middle of the night.  After only being able to find a tiny square of a weather map in the corner of the TV that amounted to about four pixels, I decided to just stay up until the Tornado Warning expired to make sure we were safe.  That left me up until the wee hours of the morning once again.  The next few days were spent preparing to come back home and driving the eighteen hours to get back home, which after it was all said and done, left me very run down, and with a strange tickle in my throat.

So, a few days after getting back from our pre-summer Florida trip I was in full nose dripping, wet coughing, hell.  I was kind enough to share this illness with my wife, who never seems to appreciate the gift of sickness.  Within a few days, my cold had disappeared except for a little headache that would not let up.  My wife wanted quicker relief and went to see our family doctor, who told her that she had developed a sinus infection.  Upon hearing this, I was a little worried that my "headache" was really a raging sinus infection like my wife's.  I called the doctor and told her I was feeling fully recovered except for the headache and she prescribed some antibiotics to clear things up.  Pretty soon the headache was gone...and an annoying, constant, irritating cough developed.  Not like the one before where random pieces of lung seem to be flying out of your trachea, this is just a cough that sounds  like the cough people do when they aren't really sick, but they are calling in sick to work, except this cough is real and relentless.

Here is where I am today, nearly a month later and feeling pretty good, just sounding like a guy faking a cough constantly.  And the best part about it, anything extra sweet, salty, or tangy, causes it to get worse!  The past two weeks, friends have asked me to come to their places of business to help them with projects, and in return they feed all the people that helped out.  The problem is, I am afraid to eat around people, because invariably the cough gets worse, and if there is anything to get you uninvited to future gatherings, it is sounding like you have the plague around people while they are eating.  So while everyone else is socializing and having a bite, I am running off to a vending machine and nibble/coughing in a hallway somewhere.

Well, today I realized how much this is really affecting my life.  My son, being six months old, is just now trying to verbalize and mimic actions and sounds that he experiences.  While sitting with him and feeding him, I had a coughing fit, and he looked me right in the eyes while I was trying to compose myself...and coughed some fake sounding coughs.  Now coughing isn't out of the ordinary for him while he is enjoying his bottle, because in his mind, he is very hungry, and trying to shotgun five ounces of milk in one second is the best way to stop his hunger pangs.  In reality, trying to suck that much milk into his stomach that quickly leads to choking, coughing, and spitting up all over me, a lesson I have had to learn the hard way.  After his cough we just stared at each other, he with his little grin on his face, while I try to figure out if he drank to fast or was he making the same sound daddy was.  The grin he gave me was very similar to the grin he gives me while we sit there and make fart noises at each other for hours on in.  You know, that cross-between-laughter-and-accomplishment type of grin.

This is why I am frustrated, not because of the constant hacking, or having to eat my meals alone in a dark closet so people won't fear infections from me, it is the effect this may be having on my impressionable young son.  No longer do I wonder if his first word will be "mommy" or "daddy".  No longer am I worried that his first words will be one of the phrases yelled frequently at the dogs ("Daisy, quit licking your butt!") or the words he hears daddy yell when there is a stupid driver in front of him.  No, I am frustrated today because I am afraid that the noise he has been hearing most the past four weeks will be the first one he verbalizes.  And in his little memory book, I just don't know how to write down the spelling of "hok-hok-hok-heh-heh-kuuuuurrrrrrkkkk-ptah".

Ah, The Good Old Days When I Could Take Dimetapp...

After a week (or weak) of coughing, snorting, hacking, sniffling, wheezing, whining, blowing, gasping, and honking I think I have almost beaten this cold.  According to my wife I was just complaining and it wasn't that bad, until she caught it four days later.  I maintain, that if she would have taken better care of me, she wouldn't have gotten it.  However, since she just left me to flounder, I remained sick and infectious and she caught it from me.

I think the worst part of this cold or any cold, is when you start coughing without end.  Although a few blogs ago I was saying I finally felt like I was over my incision pain, I was coughing so bad a few days ago, I was afraid I was going to rip it back open again.  Luckily I didn't.

When the coughing started, I reached for my tried and tested Dimetapp Children's.  Not being able to take anything with any alcohol, this is my usual goto remedy for coughing and itchy throats.  However, I haven't taken any since I had chemo.  Tired from wiping, coughing, and spitting all day, I took the maximum dose of Dimetapp and laid down to enjoy a sound night of slumber.  Five hours later, I was still waiting for slumber, or at least for the monkeys in my head to quit typing.  OK, there were not any actual monkeys typing, but my mind was racing so much, it felt like there were approximately one thousand and two monkeys typing on old fashioned manual typewriters with worn out ribbons.  I don't know why it had to be worn out ribbons.  Maybe they weren't monkeys, they were gibbons and that is where I got the "ribbons" from.  Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on sleeping if that makes sense.

Ever since chemotherapy, anything with diphenhydramine (like Benadryl) instead of making me tired, makes me wide awake and has my mind racing.  I guess it's a good thing I've never done meth.  My mind would be racing and I would never get anything done from the diphenhydramine.  Meth addicts get a lot done right?  And diphenhydramine is one of the things they make meth with right?  Yup, it is, I just looked it up.  Now I am probably on some government list for looking it up.

Well, with the Dimetapp a failure, I was even sicker from not getting any sleep.  So, I slept all day and completely screwed up my sleep pattern, which helps in healing too.  Eventually, through the use of Lifesavers and Luden's I was able to make it through the sandpaper-against-the-back-of-the-throat days to now where I feel almost normal....for me.

The caveat is that now I have a coughing wife keeping me awake and a coughing basenji.  I know you are probably wondering why my dog is coughing, and frankly we are too.  My mother-in-law's theory is that she caught the cold from us.  Now while I don't think she caught our cold, I do think this basenji is hacking because of it.  Lately, she has had a smorgasbord of Kleenex's lying around.  Now before you say "Ooh, boogie eating dog!" I am not talking about used Kleenex's.  It's just that we have had boxes of Kleenex's within arm's reach of every flat/cushioned surface in the house, and that to Daisy the basenji is a lot like having a beer tap with mouth's reach of an alcoholic.  Because a Kleenex box works much like a beer tap, more just keeps magically appearing.

So, I don't think Daisy is coughing from a cold, I think she is coughing from eating several cases of Kleenex the past few days.  And although Kleenex may be a welcome relief on a runny nose, I can imagine it would tickle the back of your throat if you ate one, or a box.  At any rate, our vet didn't seem too worried, and just in case she gave us medicine to fix every possible thing it could be.  Which made me jealous.  I think next time I have a cough I will just go to the vet.  She's cheaper than our doctor too.

Anyway, with the weather warming up, I am hoping to be well enough to get out and enjoy it.  Hopefully my wife will feel better soon too (because unlike toughing it out like I did, she whines a lot).  Plus I am getting wore out from waiting on her hand and foot.

Sometimes A Late Night Is Just A Late Night

Last night I planned on writing as soon as I finished my project.  But at 4am I didn't feel much like writing.  The good news is, I can tell it not scanxiety related insomnia, because if it were, I would be ready to do the same thing again, but I am not.  I have been dead tired all day.

I doubt I am alone.  If you are doing a boring, tedious project (especially if it is for someone else) sometimes you are glad to find an excuse to quit that project and do something else, even if that something else is sleep.  When the project is your hobby and it is something you are excited to finish, nothing will get in your way.  And that is what my issue was last night.  I only had a few things left to finish, and I didn't want to wake up with a mess in the floor reminding me that I can't play until I finish what I had started.

I had also planned on writing the night before, but in preparation for my pet project, I decided to clean to the equipment I was installing last night.  Two hours of scrubbing later and my wrists were shot and flopping around like a sock monkey's arms.  I could barely hold my Pepsi much less write.  And I said barely hold on to my Pepsi.  Even if I were just a head, I could find a way to drink my Pepsi.

So, with my late night romp last night, my wife accused me of just being a normal insomniac and wanting me to find some prescription relief from my doctor.  There is a big difference between staying up late occasionally and scanxiety insomnia or even regular insomnia.  For instance, with my scanxiety, I went to bed only out of habit and then usually just laid there staring at the ceiling for another hour or two.  I could get four hours of sleep or less and be ready to do it all over again the next day.  Last night, I was dead tired when I finished my project and I think I actually fell asleep on the way to the bed.  And today, even though I slept in late, my butt has been dragging all day.  I don't think I will have any trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Outside of last night, ever since my oncologist appointment, my sleep pattern is almost that of a normal human being.  Hopefully this means my wife will quit bugging me about needing some sort of sleep aid, until my scanxiety returns in three months with my next oncologist appointment, then we can start all over again.

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.

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!

Do Mo's Help You Boss People Around?

I have slowly been getting better over the past two days.  I have slept a little better.  I still don't feel like I am getting "well rested" though.  Lately my attempts to catch little cat naps on the couch are interrupted by flying dogs as a basenji will soar onto the couch about the same time that I close my eyes.  I am getting cabin fever worse than ever now, and it's not just because of my health this time.

