An old question revisited

Leroy Sievers had a blog posting regarding this cartoon a few weeks back. It seemed oddly appropriate at the time, as I was spending the day in the hospital for my weekly basting. Fortunately, no one has spotted any doctors with rifles in the hall so far.

Leroy posted a blog recently revisiting an old question - who should we tell, and how should we tell them? It would seem that by now, everyone who knows me, knows that I have cancer. But there are always new acquaintances that pop up where you have to wonder..."What would be gained by telling them I have cancer?". Is it fair to start up a new relationship with someone and leave out that little detail? Or are you gently playing the "cancer card" by letting it slip into the conversation to see what kind of reaction it will elicit? Early on, I was pretty indiscriminate and told everyone - perhaps I could have been more subtle and measured. But it's not news any longer, or at least not for me - it's old news, been there, done that. The cycles of treatment continue on. It's not that I'm just shrugging off cancer - there is scarcely a moment that I can't feel the effects that treatment has on my body. But at this point, I'm less inclined to bring it up when meeting someone new. It just doesn't seem necessary.

Sorry that I've been a bit behind in posting. Between just being busy at work and home (remember, life continues on, cancer or not), and just being a little physically run down, I didn't get anything posted last week. My marker number went back up to 8.5 two weeks ago, and then just as quickly as it went up, it slipped back down to 5.2 this past week. I'm betting that with the reaction that I'm getting already from the last treatment, that we get another big drop. We'll see in few weeks with the next set of measurements.

Revenge is sweet

Not really revenge exacted by me mind you, but revenge I deserved to receive. You may recall that a few weeks ago I attended my Dad's wedding. We had the opportunity to play a few pranks on him as part of the festivities, including leaving a few things behind in his house. The treasures we left around the house featured a somewhat tacky flamingo motif, among other themes. I expected some kind of payback, and sure enough, a package arrived in the mail from my Dad. The picture to the right shows my Dad's response to the flamingo theme - an illuminated plastic flamingo, which now proudly graces our den and brightens the evening for us. Thanks Dad, and the book was cute too - touche.

No numbers to report this week - a minor mix-up with the lab work order and the marker numbers didn't make it to the order. I'll probably get them done this week instead. I thought the lack of test results was because we've been having more difficulty in getting a blood draw from my port in recent weeks and didn't draw enough on Thursday to get all the tests done. When we can't get any sample out, it sometimes means that tissue has grown over the end of the catheter implanted into the large vein returning blood to my heart. The little flap of tissue will allow fluids to be administered, but not withdrawn and may eventually completely clog the catheter. The only way to get rid of the tissue is to fill the catheter with an enzyme that dissolves the tissue, and wait for another hour. (I was told that this stuff was originally derived from rattlesnake venom, but it's not nearly as exotic now - it comes from engineered e. coli bacteria, which is cool but still not nearly as cool as venom.) Anyway, this adds a lot more time to my day in the big green chair, so we try other methods first. Sometimes we can undo a blockage by having me stretch, cough, laugh (laughter the best medicine? It's free too!), or otherwise move around. When this happened a few weeks ago, Sandy, who is one of my regular nurses in the lab mentioned the "Valsalva maneuver" as something we might try sometime. I had to look it up as soon as I got settled into the big green chair, just because it sounds very clinical and important: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver . It amounts to pinching your nose, closing your mouth and exhaling forcibly. It causes blood to temporarily dam up and when you release the pressure, the blood is free and rushes more forcibly through your veins and arteries. I had a new nurse on Thursday, and when we couldn't get a sample, I mentioned trying the Valsalva maneuver, as if I really knew what the hell I was talking about. She was suitably impressed by my vast knowledge of medicine (what would we do without wikipedia?), but Sandy came over and blew my cover. Let's give it a go, and sure enough, after the first try, we managed to get a little flow. A second attempt (which made me a little dizzy - a cheap, but probably not too smart buzz for you thrill seekers out there - just don't blow out your Eustachian tubes!), did the trick. I'm glad that I have a good relationship with my nurses - we might have had to do the enzyme thing one more time if we hadn't tried the Valsalva.

Another thing to take away from my last visit - I guess what doesn't kill me will not only make me stronger, it might may make me smarter too, and I can always use that kind of help.

Hollyhocks swing in the breeze in my backyard

Labor Day

One of the side effects of the combination of drugs I get in chemotherapy is that it makes my skin do unpleasant things - my face and neck turn into teenaged nightmare skin, my chest and back likewise. I have a friend at work who had (I say "had" because he is now in remission) a rare form of cancer - he has only one eye - he lost the other from his cancer. When a man with only one eye notices that your skin is in rough shape, you know it must be noticeable. He gave me a friendly jest about it, as only someone else in the same boat could be allowed to do and gave me a hug.

Those are my fingers in the picture. The chemo makes the skin on my fingertips and heels split open like overripe fruit, so sometimes simple tasks like picking up small objects, fastening buttons, typing, or walking provide a constant reminder that chemotherapy is not fun. Fortunately, it's not like this all the time - I get breaks of a few days here and there in the weekly and biweekly treatment cycles. That's when I get to be more like my "bc" (before cancer) self and sneak in a little gardening or household repair work and make my fingers look like this again - the good old fashioned way. Today was one of those days - I've been enjoying sweet cherry tomatoes in the garden and planting more perennials in the yard - a few treats for now in the tomatoes and a few treats to come with new plants in the ground. It's pretty good motivation to put up with the treatment.

These are some of last year's crop - planted when I was first diagnosed.