I'm pissed. Until now, I have been pretty lucky in that this damned disease hasn't completely limited me from doing many of the things that I've wanted to do. Sure, it's slowed me down a lot, but I've been able to still do a lot of things. In the last few weeks though, I've been ground to a halt and had to completely pass on a few things that I really wanted to do, but was just not physically able to handle. You will recall that in my last post (which was really on 3/22, despite what the Blogger folks have as the post date of 3/14), I had just hit the wall that week and had to pass on spending a Saturday out in the woods. It turned out that the weather was perfect for the day in the woods - a rarity for weather in the past few weeks.
I'm not sure that I really got a chance to fully recover before going back in for another round of treatment on the 27th and ended up getting slammed again. My fault for going ahead with the treatment - I was offered the option of skipping, but damned the torpedoes, we're going ahead anyway - I want to finish this, and any delay if even for two weeks, is just not going to happen if I have any say about it. A small concession - after 14 months of nearly uninterrupted treatment with Erbitux at the full dose, we cut it back a notch (which will presumably still be as effective, and save the insurance company enough for a new car every month!). But I still felt like hell on Saturday - I mean really like hell. And to make it just a teeny tiny bit worse, my brother bought us tickets to see Bruce Springsteen here in Seattle - showtime Saturday night. I missed the concert. I am pissed. Too sick to see the Boss. I'm disappointed too - those tickets were a gift and I was too sick to enjoy it. Apologies to my brother Bill for not being able to follow through.
I thought I was well enough to go to work on Monday after sleeping through Sunday. Maybe I was well enough for Monday, but not enough for Tuesday. I was remarkably productive for a few hours, but by lunchtime on Tuesday, I was toast again. I slept through Wednesday and Thursday at home - with real (but stupid) intentions of trying to come in to work for a few hours in the afternoons, but no actual physical ability to do so. I have never been so drained. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I had hoped to be spending tonight with my neighbor and our daughters, camped out in my neighbor's new camper down at the ocean. The plan was to drive down to Ocean Shores this morning, set up the camper and relax. We'd get up and catch the low tide in the morning and make another run at the razor clams - a daddy/daughter weekend at the shore. Nope. Another pass. I'm still not physically up to it. I wore myself out this morning just getting all the gear together for the clamming party. I feel bad for leaving my neighbor in the lurch - he's got 4 teenaged girls to wrangle tonight and tomorrow. Repeat - I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.
OK. Enough whining. Pity party officially over. I can still say that for as much grief that treatment causes me, it's not all bad. I have friends there. I have friends - fellow patients that visited me on Thursday, even though they didn't have treatments scheduled. It was great to see the old Thursday crew in the waiting room, although I felt like I had been sent off to detention when I had to leave them to go start treatment. I'm so glad they came back to my chair and visited more before my premeds kicked in. I know that this must drive the nurses crazy when we "visit" - thanks for humoring us. And extra kudos again to nurse Jenny B. for recommending a pretty effective and simple treatment for my painful dry skin. Olive oil. It's a little weird to rub some extra virgin into your face, but it really works. If I didn't already have the Costco mother lode of olive oil already sitting in the garage, I might consider buying a small bottle of some extra light (and usually flavorless) oil so that I didn't smell like pizza.
I love that Friday morning phone call when my numbers drop - now down to 15.4. It means a lot to me to get that call from my oncologist. Uncle Phil - you're the top. And thanks to Alice for checking up on me and calling in the Ofloxacin - the eyes no longer look like a week of hard partying.
A quick little snippet of conversation a few weeks ago when I was doing the Mountaineers Navigation class. After helping set up the tables and chairs for the class, my face looked particularly red - a little extra to go along with the chemo rash. The man I was working with stopped and said to me - "You got too much sun this weekend didn't you - you ought to be more careful, or you'll get skin cancer...". If he only knew (and he didn't). I decided to just let it go - no sense in dropping the cancer bomb on him for his helpful advice. I suppose that I could have been as charitable for a guy at work last week who commented on my rash (he didn't know either), but I felt compelled to fill him in on what I thought everyone in the building already knew. I did apologize for dropping the C-bomb on him, but the good that came out of it was that he had been putting off a colonoscopy for a few years, and I made him change his mind right then and there. Score!
It is getting to be that time of year already. The 2008 Kent WA Relay for Life is May 30-31. You were all so generous last year, enough to convince me that you'll be willing to not only match last year's total of $1700, but to help me make it to $2000 this year. You can visit and donate at my Relay webpage at: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeGreatWestDivision?px=3638111&pg=personal&fr_id=5800 . I look forward to your support.
And finally, the weather. It's just plain screwy here right now. We have had in the past 2 weeks: rain (no surprise there), snow, thunder/lightning, sleet, marble-sized hail, and a few hours of sun. Some of this combination of weather has occurred all in the same 4 hour period, making us just a bit confused. And probably not as confused as this hummingbird feeding in my backyard, who is probably wondering what the heck is going on.
Now, where is the cheese that went with that whine.......