We have finally decided to get our fireplace fixed.  It requires me to stay here the whole time to tell them what to do.  Part of me feels bad, because they are doing some heavy lifting things, that they could certainly use a hand on, but I am still not able to lift that kind of weight.  Just getting the stuff out of the way for them about killed me!  Instead, I just stand around, watch them work hard, and tell them what to do.  This must be what my wife feels like.  No wonder she does it so much, it's kind of fun.  However, it's also kind of depressing.  I certainly don't want to just sit here doing nothing, I would like to pitch in when they need it.  After all, the sooner they finish, the sooner I can get back on the couch and waiting for the flying basenji show to happen next to me.  Also, the sooner I could leave and spend money I don't have.  And it's not that I am wanting to go out and spend stuff, I am just wanting to go out period.  I just wish I didn't feel exhausted by the time we got to the end of the driveway.

The only good thing about being stuck around here is Daisy, the abused and neglected rescue basenji, has been becoming more and more accepting of me with my recent house arrest.  Today she actually sought me out, which doesn't happen very often.  But what also doesn't happen very often is someone using a hammer drill on the fireplace causing the whole house to oscillate and beat to the point that it sounds like there is rave going on in the next room.  Maybe the noise scared her, or the vibrations, or maybe she just doesn't like raves, but she came down stairs and flew onto the couch, doubling its basenji population.

The workers say that the inside stuff will be done tomorrow, which means I will at least be able to do some things I have been putting off.  One of the things is e-mailing people back.  We have been through a lot the past couple of weeks, and all the well wishes and cards have been nice, certainly appreciated and in fact needed, but on the other hand, I have been putting off responding to them.  I guess that is my little way of avoiding the situation.  Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see the bright side of everything that has happened the past two weeks, but I don't know that I want to directly talk about it.  There are many people that did send their kind words, thoughts, and prayers to us and I kind of feel obligated to open up about things more to them.  In a way, I don't want to.  At least in this blog I can control the amount of information, and what information, I send out.  When someone is talking to you directly, you feel like you have to address the things they have said.  In my mind, it has been long enough since we have been through the worst of all of this, I can pretend nothing happened and just get back to talking to friends.  Does that seem right?  I don't know if it does or not, but that is what I am doing.  And the other thing I am doing...

Today is the first of MOvember.  I didn't shave my Mo today and I already feel like a Tom Selleck wannabe. I really don't know if I will be able to stand this for the whole month.  I am almost wishing I lose my hair so I will have an excuse.  You don't necessarily lose all hair from chemo.  Sometimes you just lose head hair, or head and facial, or head, facial and body, so if I lose my head hair, I may have to lie and shave off the Mo too. We will see.  My intent is to keep this Mo, as pathetic as my Mo may be, for the whole month of Movember.  I have decided on the Groucho Marx.  If that doesn't start conversations, I don't know what will.

So, that is my life now.  I am bossing around workers.  Laying on the couch rubbing basenji bellies.  Growing a mangy looking Mo.  And hopefully, getting around to returning tons of e-mails.  I guess there are a lot of people out there that would give their right nut to be in my position, but I did do that, and I am kind of growing tired of it now.  Oh well, the workers should only be here for two more days.  I should get released soon by the oncologist.  Then released from the urologist two weeks from today.  And I am alive and able to grow a Mo, so I guess I can't complain too much.

I Have a Sleeping Problem...And a Possible Solution!

My wife wants to drug me, and I may let her.  She has been complaining about my cancer insomnia since all of this began.  At first I didn't think it was a big deal.  Sure I would only get four hours of sleep, but I was operating just fine on four hours.  But back then, how much sleep did I need when I was unemployed, wasn't allowed to lift over ten pounds, and pretty much ordered to sit around all day by the doctor.  Now as far as my surgery goes, I am supposed to slowly be trying to regain my strength.  And I need plenty of rest to recover from chemo as well.  One of my cancer supporters told me that I probably wouldn't have any trouble sleeping once the chemo kicked it.  In one way she was right.  If I am anywhere but in bed, I can fall asleep at the drop of the hat, which can be a problem in the bathroom.  Yesterday for instance, I was constantly falling asleep on the couch.  However, around 9PM, the sleepiness left, and stayed gone!  At around 4am, I finally forced myself to go to bed, even though I wasn't tired, and laid there for at least another half an hour wide awake.  At 9:30am, I woke up wide awake again and even though I laid in bed, I couldn't fall back asleep.  There was a basenji that was glad of that fact, because if I am awake in bed, then I can rub her ears.  Finally, after an hour of laying in bed wide awake, and carpal tunnel from all the basenji petting, I get up.  And I stayed wide awake for two hours, then fell asleep on the couch again.

My wife keeps bringing up the idea of sleeping pills when we are around the oncologist, the nurse, pharmacist, vet, sandwich artist, or anyone else that will listen.  I have been against them, because I keep having visions of Elvis.  No, I don't think that I am going to overdose on prescription pills and die on the toilet, I am afraid I will get fat, wear hideous jumpsuits, make cheesy movies, and turn into a glorified Vegas lounge singer.  The oncologist's nurse jumped on my wife's side (of course she would, it's women conspiring against me) and suggested a few things up to and including over the counter sleep aids, before I hit the prescription stuff.  I don't know what to do.  I just know I am feeling really tired and I wish I could get one really good night's sleep.

I have big plans for my birthday.  I plan to run/jog a five kilometer fun run, even though the only running I have done since my surgery was into the hospital a week ago, and if it weren't for the adrenaline, I wouldn't have been able to do that.  I would like to do a thirty mile bike ride, even though the thought of hopping on a bicycle seat after my surgery makes my sole remaining testicle want to hide.  And the most physically demanding thing, I plan on going to Walt Disney World on my birthday.  And I am NOT going to be one of those jerks who gets a doctor's note to rent a wheelchair once they get there just to cut in line on all of the rides.  It's pretty obvious what is going on when you see them leap out of that wheelchair everytime the ice cream cart rolls by.  My contention is that if you really need a wheelchair, you will bring the one you always use.  But anyway, the point is, I plan on walking around Disney on my own power.

So between needing to up my physical activity and not being able to look at the inside of this house anymore, my wife and I did a little Christmas shopping today.  After about fifteen minutes, I was exhausted.  Part of that was because after fifteen minutes, I had looked at all of the stuff I wanted to see, then I just had to follow my wife around for the rest of the time pouting.  Anyone that has been shopping with my wife knows exactly what I am talking about.  I wouldn't have minded so much if she was shopping for an American made Paul Reed Smith with twenty four frets and double cutaways, but I found a used one at the first place we went and pointed out that it was a bargain at $1600.  She acted like she didn't care at all!  To me, we were done shopping with that find, but we left the store (without the guitar) and bought stuff for other people!  I made my best but-I-am-a-cancer-patient face, but it had no effect on her.  Probably because that look is permanently on my face ever since the chemo kicked in.  I think she has grown an immunity to it.

We went to Cracker Barrel after that and then to the grocery store, and I will admit, I am dead tired.  But for some reason, I am not sleepy tired.  I wish I could explain it better because if I could, maybe I could find something that would help me.  So, if I can't sleep tonight, I may break down and get one of the over the counter sleep aids.  Until then, I will just search the internet until I find an article saying that playing American PRS guitars helps you sleep well, and practice making an even more pitiful cancer patient face.

Me and My Boat Hate Cancer

Today was like the past few.  I woke up having to pee, having to drink, and just as tired as when I went to bed. I am doing a little better today though.  I only had to take one nap.  Although the cabin fever is driving me crazy, I can't seem to find the energy to do much anyway.  The best solution I can come up with is that someone tie me up like a marionette and move my arms and legs for me.  If that happens, there are all kinds of places to go and things I would like to do.

But there was one thing I had to do.  Supposedly the temperature is going to flirt with the freezing mark tomorrow.  I have been putting off winterizing one of the boats and still didn't want to do it today, but I have put to much work into it to have it ruined now.  This boat isn't huge by most standards, but on its trailer, it comes up to my chest.  This is a little bit of a problem for a guy that is still recovering from having his abdomen sliced open.  On one hand it seems like my surgery was a lifetime ago (and I guess in a sense it was), but I still feel the tug on that side when I make certain movements, and I actually won't get the all clear for my surgery for another two weeks.  I gather my tools and antifreeze and very carefully manage to climb into my boat, trying to only put the strain on the unsliced portion of my body, while keeping my sliced up part straight and slowly angling it up and over the side of the boat.  I finally manage to get in, with just a slight pull on my incision, I slide the boat cover off to give me plenty of room to work, and I get ready to settle down next to the engine when I see...all of my tools still sitting on the table.  I now have to get back out of the boat, which is actually more difficult, and I use the fat-kid-getting-out-of-the-swimming-pool approach.  I get on my stomach, spin to swing my legs over, I have to stop and think which leg has to go first, because at one point all of my weight will be put on one leg, and if I put it on the wrong leg, I will end up putting all of my weight on my butt on the concrete.  I shimmy down in a move that would have made James Brown proud (and I think at one point during the maneuver I actually did end up jumping back and kissing myself...at least I hope that was myself).  I gather everything and place it on the back of the boat and start to board again looking like a drunk gymnast on the uneven bars.  The good news is, the actual winterizing went surprisingly easy.  I closed the boat back up, put my tools away, and start to get a little down.

