Strange Days

I have not started chemo because I have not yet been assimilated into the collective of chemo recipients through the installation of my implant. Yesterday I had my appointment with the vascular surgeon who will implant the portacath. It is placed under the skin of the chest, just left of midline and stitched to the bone of the sternum. (outch) In true detached, male surgeon fashion, when I asked if it will be painful after the surgery, he replied as though he had never been asked that before saying, "no not really, there will probably be a pulling sensation". I will let you know if he is right. He could not fit me into his operation list until the 9th of Oct he said that I could 'technically' start chemo the day following the implantation, but the specialist oncology nurse at the chemo centre said,
" Oh, why don't you wait and give yourself time to heal because that first session will be painful". I like having the truth, I like being given the chance to be prepared and brace myself. So I start chemo on the 15th. I'm dreading that first chemo session.
This week has been strange, I have been quiet and a little distant from people much of the time. A few days ago I went shopping at the supermarket but before I left I mentally slipped into a Scanner Darkly type camouflage skin. I drifted for over an hour through the shopping aisles nearly invisible, pulling my trolley to the side frequently, to avoid eye contact with anyone. I was aware of a sense of - loneliness is not quite the right word but - loneliness. I pulled back my minds eye's camera for a wide overhead view of the supermarket scene and I recalled ant farms my children had when they were little. The ant farms were filled with sand and had tunnels through which the ants hurried pushing and carrying crumbs of food. For the most part the ants ignore each other unless one stops and blocks the corridor, then there is an impatient scramble, all trying to get through the blocked space.
I started back at the gym today, my first personal training session since before my Operation. I am starting slow but I am a bit sore now and I'm tired but I was so buzzy after the exercise, it connects my mind and body like nothing else.

Holding Patterns and CHEMO

Everything seems to have been in a holding pattern the last few weeks. Healing is slow and I am impatient with feeling less than energetic, but I am going for walks and don't have a lot of pain unless I sit for long periods or lift stuff that I shouldn't. I had paused this thought process while I healed and while I was waiting to see the oncologist to find out how bad the chemo was going to be. Well, I had my appointment with the oncologist on Monday and it was a bit depressing. It is all going to be harder than I had expected. Me being me, I insisted on going to the appointment alone, that was a mistake. There was so much information to take in at the appointment I still don't have it all clear in my head. But this is what I recall.
Next week I have to have another anaesthetic to have a device called a port-a-Cath surgically implanted under the skin on my chest, it is a permanent port for the administration of the chemo which I will be having every 2 weeks for 6 months.
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.users.fast.net/~kittenz/portacath1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.users.fast.net/~kittenz/Port.html&h=155&w=202&sz=10&hl=en&start=8&um=1&tbnid=YTKNJGbhnTMUxM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportacath%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

I will also be sent home each fortnight with another drug which is administered, over a 48 hour period, through the port via a small pump ( I think about the size of a flattish cigarette pack) which will hang around my neck. (I find the image of this hugely difficult, I will elaborate at the end of this post)
The oncologist recommended that I do not leave the country during treatment and even trips within the country will have to be cleared with her. I will have to have, ( I think she said fortnightly) blood tests to check for among other things, white cell count. If I get a temperature over 38 degrees I have to go straight to the ER, tell them my chemo regime and they will give me IV antibiotics. While she said I will not lose my hair, and that nausea and vomiting are rare on this treatment, she gave me a list of possible side effects, the most immediately problematic of which is tiredness, and the tiredness is cumulative, so that by the end of the 6 months I will be pretty much tired all the time.
I should finish Chemo around Easter 2008 and will start to recover my energy within a month.

Having a cancer excised from your body is so much easier to deal with than having toxic substances pumped into your body. Substances so toxic that they can cause other pathologies and suppress your immunity. Each health professional I have spoken to has said something like, people seem to be able to cope ok with chemo. I guess they do, what choice have they got. The oncologist gave me a choice of whether to have chemo at all, or to choose tablets instead, but at the same time gave me the stats on the probable outcomes. With the operation having been so successful, if I have no chemo I have a 65% chance of being cancer free in 10 years, with the tablets I have a 75% chance but with the IV regime I have an 88% chance of being cancer free in 10 years. The up side of this is that with regular testing and CT scans I think that actually gives me a better than average cancer free rate than the general population.
That's where I am at the moment. I have managed to stay positive up to now, feeling this was all going to be ok, having an end point in my head at which time I can resume my life, now that end point looks a long way away. I need to get back to the gym.