Remembering Barbara

Preparing (mentally) for traveling out to Houston for the start of Cycle 18 of the clinical trial. Haven't been able to sleep for a week, who knows why. B barking outside, H dashing out too, but by now has likely realized B is just tilting at another windmill, creating another false alarm, and I'm sure wishes she were back inside in her fleece bed. She is a loyal sidekick, but also intelligent. I suspect that there are only so many more "Wolf"s she will respond to before she will quit investigating at all.

Here she is, right on cue. B continues to patrol, to defend and protect.

The last cycle was relatively brutal - in that I felt very bad for several days afterward - mostly tired tired tired with some nausea for good measure. The fact that I had obligations on the Friday and Saturday following my return probably didn't help. The fact that the Saturday obligations were a memorial service and dinner for a grad school friend who had passed away from ovarian cancer was mentally and emotionally exhausting. Her memorial service was held at the Botanical Garden, and was a thoughtful and loving tribute to a woman I knew mostly through our cancer connection, and wished afterwards, that I had taken the time to get know her much better. She was a selfless and giving person, from the old school of thank you notes, birthday cards, and right and wrong. She had a no-nonsense way about her - probably from decades of lecturing to university freshman, many of whom were undoubtedly full of themselves, centers of the universe all. She had developed such a strong sense of herself that I think I found intimidating - which likely got in the way of my trying to get to know her better - insecurities on my part, that I wouldn't measure up. Silly in retrospect.

With her gone, I don't think I know anyone else with cancer. By that, I mean, pre-diagnosis friends and/or acquaintances, who were struck, like myself, at around the same time, all stunned at what had been bestowed upon us. All three are gone, now, and its just me, wondering what's around the next bend.

 

Cancer Isn't for Sissies

Regardless of the fact that I have found peace with my lot, living with cancer is a huge pain in the ass. I find myself saying "Cancer Isn't for Sissies" a lot, and I mean it every time.  I think I probably text it more than I say it, but I hardly think that matters. 

Here's a good example.  I am currently in week 2 of Cycle 16 of a Phase I Clinical Trial - full on guinea pig mode, in other words.    So, I've just passed my one-year anniversary taking a drug that noone knows much about, including whether or not it can help my disease, or what its really doing to the rest of my body.  This is my first Phase I clinical trial, and so far the results are better than anything we've tried in the previous 4 years. I have had a couple of god-awful surgeries that were also successful in that they have reduced my tumor load so that I have a better change of outwitting what's left, but that's another story.  The point is that the guinea pig is doing pretty good right now, traveling out to Houston every 3 weeks, give or take, to see what's what.

The drug, called AZD6244, does appear to have stunned my cancer, making it difficult for it to further its attack on me.  I call it the Shock and Awe drug.  Not only is it shocking my cancer, it is shocking my tissues, who really haven't figured out a way to deal with it either.  My tissues are apparently afraid to let go of something they feel may be saving their life.  So they are retaining all of the fluid that the drugs are helping to generate - over the course of the year, this has amounted to approximately 40 pounds of fluid, which my tissues like, but none of the rest of me does - not my heart, my kidneys, my self-image,  my joints, my poor clothes, my poor husband, noone wants that fluid around.

I will admit that my wonder dog doesn't mind it - she is still just as happy to see me when she gets up, and just as happy to race down the driveway to the mailbox - just as happy to be right next to wherever I am - its safe to say that she could give a rat's ass if I'm walking around with 40 pounds of extra fluid. She still sees me as me.

The rest of us, though, would like it to evaporate, to sweat itself out, and/or otherwise get discharged in the traditional way.  There are days I feel like I could just stick a pin in my arm, and it would be like popping a water balloon.  My tissues are so selfish with "their" precious, that they just hold onto it.  They won't let it seep upward through my pores so my skin remains very dry and itchy, my nasal passages remain very dry and bloody, and my fingertips and heels are constantly cracked, making it hurt to do many of the things you do with your hands and your feet.

Water water everywhere and not a drop that's of any use whatsoever to me.  Except of course if those fluids are in fact drowning the cancer, contributing to its confusion, its inability to fight back.  I suppose then I become a little more inclined not to hate those 40 lbs, but when you've been an athlete your whole entire life, and it stands in the way of who you used to be, as a constant reminder than your life is changed forevermore, and you may never be able to complete a triathlon again - well, its just one more thing that's different about you. One more piece of you that made you who you were - a triathlete - that might not be coming back.

Cancer is really not for sissies.