See, this boat has been a three year project.  I was one mechanical piece away from having it on the water.  Life being what it is, all summer I struggled to find time to finish the last little bit.  When I was laid off, my immediate thought was to finish it up while on severance and waiting for a job and this project would be finally be done.  Then I got cancer.  It is times like these that make you really hate the disease.  I have said before I feel like cancer took two months of my summer, and it took this too.  The part that really bothers me is work inside the boat has to be done at certain temperatures.  If it is too cold, you can crack the fiberglass just by getting into it while it's on the trailer.  As I am shutting my shop back up, I got mad, I got depressed, I got sweaty, and I got tired again.  Now I am even more mad.  I can't even get mad without getting winded!

After a two or three hour nap, my parents call.  During the conversation, they mention they are looking for another vehicle.  I get mad at cancer again.  I had planned on getting one of my spare vehicles rebuilt for them after the boat.  The reality of the situation is, that if I had finished the boat, I probably would have spent too much time on it the rest of the summer to finish that vehicle for them, but that isn't the point.  The point is because of cancer I will never know.  For the past two months, cancer has controlled what I can do, where I can go, what I can eat and drink, when I sleep, when I stay awake, just about every aspect of my life and I am getting really (curse word) tired of it!!!  Even when I get furious about it and want to do something, all I can summon the energy to do is nap.

Tomorrow, I go to my cancer group.  It can be a depressing setting sometimes, but I still walk out of there feeling better.  It really is what it advertises to be, just a place where you and your cancer colleagues can talk about how you are feeling and how to deal with it.  My only apprehension about going tomorrow, is I have some errands I would like to run as well.  I am afraid to do my errands, because at the rate I have been going I will be exhausted by group.  Again, cancer is acting like a helicopter parent.  You aren't going to the music store and the bike shop before group are you?  You may get tired.  And you better take a jacket, it is supposed to be a little chilly tomorrow and you know how you get when you are fighting cancer... 

The only bright spot of today is that I am still tired, because I did limit myself to one nap.  I have been fretting over getting the boat winterized, so at least that is one thing I don't have to worry about now.  So maybe, with a little less on my mind and still being tired, I will go to sleep before 3am.  And tomorrow I will get to talk to the people at the cancer clubhouse.  If I can run two or three errands on the way, it will be a good day.

Chemo: My Everest

I feel like I just climbed Mt. Everest!  No, I don't have any life changing sense of accomplishment.  As I look up the stairs getting ready to climb them to go to the bathroom, much like the people on Everest, I think to myself that I don't know if I can make it or not.  And much like the people on Everest, I consider just going in my pants.  Just like those climbers, when I reach my goal, I am out of breath and fatigued.  And finally, just like an Everest climber, I spent upwards of $30,000 to get where I am today.

Why am I comparing myself to an Everest climber?  In some ways our bodies are going through the same thing right now.  Altitude sickness is caused when there is less oxygen to breathe.  The body reacts by eventually producing more red blood cells.  During chemotherapy, your red blood cells are decreased, thereby your body is not able to absorb as much oxygen.  The body reacts the same way, you have to wait for more red blood cells to be produced.  I just hope that the body produces red blood cells while I sleep, because that is about all I have been able to do without getting winded (and to be honest, even that got me winded at one point today).

The thing that sucks most about this, is the cancer insomnia is still messing with me.  I seem to be sleeping anytime except when people normally sleep.  Yesterday, I was able to fight the urge to sleep most of the day, just taking a brief nap late morning and then again in the afternoon (hey, I am really tired, it was hard to resist sleep even that much).  But last night, as I lay down, for the one and only time during the whole day, I felt wide awake.  And I felt that way until 3am.  I finally fell asleep, woke up early in the morning as usual to drink and pee, the back asleep until almost 11am.  At this point, I am still dead tired, but I have a meeting to go to, so I start getting ready.  The shower and breakfast seemed to jolt my system awake and I felt good as I start to go out to my car.  Before I get out the door I hear the tornado sirens.  I walk up the stairs, and start feeling tired again.  I really want to go to this meeting.  The news channels are all doing their best to scare the hell out of everyone, which on one hand I don't care about, but on the other hand, if I do run into this tempest that they are alluding to, I don't know that I have the energy to do anything about it.  Reluctantly, I just decide to pull my Jeep into my workshop, because now they are saying they have "heard reports" of hail the size of housecats.  I like how they can't say that there is hail the size of domestic felines, because everyone would know that they are just making up crap.  BUT, if they say that they "heard reports" they can say any darn thing they want to, when they are still probably just making crap up.  Luckily, I come back down to the house and see an e-mail stating that the meeting was being cancelled due to the impending tornado and small-mammal sized hail.

I was able to stay awake for the storm, which turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.  One of our apple trees broke, but it was so full of woodpecker holes, I don't know if it was broken because of the wind from the storm or just a squirrel with a thyroid problem.  As soon as the storm passed (but the all the Chicken Little reporters were still keeping up their Stormbuster 7000 Radars on TV), I fell asleep on the couch.  I wake up four hours and one basenji later (I swear there wasn't a basenji laying on me when I fell asleep) and I am still dead tired!  Shortly after that, I decide to do something and I played guitar until I was completely fatigued (about thirty minutes), and then I had to resign myself to collapsing on the couch again.  At one point, I did muster up enough energy to get a vigorous two minute Shake Weight routine in, so I guess I will only look a third like one of those guys on the TV commercials after today's workout.

The whole rest of the night, I have felt like I am walking around with wrist weights and ankle weights on.  You know those weights that people sometimes buy to get exercise, but they are so heavy the result is that they put them on and do less than they did before?  The point is, I am walking around with my arms hanging down like a gorilla with a bad back.  What really sucks is as tired and worn out as I am right now, I am not sleepy tired if that makes any sense.  So, that is why I am writing blogs at midnight.  I guess I should at least get off here and go lay in bed and stake my claim before the basenjis do.

A Bunch of Crap About Chemo...

Tomorrow is supposed to be my "bottoming out" day.  Supposedly my red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets will be at their lowest.  Best case scenario is my numbers are within range and they kick me out of there allowing me to resume my normal activities...which quite frankly, since the surgery and unemployment I haven't had any "normal activities" to speak of.  Worst case scenario, my numbers are dangerously low and they check me into the hospital until they come back up.  It's not that big of a deal, except the hospital TVs aren't high definition and they don't have any of the good channels I have become accustomed to in my weeks of lying on the couch moaning.  They check other numbers in your blood too, including liver function, which leads me to a peculiar observation.

One side effect that wasn't mentioned in our chemo class is a strange discoloration in the toilet.  For a day or two, no matter what business I had in the bathroom, it was coming out yellow.  Now for half of the bathroom business that is perfectly normal.  For the other half, you are perplexed and wondering just how many bananas you ate.  First time, I thought it was a fluke.  Second time, I was a little more concerned.  Third time, I opened the big folder we received at chemo class and poured over it, trying to figure out exactly where this particular side effect would be listed.  Having my oncologist's twenty-four hour number and e-mail, I decided the best thing to do would be...look it up on the internet.  I just sat there on Google's web search for a while trying to figure out the best way to search this, without coming up with a bunch of disgusting (well even more disgusting) results.  Finally a found a combo of words that looked this up as a medical curiosity and not a fetish.  Surprisingly there was a lot of information on the subject.  My research seemed to narrow it down to one of two things.  Either it was no big deal and it would go away with time, or it meant I was in liver failure and I would probably die before I finished reading the article.  This is not the type of information you want to read right before bedtime.

I go to bed, eyes wide open, trying to see if I can feel my liver dying.  I can't.  I get back up and get back on the internet for more information.  Most of the sites that say you are going to die immediately mention that you will also notice your eyes turning yellow as it gets more serious.  I don't know if that means you are getting full of crap up to your eyeballs or what.  But, that hasn't happened yet, so I guess I still have time to finish today's blog entry before I die.  And in my tired state I wonder, if the whites of my eyes turn yellow, can I go get a kid's pair of sunglasses with the blue lenses and make my eyes look green, because that would be cool.  Or red lenses and they'd be orange.  Well, it didn't matter.  After checking my eyes repeatedly every time I walk past a mirror, so far no yellow.  But this is something I am going to ask the nurse about.  Not if I am OK, I'm asking why she didn't warn us about that in the class.  Getting up from doing work like that and seeing yellow is a little startling.  It must be some chemo nurse practical joke that they do.  "Hey Susan, you see that guy over there, I didn't tell him his poop turns yellow."  I do think I heard two nurses laughing hysterically as I was leaving chemo.

