NOTE: Today I started a new regimen of treatment for what cancer MAY be floating around my system, since nothing has shown up on any recent tests or scans. I have just come of of what oncologists like to call a 'resting-period'. This time - usually about 6 weeks long is designed to give the patients body, mind and spirit time to heal, before battering it again with another series of treatments.
As I have written in my previous post, this liminal time allowed me to reflect on not only the physiological aspects of this period, but the psychological as well - revealing there different ways my experience has shaped my mind. Now moving forward if you will..... we will move backward....once again, through the vehicles of 1960's television and 1980's music to understand my new experience with this combination of medications and how they affect me.
<To be read as Rod Serling...deep, scary, slow... Oh, and you must close your eyes and think in Black and White!!!>
"Return with me, if you will, to another time....well, to two other times, the 1980's and to, well, this third week of June 2011...."
Somewhere on a smokey stage in the 1980's mullets, glitter, tight pants and smoke fill the air....Huey Lewis & The News perform....
"I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick..."
Little did the honorable Mr. Lewis know that his words would ring true in the life of a cancer patient, preparing to engage in the second stage of a battle with colon cancer. The new drug combination, I, the patient, will be receiving is called FOLFOX - an acronym for a 'cocktail' consisting of primarily Xeloda (the pill form of a drug called 5-FU) and the 'new-drug' Oxyplatin in IV form (whos primary ingredient is Platinum!!!).
The Doctors explain while I may not get 'sick' - like losing my hair, or losing enough weight to allow me to win a heroine-chic model competition, I will most likely experience things related to cold.... But I get ahead of myself.... First I have to get PREPARED to RECEIVE the medicine....
"One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick..."
Here is where the story gets a little 'fictionesque' at least from MY esteemed perspective, Rod? Please take over....
"The man, desperate to be cured of his illness seeks out the best medical minds have to offer.... He must be...prepared...given special medicine to allow the medicine he will receive to be safely administered...."
Now, according to 'eye-witness' my journey to receive my 'port' delivery system consisted of taking too many pre-operative relaxing medications. Driving my wife and one child on a somwhat harrowing (to THEM) journey to the hospital. Where I managed to get safely to the gurney, without killing anyone with my apparent erratic driving. I remember this much...if NOT in the same way. The last thing I DO remember is lying on a gurney and a nurse approaching me with a syringe saying, "O.K. We are going to give you something to make you relax." Three, Two, O.... (I am out).
Rod, a little more help here...?
"Awaking in a stupor, the man now properly equipped wakes to a world, wobbly, slightly disoriented, like some kind of mad dream. Things seem the same, but somehow different...He makes his way into the world..."
This day was SUPPOSED to be simple. A quick nap, quick surgery for inserting the port. Wake up, hop up from the table go to my next two appointments, then home to relax. Easy, right? Again, according to witnesses, not. As I am being pushed through the hospital in a wheel chair -- for some stupid reason they wouldn't let me walk! I began hearing Huey Lewis again in the back of my head...his big '80's hair glittering in the stage lights...
"I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
So far, so good... my head DIDN'T hurt! However, my feet did seem a bit large, kind of like clown feet...and yes...black and white clown feet. I don't know why but the air flowing through my hair made me flip my head like good ol' Huey Lewis...but I am sure to the nurse pushing my chair it seemed like some kind of seizure!!! What the hell... I couldn't feel my feet anyhow.
The rest of the day is a blurr. I was informed again, by hopefully reasonable sources, that I somehow made it to both my follow-up Radiation Oncology Appointment (which was in a completely different part of the building) and then on to my regular Oncology Appointment, where, according to my nurses today, I was quite jovial and wanted to assure me that I was alright and left seemingly under my own power.
Rod, a conclusion to the day please?
"Warily, but in a state only known to his maker and the man himself, he drifted, drove, almost as if by some kind of programming home to the comfort of his home and bed...Never quite sure of what had happened that day..."
