Bum Briefing #9

Chemotherapy makes you ponder a lot of things and also creates some strange emotions that are hard to reconcile. Like If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting? Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways? And why does “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing?

Like Beth said in the last briefing, we got great news the last time that my tumor had shrunk roughly 70% and my oncologist was super excited about it. That was a very conflicting feeling for us and you could tell that my oncologist was accustomed to being the harbinger of bad news most days. He wanted us to go out and celebrate, just not with ice cream because of my sensitivity to cold. You can imagine “Great news”, “Celebrate” and “Cancer” do not reconcile easily in the same thought train. 

The combination of modern medicine and my binary structured mind has meant that I really have not suffered from the stereotypical nausea that you hear about a lot. I technically get three different nausea meds. When chemo starts I get all three. One is good for 24 hours, one is 8 hours and one is 6 hours. I learned early on that if I took the label’s advice and only used “as needed” I had a very bad time. When the nausea would set in, the meds couldn’t reign it in, they would stop it from getting worse but not get rid of it completely. I learned that if I take the meds on a specific schedule, then I can prevent the nausea from getting bad in the first place. The 24 hour one is a steroid that I only take for 4 days and also causes me to sleep poorly, and occasionally get debilitating hiccups, not a big fan of that one. I’d take the 8 hour one right when I wake up, four hours later I’d take the 6 hour one. Rinse and repeat all day long so they always overlap. Since I started doing that I’ve had zero nausea issues at all. This apparently was a novel idea that even my pharmacist said she recommends it to her other cancer patients now. 

Typically they don’t recommend making drastic changes to your life while going through cancer treatment. Don’t move, get a new job, change your breakfast cereal or alarm clock wake up time.  For roughly the last 15 years I’ve had a truck and a more sensible car for a daily driver. Well, after some conversations we decided to trade my sedan for a Corvette convertible. I’ve wanted a Corvette since I was a kid playing with matchbox cars. It was one of those irrational things that’s stuck with me my whole life. I fell in love with convertibles in California. The freeing feeling of being fully connected to the world around you while you’re driving. 

One of the things I noticed that’s helped me get through all this, is keeping busy with other things. Just in case you’ve been comatose the past 16 months, there’s been a global pandemic so there really hasn’t been much positive to focus on. But getting a 20 year old convertible has allowed me to connect to my roots and focus on a project. I was a mechanic through high school and college so it’s taken me back to a simpler time and a great way to keep my mind occupied. As Beth put it, sometimes fun has to take priority over function. This is that time. And now she wants a puppy. 

As you’re reading this I’m finishing my final round of IV chemo. I’m thankful to be done with this phase of the treatment. It’s like I’m transitioning off the bike of the ironman triathlon right now. I still have two more phases to go and want to get to it, but I know I need to just wait and take it a day at a time.