However, this is one of the few times my gastro-intestinal problems have helped me in life.  One of the big problems with many chemotherapy drugs is...well back-ups.  So much so that many patients come out of chemo with major hemorrhoids.  My main GI problem is that I go too often in that respect.  When we met with my GI doctor, he said the easy thing for me, instead of having to take the drugs to counteract the chemo effects, I could just quit taking most of my regular drugs for my GI issues.  And it worked!  My GI issues and my chemo side effects have combined to make me feel like I normal crapper...well except for the yellowness. I will take discoloration over hemorrhoids any day!

As I prepare for tomorrow, I am trying to think of anything I need to take in case I do get checked in to the hospital, although I am not feeling too bad, just really tired.  And I am trying to think of the best way to ask my chemo nurse about miscolored manure.  Hopefully, I will be back on here tomorrow to let you know what happened!

Chemo, Dry Mouth, and Tiny Barstools

Yet another morning that I have woken up around 6am and been unable to go to sleep.  I popped up to use the bathroom and as usual, I have to get back in the bed by playing a mix of human Tetris and Operation.  If I make my body into a "T", and rotate it to the right, I should be able to slide between my wife and two dogs..."GROAN"...oops, looks like my Charlie Horse bumped the side of a basenji.  Yeah, that's how my days have been starting lately.  But this morning, I was still needing something.  I couldn't place my finger on it, and then finally it dawned on me that I was dying of thirst.  Because of the chemotherapy I have been drinking literally a gallon of fluids aevery day, mostly water, but I was already thirsty at 6:30.  I got up and grabbed a quart/liter bottle of water, and it was pretty much gone by 8am!  Of course the water has to go somewhere, so now there is no way I am going to be able to get back to sleep.

So, I lay there wide awake, my mind wandering aimlessly, and looking at the empty quart/liter bottle beside me, I thank God that I can't drink alcohol, because being able to down a quart of fluid before 8am would not be a good attribute to have if I preferred alcohol over water.  Then for some reason I think how someday it would be cool to have one of those little basement bars to have friends over.  I don't know why, I don't drink and I don't really have friends.  But I am a connoisseur of microbrew sodas...as long as they are root beer, grape, or orange.  Yeah, I am kinda the exact opposite of those Dos Equis commercials.  He has a collection of nearly 15 different bottles...all root beer...he is, the Least Interesting Man in the World.    And because I am bored, unemployed, on chemo with nothing better to do, I surf to see if there are any cool music related barstools for the bar I have yet to build in the basement I don't have, so I can invite my non-existent friends (but I may actually have friends if I have a bar).  I am very surprised at the variety of barstools.  Five thousand different types of barstools!?!?

Now here is where chemo, boredom, insomnia, and the internet come together and cause you to come up with really stupid ideas, that sound really good at the time.  I am looking at the variety of barstools and see they are all different styles and heights, so I wonder what shortest barstool is.  Eighteen inches!  Do realize just how short that is?  Go ahead and get out a tape measure or yardstick and check, that is unbelievably short!  Did you do it?  Why would anyone need a barstool that tiny?  Then my great idea hatches.  Wouldn't it be funny to build your bar with the little tiny barstools, but the regular height bar?  Or what would be even better, is to make the bar tiny as well.  Or wait, wait (this is the insomnia induced hallucinations kicking in) instead of building a regular two or four seat bar with regular barstools, build one that looks like a real tavern or pub with like a dozen little tiny barstools and a little tiny bar.  And then stock it the back with all the usual liquors and add juice boxes, and then whenever you get a salesman trying to sell you insurance, or replacement windows, or their religion which is better than yours even though they never ask what your religion is, you can sound very excited and offer to talk about it over a drink.  You take them down to your little tiny bar with a dozen little tiny seats and when they order a "7 and 7" you can get out a sippy cup say "I have the Seagram's, but not the 7-up, I'll have to use a lemonade Caprisun."  That is when the salesman should go screaming our of your house.  If he isn't freaked out by that, you should probably call the police.  As I ponder this brilliant plan more, I think of how this is a very expensive joke for messing with a few salesman, because let's face it, they won't be back so it's not like you can use this little prank multiple times.

I then think about how if I have come up with great ideas like that as a teetotaler, it's probably good that I can't drink and come up with drunk ideas like that.  And as my mind wanders again, I wonder if my lack of drinking contributes to my picky eating.  Because let's face it, in a bar people will try anything!  In my previous life I spent five years working in bars (I know, what a great place for someone who can't drink to work, but I was just the DJ) and I have seen the crazy concoctions the bartenders would come up with and people would drink.
"Hey, I just came up with a new drink, the Skunk's Butthole."
"Oh, that tastes horrible!  But the alcohol is going straight to my head, gimme two more."
And if you think I am exaggerating, I will enter into evidence the Cement Mixer.  If you aren't familiar with this, you put Bailey's Irish Cream together with lime juice which causes it to curdle in your mouth.  Every part of that sound disgusting to me, but obviously enough people like it that any bartender will know exactly how to make it!

So my thoughts come full circle, I start the morning off with a dry mouth caused by my chemotherapy and through sleep deprived delusions I decide that my gastro-intestinal issues that cause me not to drink alcohol, are also the reason I am not eating a better variety of food.  Seems like a straight forward stream of thought when I leave out the part about the tiny barstools.  So now, I am kind of awake, feel the chemo working, and I really have to pee.  Part of me says to go back to bed because I need the rest to continue doing well on chemo, but I am sure if I do, I will sleep even worse tonight and more than likely pee the bed because in addition to the quart of water, I also have already had a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and opened another quart of water.  I guess I will just stay on the internet and come up with more brilliant ideas.

Insomnia Has A Name, And Thy Name Is Daisy

For one of the first times since all of this cancer stuff happened, I think I had a decent night's sleep last night.  I still woke up at 6:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep, but I don't remember waking up in the middle of the night and that is a big improvement.

Of course, I know part of my insomnia is caused by worrying that I have cancer.  Who would've thought that?  But I think I am narrowing down a physical cause as well.  For those unfamiliar with basenjis, they love sleeping on the bed, and they love to be touching people while they sleep.  This is where my problem seems to lie, on the bed.  I have been referring to our newest basenji (the abused/neglected rescue one) as the "Immovable Object" because once she curls up, it's hard to get that lump of a dog to go anywhere else.  What I am finding out is the Immovable Object does tend to drift at times.  As she gets more accustomed to us, she seems to drift from the foot of the bed, to the head, I think because we have a ritual of a good ear scratching before we get up every morning.  (I scratch her ears, not the other way around.  And not us scratching our own ears, we could do that anytime.)  My hypothesis is that she works her way up during the night anticipating the massage that will come later.  No matter what the cause, she is moving.  So now, when I go to bed I feel like an early California settler.  I have to stake my claim to my property to try to prevent my four legged claim jumper from stealing my mining rights to that section of mattress.  If I should happen to get up in the middle of the night, or roll over and give her an inch or two of space, I can consider that part of the bed gone for eternity.  You have better luck cutting to the front of the line for the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World than you do of gaining any ground on Daisy the basenji!  And anyone that has stood in that line for the Jungle Cruise and the M.C. Escher way the queue wanders around, knows exactly what I am talking about.  It dawned on me last night that this may be what is going on when I rolled over and found that I had to perform a contortionist's move from Cirque Du Soleil:  La Chienne Stupide to pull my legs out and around what now seems to be a concrete lawn statue of a sleeping dog.  Not an easy feat when you are barely a month recovered from having your midsection hacked up by the Testicle Fairy (if you leave teeth under your pillow, where was I supposed to leave that?).  So although I have seemed to keep my chemo meds in check enough to get to sleep, I have no remedy for immovable but drifting concrete basenjis.

One thing that has seemed to be working is avoiding naps during the day and maybe even a little workout as well.  I am trying to perform this dance on chemo where I wear myself out enough to sleep solidly for a few hours, but not letting myself get run down, which is pretty much a feeling you have all the time on chemo.  As I mentioned yesterday, I played Wii for a little while.  Not Wii like kids play, Wii like old people play.  You know, bowling, badminton, ski jump, anything that involves standing in one place, slightly moving, and still calling it "exercise".  Whatever you want to call it, it left me winded after a while.  Today I hopped on our elliptical machine.  A machine I ridiculed when I was younger and thinner.  I would say that only a fat lazy person would use an elliptical machine over a treadmill or stepmill, and as a fat lazy person that was sweating profusely on an elliptical machine today, I realize I was right.  I had high hopes.  In better times, I hop on there hit one of the half hour programs, pump up the resistance, and burn a thousand calories.  Today, I hopped on there, hit the three hundred calorie program, started hurting after fifty calories, crying after seventy five, and called it quits at one hundred.  Baby steps.  Well, funny loopy shaped baby steps.  