Eventually I drifted off to sleep with a final verse from Huey Lewis....
"One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red"
Waking up the next day, my wife convinced me that I was still too loopy to go to work, where I would be required to not only drive a van, but climb ladders, check fire alarm systems in buildings, ensure the safety of hundreds of people at these facilities, since again not to my knowledge I was still so under the influence that I tried to use the waste basket of my oldest sons room as a urinal sometime during the night...thank GOD he was away for the week! So, I stayed home, on the couch, with the dog, watching house and drinking coffee... lots of coffee.
Rod intro to today please?
"A new day dawns, and finds the man at his kitchen table staring into a hot, black cup of coffee, desperately trying to put together the pieces of the previous day, knowing, all to well he faces a new set of challenges..."
I reach for the pot to refill my mug and trying to figure out what side effects I would experience from this new drug and good ol' Huey popped back into my head...
"One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red"
So far so good...
"One that won't make me nervous...
One that won't spill...
"One that don't cost too much ...
Or come in a pill...
I figured that by the time I am done with surgery and treatment the actual cost ill be in the neighborhood of $1,000,000!!! Thank god for insurance... And people say the American Healthcare system sucks... NOTE: For example, I was just in formed that in Kazan, RUSSIA a woman awoke SCREAMING in her own COFFIN at her FUNERAL where DOCTORS had declared her DEAD... She apparently died a SECOND DEATH 12 minutes later in the hospital....Her husband is suing...
"I want a new drug...
One that won't keep me up all night...
One that won't make me sleep all day...
One that does what it should...
After all this it had BETTER keep me cancer free for a long time to come....
"One that won't make me feel too bad...
One that won't make me feel too good...
One with no doubt...
One that won't make me talk too much...
Or make my face break out...
Facial breakouts God can't seem to give me....CANCER, TWICE.... not fair!!!
As I have written in my previous post, this liminal time allowed me to reflect on not only the physiological aspects of this period, but the psychological as well - revealing there different ways my experience has shaped my mind. Now moving forward if you will..... we will move backward....once again, through the vehicles of 1960's television and 1980's music to understand my new experience with this combination of medications and how they affect me.
<To be read as Rod Serling...deep, scary, slow... Oh, and you must close your eyes and think in Black and White!!!>
"Return with me, if you will, to another time....well, to two other times, the 1980's and to, well, this third week of June 2011...."
Somewhere on a smokey stage in the 1980's mullets, glitter, tight pants and smoke fill the air....Huey Lewis & The News perform....
"I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick..."
Little did the honorable Mr. Lewis know that his words would ring true in the life of a cancer patient, preparing to engage in the second stage of a battle with colon cancer. The new drug combination, I, the patient, will be receiving is called FOLFOX - an acronym for a 'cocktail' consisting of primarily Xeloda (the pill form of a drug called 5-FU) and the 'new-drug' Oxyplatin in IV form (whos primary ingredient is Platinum!!!).
The Doctors explain while I may not get 'sick' - like losing my hair, or losing enough weight to allow me to win a heroine-chic model competition, I will most likely experience things related to cold.... But I get ahead of myself.... First I have to get PREPARED to RECEIVE the medicine....
"One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick..."
Here is where the story gets a little 'fictionesque' at least from MY esteemed perspective, Rod? Please take over....
"The man, desperate to be cured of his illness seeks out the best medical minds have to offer.... He must be...prepared...given special medicine to allow the medicine he will receive to be safely administered...."
Now, according to 'eye-witness' my journey to receive my 'port' delivery system consisted of taking too many pre-operative relaxing medications. Driving my wife and one child on a somwhat harrowing (to THEM) journey to the hospital. Where I managed to get safely to the gurney, without killing anyone with my apparent erratic driving. I remember this much...if NOT in the same way. The last thing I DO remember is lying on a gurney and a nurse approaching me with a syringe saying, "O.K. We are going to give you something to make you relax." Three, Two, O.... (I am out).