Whether from wimpy workouts, nausea induced dieting, or just being one heavy nut lighter, the scale did say I lost twelve pounds today!  However, that scale usually doesn't talk to the doctor's scale and tell it how much I have lost, because they have vastly different numbers at times.  Maybe at the doctor's office I should strip naked and get on the scale right after I pee since that is what has been working at home.  That might frighten other people in the waiting room though.  Especially if they aren't aware that I am there for testicular cancer, because they may just see the fresh scar and that one of the boys has gone A.W.O.L. and run out of the office to find a different, non-testicle removing doctor.  At any rate, between the weight change, sleep, exercise, and everything else, I seem to be holding my own against chemo.  It has me a little worried about what I may face as my blood cells continue to drop, but right now I am just focusing on getting better and so far that seems to be working.

100 Pound Head and 3 Noxious Clouds

If the absence of a blog wasn't enough of a clue, I will fill you in, yesterday was a bad day.  Ever since this started, my head started feeling like it weighed about one hundred pounds (about forty five kilograms to my metric friends).  At the same time, I couldn't focus on anything.  I had several books that I had set aside to read that have just one or two page sections.  Even that was too much to concentrate on.  Last night, I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  I read through my chemo packet to see what could be done about it, and I don't find this sort of thing listed.  As I flip through and it turns out it was the medication to help chemo go smoother that was causing it!  The same medication that I started taking religiously, because I was under the mistaken impression that it would help me feel better.  My wife had to call the doctor for me, I couldn't even focus on that.  Somehow during their conversation they realize that my wife has a medication that she has laying around that doubles as a chemo med. There is a part of me that is curious as to why this med is laying around and how it came up in conversation, but at the time, me and my hundred pound head didn't care.  That has certainly helped and my head is down to about fifty pounds today and shrinking.

Another one of the side effects of chemo is a hypersensitivity to smells.  I guess that is why my wife decided to cook chili yesterday (a food that I hate) and stink up the whole house and houses we plan on moving to in the future.  She was very apologetic once she realized what happened, so I couldn't be mad.  So I decided to escape the Black Pepper Death and go up and organize things in my workshop.  It was there that my mother-in-law decided to start the lawn tractor.  I heard her head over there and started to run as fast as a guy with one nut and an open wound can run, but it was too late.  She started it.  She wasn't wanting to do anything, just see if it would start.  Of course, it ran rough spewing out all kinds of malodorous aromas, and basically creating a grey cloud of exhaust stench in the area I was working, which matched the chili cloud at the house.  I stepped outside waiting for it to clear, but it was too late.  It had already taken up residence in my clothes.  So, at this point I can't stand the smell of my workshop, the smell of my house, or the smell of myself.  I guess it was time for me to take a shower anyway.

And of course the regular chemo side effects did kick in as well.  A couple times I felt nauseous.  But most of the time I had the rear attack occur, something I believe the Germans refer to as "der Puup und Schpladder".  However, today is already been a big improvement over yesterday.  I am supposedly over the chemo hump as most of the poison should be exiting my system today, even if it is sometimes exiting at a very high velocity, at least it is exiting.  Hopefully by tomorrow I will feel a lot better and able to write a much longer, much more boring blog.

I Certainly Feel Like a Chemo Patient

OK, I am officially tired of being a chemo patient.  Only about thirty hours into this and the routine has gotten old.  A lot of the things I was told to expect in the first couple of days have already come true.  Some not quite the way I had expected.

I am tired all the time.  The doctors were correct about that.  And I do sleep all the time.  What I didn't realize is that it would only be for about an hour at a time.  All night it would be fall asleep, wake up an hour later.  Stay awake miserable and tired for ten minutes or so, then fall asleep again.  And again, for only an hour.  And it isn't just at night, it's all the time.  I just get incredibly tired during the day and fall asleep.  Waking up and I think that's OK, I have finally gotten my share of rest, then I look at the clock, and it's only been about an hour.  I think the atomic clock should call me to check their accuracy.  Luckily, I usually manage to fall asleep just when there is something I really wanted to watch on TV.  This gives me the opportunity to see it new all over again when it gets repeated sometime next month or whenever!  Not that I am getting bitter about all of this or anything.

Why I am not sleeping well?  Have you ever had a big Italian meal, fallen asleep on the couch right after, and woke up with that overwhelming garlicy/metallic taste in your mouth?  Yeah, that's been my life for about the past twenty four hours.  Not just after I wake up, but also when I take a deep breath, when I cough or sneeze, or sometimes even when I blink.  I swear it is that taste that has been waking me up.  Luckily, that should end sometime tomorrow or early Monday.

The nauseousness should end about the same time.  The medicine they gave me works great for five hours!  The only problem is I can only take it every six hours.  At least the when my stomach starts shaking like an unbalanced washing machine on a Harley, I know it's about time to take my next pill.  The related side effect has come true as well.  You get hyper sensitive to smells...and tastes.  Something may smell soooo good, then you taste it and it's just "blah".  I ate a slice of my favorite cheese and it tasted like I was eating a hunk of wax.  The basenjis enjoy that side effect because it usually leads to more treats for them.  But there is one more side effect that is just the icing on the cake that smells good that I don't want to eat....

Chemo patients mouths start drying out.  You aren't allowed to use any conventional mouthwash because it can just cause your mouth to dry out more, so what do you do?  You rinse with water and salt!  Yes, when you are already nauseous nothing will get your hunger back like gagging on salt water.  The recommendation is that you rinse with the salt water gagger every two hours when you're awake and every four to six when you are asleep!!!  So if I do happen to get a good night's sleep I am supposed to wake up in the middle of it to gag?!?!

Oh well, at least I am on the healing road.  This is the last major challenge in my treatment, so I am glad that when all of the insomnia, gagging, gargling, and garlic taste ends, my cancer journey should be a lot easier.  Well, I think I will make this a shorter one today.  I am sure it's about time to gargle-gag and take a nap, and judging by the way my stomach is dancing, it's also about an hour away from my next pill too.

So This Is What Platinum Tastes Like...

And so it begins...  We got up this morning and I was all prepared for chemo, because being prepared is kind of my thing.  And after going down the driveway and coming back twice, I was really prepared for chemo.  We get there and my pulse and blood pressure aren't too high considering how nervous I felt inside.  They stick me for a final blood count and I am cleared to begin chemo.  That's when the inevitable cancer-hurry-up-and-wait game starts.

I guess so many people do multiple rounds of chemo, that they just assume everyone is a repeat customer.  I sign in at the first desk, get my room number, and am told to head on back.  The nurse, my wife, and I all just pause in an awkward silence until we ask where "on back" is.  The nurse, a little embarrassed, realizes we are chemo novices.  She walks us back to the area and tells us to sign in when we get to our room number.  Another nurse walks up and tells me I can go ahead and set up.  In another awkward silence pause (which my wife and I are getting pretty good at by now) this nurse also realizes we are newbies and helps me pick out a recliner.  The rooms are sorted by medical needs.  The more serious people are in one room and people like me that aren't doing too bad physically get this room.  Everyone in the room is really nice and several of them greet us.  One couple even swaps around recliners so my wife can sit next to me.  I tilt back the recliner, but I am still nervous as hell, uncontrollably clicking my feet together like I want to be taken back to Kansas.  Another waiting game.  Finally they come get my IV started.  She says it's a "small" needle, and it is small in diameter, but the needle and all of the apparatuses protruding from it were about the same length as a Ford Fiesta (I would still rather be seen with the needle that in a Fiesta though).  She slides the needle in from the back of my hand to about my elbow, and starts the IV.  I think that we are ready to start now.  Wrong.  Hurry up and wait.  Again.  She wants to double check all of the orders with the oncologist.  I guess I am fine with waiting if it is to make sure I get the right thing.  She comes out with some needles, now we are ready to go!  Nope.  That's just the drugs to make the chemo go easier.  She says they are just for my stomach, I don't need anything for nerves, because I am doing just fine.  Damn, I must be a better actor than I thought, because I am definitely NOT fine!  Doesn't she see my feet bouncing like I am on crank and trying to tap out S.O.S. in Morse code over and over again?  I guess I should take a little comfort in the fact that it looks like I am calm.  In what seems like several days later, the nurse comes out with the cocktail mixed especially for me.  We hang it up and I am on my way to chemoland.

Feeling nervous about side effects, I am expecting to feel flames shooting up my veins with rapid discoloration in my arms causing a purple and blue paisley pattern that would make Prince jealous, but nothing.  Nothing really.  I brought about three suitcases worth of things to do while I was there, so of course I decide to sleep. But my wife is still by my side, if she is making the effort to stay by my side every step of the way, I am not going to go to sleep on her.  Finally, the nurse and I both assure her that I am not going to "shotgun" my latest IV bag and that it will be a while, she can run the errand that she needs to run.  She leaves.  I curl up in my blanky that one of the nurses gave me.  Maybe she thought my horizontal tap dancing was because I was cold.  It wasn't, but I was cold too, so I snuggled up and reclined all the way back, closed my eyes, and drifted....NOPE wide awake.  Not matter how tired and comfortable I am, I can't sleep.  I brought tons of things that cause me to think, and I can't focus on any of them.  While chained to this chair and pole holding a variety of bags with tubes shoot inside of me, I also planned on using my time to e-mail back some of the people that I have been meaning to talk to.  As many of you know, that obviously didn't happen either.  In desperation, I get my phone out and start to read the entertainment news.  Obviously, it doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to read entertainment news.  It's always about a couple divorcing, or a rapper getting arrested again, or a sports figure doing something stupid, all you have to do is change the names, and really, does it matter?  As I start to loose myself in items that can hardly be classified as "news", I am told that bending my wrist is putting pressure on the needle that goes from my fingers to my shoulder, so I should probably not do that.

The music in there could be described as light classic rock.  Comfortable, but not annoying or too sappy.  Boston, "Lido Shuffle", "Domino", decent music, but all light rock.  Nothing heavy, no country, no R & B.  And that's when something happened, which was the only time I got emotional in there.  One song I maintain that it is impossible to stay depressed when you listen to it came on the radio, Earth, Wind, and Fire's September.  "...on and on, never was a cloudy day..."  The horns kick in, I lose myself in the music as I always do when I hear that song.  I smile and it dawns on me, this is not "light classic rock" this is totally different from anything they have played the previous two hours.  It was like God Himself thought I needed that song right now and sneaked into the playlist.  It had me pretty emotional, I needed some Earth, Wind, and Fire right then.  A little skeptical, I thought maybe they changed music stations.  Nope, every other song was back to light classic rock.  That made me a little more emotional.  Maybe it's my imagination, but I am going to take it as a sign and enjoy it.

My wife comes in right after that, and my bag is almost done.  I finish my bag and give the nurse one of those stares where you are sure if you stare hard enough that the other person will feel your stare and look up at you.  It worked!  She says "You done?", and comes over and unplugs all of my tubes, hoses, duct work, and slides the katana out of my arm.  Not bad at all.  My arm did have a cold feeling in the vein towards the end, but I assumed that was just from the three feet of cold steel that they slid in there (but it was a small diameter needle, so I shouldn't mind right?).  We jump into the car and rush to see a bunch of people I used to work with for a retirement party for someone who retired a long time ago.  As what generally happens when we all get together the jokes start flying, most of them off color, and I take out my removed "testicle" and slap it on the table in the restaurant (in reality it is a tiny gummy brain we found in the Halloween candy section and trimmed to look like a wayward ball).  Every time I have whipped that out on someone, there is a brief pause as to whether I really just did that or not.  Most people realize that it is probably not what it looks like, but there is always that chance that it is.

I had a blast.  One guy that has known me for about eight years now said, "I know you and you are like me.  If you had any strength at all you were going to drag your butt here."  He was right.  It was good seeing everyone.  We say our goodbyes, and we head home.  I grab some lunch on the way and eat it on the couch. I feel pretty good, so I eat a couple of snacks too.  Belly full, I doze off on the couch thinking this will be alright after all.  Two hours later, I wake up with my stomach feeling like there are a bunch of kids in there treating it like a "Moon Bounce" and they didn't even take off their shoes before they got in!  I ran upstairs to get rid of some of the gallon and a half of liquids I have been drinking today (no exaggeration) and scrub up to put a chemo pill in my mouth.  It works pretty fast.  I feel good right now, except for the taste of metal anytime I take a deep breath and feeling like I haven't slept in two months.  I don't know if that is from the chemo or the fact that I haven't slept in two months.  So, that is why I am writing my blog early tonight.  I think I will take another pill soon and go to bed.  Hopefully my stomach will let me stay there all night.  If not, maybe I will get up and finally e-mail back everyone I have been meaning to e-mail back.

Next Stop, The Chemotorium!

It's official!  I am scared, anxious, excited, and every other emotion about tomorrow's chemo appointment.  For those not familiar with chemo treatment, just about every malady known to man (as well as most animals and a few plants) is considered a "normal side effect" on chemo.  AND every malady known to man, plants, and animals is also an "abnormal side effect" that you should immediately call the hospital about.  So while I am excited to get this big chapter of my fight behind me, I will constantly be worrying about if I have the abnormal side effect or the normal one.  Fever of 100.5', normal!  Fever of 100.6', CALL THE HOSPITAL!  I wish I was making this up.  If I do creep up to 100' in a completely "normal" way, I will obviously start wondering how accurate my cheap little CVS thermometer is.  And since I am normally 97.6'-98', does that mean I have to knock a degree or half a degree off the "Call The Hospital" temperature too?  This is the crap I am fretting about before I have even entered the oncologist's office!  Going to the bathroom too much?  Normal.  Really going to the bathroom too much?  Abnormal!  But it is not that cut and dry (pun not intended), because not going to the bathroom that often?  Normal or abnormal!  Going to the bathroom all the time? Abnormal or possibly normal!  Of course, my mind is worrying that if I go to the bathroom like a normal person, is that abnormal for chemo treatment?  Or maybe I have the really bad not-going-to-the-bathroom symptoms, compounded with the really bad going-too-much symptoms.  How do you know?  Go ahead, think of something, anything, I am sure it is a perfectly normal symptom, that is also abnormal as well.  It doesn't help that as part of my pre-chemo "Honey Do" list, I spent four hours kicking up so much dust, pollen, and dry leaves that now when I blow my nose little sand castles come out.  What does it mean when I start chemo with red eyes, a sore throat, and splitting headache?  With the chemo side effects, should all those symptoms stay the same, or do I call the hospital if they disappear?  On top of that, I am supposed to stop caffeine, which will also give me a splitting headache, how do I know how much headache is allergies and caffeine withdrawal and how much is urgent get-to-the-emergency-room headache.

And then there is the stuff I have to do.  I have to drink gallons of every beverage that doesn't have caffeine in it (which will also surely make me go to the bathroom more, but will it make me go too much?).  I can't touch my hands to my face under any circumstances.  I think I will just have to wear mittens all of the time and use chopsticks to pick up a fork when it's time to eat.  And most importantly, no matter what I touch, whether it be something dirty, something clean, food, myself, soap, anything, I am supposed to immediately sanitize my hands, wash my hands, sanitize again, then walk around the rest of the day holding them up in the air like the doctors on M*A*S*H.  And finally, I am supposed to get plenty of rest.  This part I am actually looking forward to.  They say I will actually be able to rest while on chemo.  Which leads me to my last conundrum.

The actual injection of the chemo is just as straight forward as the side effects.  Everything is normal and abnormal at the same time.  I have books, my phone, video games, snacks, beverages, everything that I may want to do for an hour and a half to two hours.  But, the side effect I am most hoping for is sleeping.  I have been told some people just get really tired during chemo injections and sleep right through it.  I think that would be something I can handle, especially after four weeks of insomnia.  So, with twelve hours to go, I only need to finish gathering up my stuff, and pray that I only have normal abnormalities for the next three to four weeks.  I thank everyone that has sent "Good Luck" messages today.  And tomorrow I will update you on which ailments I have won in the side effect lottery.

57 Hours Left And I'm Told To Get 58 Hours Of Sleep

I am at the "Catch 22" of being a cancer patient and getting ready for chemo.  As I am sure that anyone who has read any of my previous blogs knows, I have been complaining for quite a while about the insomnia that having cancer brings.  All the "what if' questions, the "what's next" questions, and wondering what your results will be of your latest medical probing, because I bet anything that UFO abductees don't get violated as much as cancer patients do.  Sure, UFO abductees get things poked and prodded into every natural orifice, but when you have cancer, they do all that, plus make some new orifices and stick things in there too!

I am told from many cancer survivors that the good thing is, my insomnia will soon be over.  YAY!  Because chemo will kick my butt and leave me a nauseous, quivering, extremely tired pile of goo.  Boo!  Which leads me to the "catch".  Before chemo, most cancer patients are having trouble sleeping.  Part of my late night thoughts are the "what ifs", "what's nexts", and  "where are my results", but the other part is worrying about being a nauseous, quivering, extremely tired pile of goo.  Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to sleeping for more than three hours in one night, it's the quivering pile of nauseous goo stuff that I am not all that excited about.  And because of the butt kicking chemo gives, you are warned by cancer survivors, oncologists, and a wife that's tired of being woken up every three hours, that it is imperative that you be well rested before chemo.  Ah yes, another one of life's cruel jokes!  Here is the thing that will help you sleep well, but you don't get it unless you sleep well before you get it.  This is where you have to believe in Heaven and hell.  Because with crap like this, it is pretty obvious that there is a devil and not only did he invent cancer, but he invented the sadistic side of cancer treatment as well.  Thankfully, there is a God that has helped me a lot through all of this, and worked a miracle or two along the way (which is the elusive forthcoming blog I keep teasing you with).  