Rod, a little more help here...?
"Awaking in a stupor, the man now properly equipped wakes to a world, wobbly, slightly disoriented, like some kind of mad dream. Things seem the same, but somehow different...He makes his way into the world..."
This day was SUPPOSED to be simple. A quick nap, quick surgery for inserting the port. Wake up, hop up from the table go to my next two appointments, then home to relax. Easy, right? Again, according to witnesses, not. As I am being pushed through the hospital in a wheel chair -- for some stupid reason they wouldn't let me walk! I began hearing Huey Lewis again in the back of my head...his big '80's hair glittering in the stage lights...
"I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
So far, so good... my head DIDN'T hurt! However, my feet did seem a bit large, kind of like clown feet...and yes...black and white clown feet. I don't know why but the air flowing through my hair made me flip my head like good ol' Huey Lewis...but I am sure to the nurse pushing my chair it seemed like some kind of seizure!!! What the hell... I couldn't feel my feet anyhow.
The rest of the day is a blurr. I was informed again, by hopefully reasonable sources, that I somehow made it to both my follow-up Radiation Oncology Appointment (which was in a completely different part of the building) and then on to my regular Oncology Appointment, where, according to my nurses today, I was quite jovial and wanted to assure me that I was alright and left seemingly under my own power.
Rod, a conclusion to the day please?
"Warily, but in a state only known to his maker and the man himself, he drifted, drove, almost as if by some kind of programming home to the comfort of his home and bed...Never quite sure of what had happened that day..."
Eventually I drifted off to sleep with a final verse from Huey Lewis....
"One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red"
Waking up the next day, my wife convinced me that I was still too loopy to go to work, where I would be required to not only drive a van, but climb ladders, check fire alarm systems in buildings, ensure the safety of hundreds of people at these facilities, since again not to my knowledge I was still so under the influence that I tried to use the waste basket of my oldest sons room as a urinal sometime during the night...thank GOD he was away for the week! So, I stayed home, on the couch, with the dog, watching house and drinking coffee... lots of coffee.
Rod intro to today please?
"A new day dawns, and finds the man at his kitchen table staring into a hot, black cup of coffee, desperately trying to put together the pieces of the previous day, knowing, all to well he faces a new set of challenges..."
I reach for the pot to refill my mug and trying to figure out what side effects I would experience from this new drug and good ol' Huey popped back into my head...
"One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red"
So far so good...
"One that won't make me nervous...
One that won't spill...
"One that don't cost too much ...
Or come in a pill...
I figured that by the time I am done with surgery and treatment the actual cost ill be in the neighborhood of $1,000,000!!! Thank god for insurance... And people say the American Healthcare system sucks... NOTE: For example, I was just in formed that in Kazan, RUSSIA a woman awoke SCREAMING in her own COFFIN at her FUNERAL where DOCTORS had declared her DEAD... She apparently died a SECOND DEATH 12 minutes later in the hospital....Her husband is suing...
"I want a new drug...
One that won't keep me up all night...
One that won't make me sleep all day...
One that does what it should...
After all this it had BETTER keep me cancer free for a long time to come....
"One that won't make me feel too bad...
One that won't make me feel too good...
One with no doubt...
One that won't make me talk too much...
Or make my face break out...
Facial breakouts God can't seem to give me....CANCER, TWICE.... not fair!!!
I really like how you post only the parts YOU remember. I hope for clarity and posterity, Cheryl will post her own version of the true story. This I know: I spoke with you the "day after" and her's what you said to me " "Talk about howe the tickly bubbles give you artistic excitement.... or how standing akle deep helps focus your energies, and smooth your skislskin that is, not skis!."
ReplyDeleteAh, Kristen....those who WRITE the History are those that get to decide what parts to keep and which to, um, leave behind in the dust of memory!!!!I am glad that my family and friends seem to still have some kind of sense of humor left!!!
ReplyDelete