Have you ever been nervous or anxious about something, and someone tells you how easy it will be so many times that you have trouble doing it?  "C'mon, it's easy.  Anyone can do it."  Well, that describes my wife and I right now.  She has been a great support to me (even if she won't buy me that PRS guitar) and is extremely concerned about me following all the doctor's orders.  Up to and including, ordering me to bed.  Now we all can remember when we were little kids, being forced to go to bed early on Christmas night and thinking "If I go to sleep right NOW, the next thing I know it will be time to open presents."  And we all remember what happened.  Mom or dad spent the next few hours coming in telling you that you better fall asleep soon, and you still remain wide awake.  That is pretty much the same thing that happens, when my wife orders me to get some rest because I need it.  I know I need it.  And I wish I could sleep.  But I just lay there, the thoughts running through my mind, except now I sit there and count down how many hours until I start chemo and how I need to squeeze about three weeks worth of sleep into the next fifty seven and a half hours.  Maybe if I was going to get a present after chemo, you know to make if feel like Christmas, I would have better luck falling asleep. 

Dear Santa, all I want for Chemo-Christmas is an American made Paul Reed Smith, with double cutaway and twenty-four frets.  If you bring it to me I will go to sleep right, NOW.  Right NOW.  I mean NOW.  OK, I promise to go to sleep soon, and be a very good cancer-free boy.

So here I sit with my midnight curfew that my wife has assigned me approaching fast.  Because I have spent all day doing my pre-chemo "Honey Do" list, I am dead tired.  But since I just finished about an hour ago, my body feels like it hasn't calmed down yet.  So, I guess to make her happy, I will head upstairs and lie in bed thinking about how important it is that I fall asleep right NOW.  And if I can't sleep, I will again count how many hours I have until chemo, and how many of those should be dedicated to sleep, and if that doesn't work I guess I can pick up my cellphone, go to the PRS Guitars website and dream that way.  

Cancer Patients Helping Cancer Patients

I know this may sound odd, but one of the things that has me a little down lately is a get well card I received yesterday.  Not the card itself, the card was very touching and nice.  What has kind of gotten me down is how cancer patients go through their battles.

One of the people I worked with, when I had a job, started her own cancer fight before I left, a fight much, much tougher than mine.  I had the best intentions of sending her a card.  I bought it, thought about what I wanted to say, then I was laid off, and alas, her address is sitting in my work e-mail (which I don't have access to) and I never sent it.  (That makes me part of the problem that I will talk about later.)  I haven't made it a big point to tell people that I used to work with that I'm battling cancer, because I don't want a pity party.  I told some close friends from work, and I know it has gotten spread around my former office, which I am fine with.  I would be even more fine if they took up a big collection and bought me an American made Paul Reed Smith with double cutaway and twenty-four frets (it can even be a used one).  So, I wasn't surprised that this person in her own cancer fight found out that I was in a fight of my own.  What surprised me is in the middle of her cancer fight, she took the time to get me a card, go through some channels to get my address, and send it to me.  I certainly do have people that support me and have sent touching cards, e-mails, and other shows of support.  Heck, if you are reading this right now you are helping me whether you realize it or not.  But this person's card touched me for two reasons.

As a cancer patient, you get so caught up in and focused on treatment and getting well.  Your life revolves around doctors' appointments and treatment plans.  I had one of the biggest events of my life just happen to me (which I will blog about later) and when we were pinpointing the timing, we said, "It was between my diagnosis and my surgery."  Then we go to the calendar to look up the dates.  Today we went to the theater and my wife said, "Oh, that movie opens chemo day".  She said it as smoothly as she would have said "Saturday" or "Labor Day".  Which for some reason makes me wonder, if you can't wear white after Labor Day, what can't you wear after Chemo Day?  Or maybe it's the other way around, after Chemo Day you wear hats and wigs.  Sorry, the affects of the insomnia have been making my thoughts wander.  The point I was getting at, the cancer takes front and center and you forget other things, other events, other people, even other aspects of your own life.  My birthday is not too far down the road, and my father asked me what I wanted.  I was at a loss of what to say, I had been so focused on beating this, I hadn't thought about birthdays.  I bet it took me a good twenty seconds before I was able to give him a list of what I wanted, an American made PRS guitar.  Because of this trance that cancer patients get thrown into, it was really touching that another person, currently focused on her own fight, thought about me.

Don't get me wrong, I get tons of support from others in the cancer community.  I would go as far as to say, I don't know if I could do it without them.  But most of them are survivors, or veterans (people that have been battling it for ten years or more), or unfortunately widows.  They certainly know their stuff, but they all have had time to get over the initial shock of the diagnosis that we all go through.  All of us with recent diagnoses tend to get in the information gathering mode, scouring the internet, reading tons of books and brochures, talking to every doctor, oncologist, nurse, and veterinarian that will listen to you, and listening to those that have already been through this.  Even if it is sometimes the guy that goes into great depth to tell you that despite what your doctor tells you, you should still be scared to death because he read on-line that all cancers like to hide like little snipers in bones and blood and your appendix (even if it has been removed) just waiting to jump out and give you more cancer when you least expect it.  Us newly diagnosed are usually too busy crapping our pants from fright to spend a lot of time reaching out to support others, especially if we talked to the cancer sniper guy.

The card cheered me up immensely.  Then, as they day went on, it saddened me.  Not the card or who it came from, it's much deeper than that.  The cards and e-mails have definitely slowed down (again, present company excepted, several people will e-mail me after they have read something on my blog).  I know from my own fight, yes the surgery was a big deal, but certainly not what I consider my toughest fight.  I am fretting much more about the chemo than I ever did for the operation.  The list of chemo side effects they are required to read to you sounds like they are reading the entire Physician's Desk Reference, even the parts about the parts you don't have.  I haven't heard that many side-effects since the last time I saw an erectile dysfunction drug commercial.  As you gear up for the toughest parts of your fight, the support trails off.  It's not like having a baby, or a gallbladder removed, or getting married, where there is intense pain at the beginning and then the healing starts (except for getting married, where you never heal, you just accept your fate).  Cancer treatment is constant ups and downs, physically and mentally.  No, I am not begging for cards, I am just talking about the reality for cancer patients.  Sometimes when we are ready to face our biggest battles, we have the least support in our network.  And knowing several cancer survivors, I will admit to being part of the problem sometimes.

As I go through this I am making my own vow, that from now on when someone I know gets diagnosed with cancer, I will make an effort to not just send them a card, but send them several cards and e-mails.  Because now I know, even though other people may have forgotten that you are still in the fight in your life, you are still in the fight, be it alone, or with family, or with friends, or with every friend on Facebook, even the ones you aren't sure who they are or how they got on your Friend's List.  When dealing with cancer, the more support the better.  And if anyone is taking notes, an American made PRS would sure give me a lot of support...

More Insomnia, Too Tired To Sleep...

I started out this evening writing my blog fairly early.  For literally three hours, I have been writing gibberish, not like my normal gibberish, this was more gibberishy that usual.  And the fact that I normally write this crap and think "that's not bad" and tonight I actually admitted I was writing something terrible, you can only imagine how bad version one of tonight's edition was.

This week has been such a emotional roller coaster of highs, disappointments, anxiety, elation, relief, excitement, shock, confusion, and back to anxiety.  The worst part about this cancer, is it seems the more rested you are the more positive your thoughts are.  The cruel twist to cancer, is it keeps you up very late, like I am right now, and that's when the extreme pessimistic thoughts come in.

I would like to think my cancer induced insomnia is only affecting me.  Yeah, sometimes I feel like my butt is dragging, but exactly what do you have to do when you are an unemployed testicular cancer patient that is limited to lifting about ten pounds and walks like a pirate with a wooden leg and arthritis?  But I know that my being this way is taking an emotional toll on my wife, and what scares me to death is that it maybe taking a physical toll on her too.  So what happens?  Well you dwell on that fact, making it even harder to fall asleep, you fall deeper and deeper into your despair like you are spinning in the whirlpool as your health goes down the drain, except it seems like the drain just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

The irony in all of this is when you are finally at the point of physical exhaustion and you crash, you wake up completely rested (usually about three hours later) and you feel great!  My wife asks me to please just come to bed and watch television, or read a book, or play on the laptop, anything, just come to bed.  And when she asks me I have every intention of doing that.  But as the day draws down, and I find myself getting ready to go to bed, the thoughts creep in.  Do you remember how the old cartoons always seemed to have robbers as these big burly guys, with buzzed-cut hair, black masks over their eyes, usually wearing dark yellow shirts with black pants, and tiptoeing around with little sacks?  I feel like those guys are walking around in my brain stuffing little bits of my sanity in their little bags and tiptoeing out with that "tinkle tinkle tinkle tinkle" sound effect.  And I don't know how to stop them.  And I don't know why they wear those little masks just over their eyes, wouldn't you still be able to identify them?  And why do they always "tinkle tinkle tinkle" when they walk?  These are the kinds of brilliant observances you make at three in the morning, when you are either lying wide awake or sobbing about the stress you are putting on your loved ones.  It wouldn't be so bad if I  was coming up with something to make me a millionaire like a jetcar or the next Flowbee, or how about finding a cure for cancer, that would solve my insomnia and the cause of it!  But no, I am thinking of cartoon robbers and wondering how come my sanity can fit in such small bags as they tinkle off with it.

The thoughts are crazy.  First and foremost, my wife and I received some great news that is really the driving force for me to fight as hard as possible to get better as quick as possible.  And I also can see the finish line now to all of this cancer crap.  Well, at least the finish line for the treatment, the observation part is a different story.  But as I get closer to starting chemo, and as we buy more stuff to sustain me for the next four weeks, what I first envisioned as a sprint to the finish gets longer everyday.  It soon changed to a marathon, then hurdles on the marathon, then hurdles on an ironman triathlon, and now it feels like I am getting ready to do the Tour De France but I don't have a bike.

And the thing that makes all of this worse, is there isn't a surefire way to cure these feelings.  My wife took me out today and distracted me at stores and I actually enjoyed shopping with her.  Yes, you read that correctly, a man actually enjoyed shopping with his wife!!!  Just proofreading it, I want to call myself a liar, but it actually happened.  And I know what you are thinking, you're saying "Yeah Tom, that's what happens when they cut out one of your nuts, you start enjoying shopping with your wife."  Who knows, that maybe right.  It's hard to argue with that logic.  But the point I was getting at, shopping may not be the smartest thing to do for an unemployed cancer patient.  I mean, we need the stuff we bought, I just hope I am not trying to plug up the drain so the whirlpool stops with shopping.  But these things are just distractions.  I want a cure.  If we treated my cancer this way the doctor would have said, "OK, you have testicular cancer and we figured the best thing to do is to give you a brand new Paul Reed Smith guitar, American made with double cutaway."
I would be like, "But doc, what about the cancer?"
"Did I mention it has twenty-four frets?"
"Thanks doc!  I'm cured!  But why is the lump still here?"

Although that would have been really nice, and I could have bought at least five of those guitars in the past month with the money spent on medical bills, it would have been the same as what is happening now.  Sure, I would feel good for the time being, but eventually I am back alone in my dark place, which I mean quite literally as I sit in the basement with all the lights out except for the glow of the computer monitor, hoping that my wife will see all the lights out and think that I am in bed.  Sometimes I stack the basenjis up in a line where I should be laying, so there is something in my place when she rolls over needing something to sleep-smack.  So I sit here night after night, writing gibberish, and feeling sorry for myself.  Sometimes it is a catharsis that makes me feel better.  Other times it is only a diversion until I get exhausted.  All I know is I have someone up there that loves me and can't wait for me to get better, so I should probably get off of here and slide the basenjis over before she sleep-smacks again and notices me missing.

Trials of a Cancer Insomniac

I really don't know what has been going on lately, but for whatever reason, I haven't been sleeping well since my operation.  Being unemployed, this isn't too big of a deal, because I can always sleep in late, and the basenjis don't seem to mind since sleeping is pretty much all that they do all day anyway.  Well, that and beg, and insist that they go outside, I mean come in, nope back out, um back in, etc.  However, for my wife, being employed, it is more of a problem.  When I slide in to bed at two or three or four, I don't just quickly slide in to bed.  I have to try to do it without disturbing the dogs who have taken over my side of the bed.  And if you do disturb them, the timid rescued one inevitably steps on the old grumpy one, who growls and makes whatever noise that is that basenjis make, which is a sound just horrible enough to wake everyone up.

Now I may not know why I am not getting tired, but I do know why I am having trouble falling asleep when I do finally lay down.  I don't know about other cancer patients, but it seems like there is nothing worse than being alone with your thoughts.  When it is dark and quiet, regardless if you are watching TV or reading (I occasionally will pick up a magazine or one of those things that look like thick magazines with less pictures and harder covers), your mind goes to what consumes most of your thoughts and more than likely what you have been purposely trying not to think about all day.  During the day, you can always call someone, even if it is just your health insurance company to chat with them to say, despite previous reports, you DO still have insurance with them and you would appreciate them paying the $16,900 bill you just received in the mail.  Or during the day you could text someone, or if you wife is home you can start holding you side (try to remember which side your surgery was on, it makes it more believable if you hold that side) and moan when you pick up the trash bag, the dog, the ice cube tray, or anything else that she expects you to do yourself.  At night, all of these options are gone.  And with no one to steer you thoughts, the ever present thoughts creep in.

One of the things I have been doing when I can't sleep is blogging (I don't know if I should apologize for that or not) and playing on the computer.  No matter what I start out looking for on the computer, eventually I end up adding cancer to the search at some point during the night.  In some ways that has helped.  Bored and restless, one night I just typed in "funny testicular cancer t-shirts" and I was amazed and how many popped up!  My favorite saying "I kicked testicular cancer in the ball".  I have also found out a lot about cancer types and treatments, including things that told us that Dr. Jekyll was taking us in a vastly different direction than any other oncologist that does not possess a bone in his nose and dance around a fire yelling "ooga booga".  But then again, search the internet long enough and you will find at least one person that has gone to a doctor with a bone in their nose and dancing around the fire while ooga-boogaing and it cured their cancer.

There are some good things about being on the internet late and searching out answers to you cancer questions (would that be canswers?), and that is when you are mentally tired, you tend to be more honest with yourself emotionally.  I find myself late at night on the various support group websites, asking questions about my treatment and answering others questions.  It seems that the very second you hear your cancer diagnosis, there is one aspect of cancer you are instantly an expert in, and that is how it feels to have cancer.  You see more topics on cancer emotions than treatment, or life expectancy, or anything else.  And on a lot of the message boards, it is a caretaker asking the cancer consortium why their loved one is acting the way that they are.  For some reason it makes you feel better to know that you are helping others with their cancer journeys, whether they are the cancer patient or their loved ones attempting to care for them.  It sometimes feels like you're helping someone else on their journey, but you have no idea where you are going on yours.  Who knows, my wife may be on one of those boards asking if anyone gets called "mean" in a blog if they don't bring their cancer stricken spouse ice for their Pepsi.

Let me break for just one second and give a warning about late night internet surfing when you aren't really thinking about what you are typing.  Let's say that someone had offered to give you an old Ford economy car that is no longer roadworthy, and you are looking for some ideas on how to use the engine, transmission, etc.  Now this is the voice of experience speaking here, I would advise AGAINST typing into your search engine the phrase "things to do with old Escort".  That brought up a series of links that weren't very helpful at all.  Now I have another reason I won't be able to sleep.  And if you can't figure out what kind of pages that will suggest for you, type it in yourself.  I dare you!

The thing about being up late and being mentally spent for the day, is the emotions you have been suppressing all day come to light.  You find tears welling up in your eyes, and it's not just from the scary things that old escorts will do for money.  And the thing is, I don't know if that is necessarily good or bad.  Is it better to keep those emotions buried?  Or should you not let your body get to the point that those emotions surface?  Who's to say?

When I do finally get to the point where my body is exhausted, or I know I simply must lay down and try to fall asleep, that is when my mind's search engine goes crazy.  Two things happen.  Either I am still semi-coherent and my brain is trying to plan out the next ten years and fix all the damage to my life plan that the cancer has just threw out of whack.  Or I am dead tired physically and emotionally and that is when the wildest thoughts and images seem to flash through my mind.  No rhyme or reason really to any of them.  It's almost like someone took a thousand random photographs and magazine advertisements and threw them on the ground in a pile and I am trying to put them all into the same memory.  You could have a picture of you in front of the Christmas tree in your pajamas mixed in with a dolphin jumping in the ocean with new trombones half off and a picture of the Lincoln Memorial and me giving my hat to a monkey.  OK, the last one really did happen, but I was five and I thought the monkey looked cold.  But that is the only way I can think to describe the thoughts that race through my mind.  You lie down and are either drowning in cancer thoughts which just gets you pissed off that again the cancer is screwing up your way of life, or you mind is on overload and it's dumping all of its memory into your visual cortex and you are trying to process it all as you drift off to sleep.  With both situations, you end up jolting yourself awake several times before you fall asleep for good, just in time to hear the alarm go off.

Your nightlife ends up being in that state of limbo where you would love to lie down next to the person that has been your rock and support through all of this and just hold them, but at the same time dreading the mental torment your mind is going to throw at you as thoughts breech the confines of your consciousness unabated.  So that is the dilemma and I end up blogging late and accidentally looking up the activities of senior citizen hookers and my wife falls asleep holding a dog.