A Week in the Life

During the weeks between chemo cycles, you almost forget that you have cancer.  Everything is almost normal.  You so quickly forget the five days of chemo hell that you went through not too long ago.

But then chemo begins again and you begin to remember all too well.  On the first day, you feel only somewhat bad.  Not unlike the brusque onset of a cold, or the jitters after an all-nighter.  You fool yourself into believing this cycle may be easier than the last.

On the second day, the needle hurts and you leave the chemo ward feeling like your veins are filled with paint thinner and petrol.  Your mouth tastes like you gargled with nail polish remover and formaldehyde regardless of what you put in it or how many times you brush, and you begin to realize that the taste, the smell, is coming from you.  You take a shower a few too many times.

The third day is hump day, but the only one doing any humping is your cheery chemo nurse.  You've given up making conversation in your chemo chair, you sit, and try to look less dead than those around you.  You've given up fighting with the nausea.  No amount of medication will save you.  The lining of your guts is slowly dying, sloughing off piece by piece.  You eat nothing.  You drink only for fear that your kidneys may succumb to poison.  You take pills in an attempt to keep consciousness, and all its prickly effects, at bay.

Day four comes along bright and early but you are hardly aware.  By now, days have woven into nights, and you can barely tell where real life begins and the dreams leave off.  There is a full pot of beans on an ancient stove and a Vietnamese baby saying the pot is too small.  You open your eyes, the talking baby remains.  By day four, the chemo juice washes into you easily.  Your veins offer no resistance, defeated, they lie limp and dark.  You return home after chemo, fall asleep and awake to a wave of nausea.  Your body is trying to turn itself inside out.  You try to sleep, the Vietnamese baby returns, this time selling Tudor style candy from a cart.

Day five is the last day.  You barely have the energy to look forward to it.  Today is the last day you will be seeing your chemo team for a while.  You feel vaguely sad, nostalgic.  Remember day one?  Good times.  People tell you that things will look up today.  They don't.

Today is day eight.  The world is just beginning to feel solid again.  Nearer, my God to thee.

Welcome to Chemo Team 4

Chemo Team 4 is the ward where I get most of my chemo juice.  It is ruled over by my amazing chemo RN, Manny, and is where I spend most mornings socializing with other people who don't have hair.

This is the chemo chair opposite mine.

This is the normal saline that gets flushed into me before and after the chemo juice.

Today's chemo juice, a delicious blend of Cisplatin and Etoposide.

I only get Bleomycin on Day 2 of each cycle.  On each of the other four days, I'm on EP.  Hence BEP, the name of the regime.

Sweet, sweet chemo juice.

My new open-toed flats.

Yes, chemo can be chic.

It's official

I didn't win anything in the Princess Margaret Home Lottery.  All I won was cancer.

Grosses me out every time

Something that you may not know about me, unless you happen to be nearer and dearer to me than is comfortable, is that I am deathly afraid of newspaper.  Something about that creepy rustle and stinky, dirty newsprint raises an irrational disgust in me.  I won't let it in my house.  If someone is reading a newspaper, I move at least five seats and/or three metres away, whichever is further.

I can smell it from here.

Wet newspaper is perhaps the worst.  It clings to you and will not let go.  Its slimy grey wetness taints your skin and you smell like newsprint for a month.

What evil is this?!  Papier mache is thy name.

According to Google, I am not the only person who has this fear.  This kid's mother wrote about it on her blog.

"I looked it up because I was thinking of some bizarre fears my 4-year-old has, and decided I needed to look them up. No, she doesn’t have the usual fear of the dark or monsters or even clowns.

Newspaper.

The child is afraid of newspaper. And paper towels, paper napkins and magazines. But, strangely, not copy paper or toilet paper. She’s selective, it seems.

Chloephobia. No, it’s not the fear of girls named Chloe. It’s the fear of newspaper. It is a certified phobia, people. Or papyrophobia, which is the fear of paper.  

We discovered this strange fear when she was about 2 years old. She would go out with Doug to collect the newspaper in the morning, but would refuse to even touch the thing.  Then we realized it was legit when she would go into a panic if we asked her to sit at the table if the newspaper was on the table. She would not sit at the table until we moved the newspaper off of the table. The same thing goes for magazines. And she will not use a paper napkin. Won’t even touch it. If you offer her one, she will put her hands behind her back and shake her head 'no.'"

Sounds about right.  That said, I'm not convinced that "chloephobia" is a recognized term.  It sounds like something Urban Dictionary made up.  However, the fear is legit.  Newspaper has the ability to turn beautiful things into sewer garbage.  Let's take a look.

Example 1

Delicious

Gross!

Example 2

Tasty

Bleuchhh!

Example 3

Adorable

You poo on that!

Newspaper taint rubs off on most things.  It is worse than cancer.  Save some trees, stop buying newspapers.  Stop cabbies from lining their cars with newspaper.  And STOP PUTTING FOOD ON IT.

The Globe and Mail is free online, and so is the Post.  Use your iPad for something other than Angry Birds.

Cycle 2 of chemo started yesterday

I will continue to update the blog as long as I don't feel too Dawn of the Dead. 

Grass Slipper

The beauty of not having to go to work is that green nails are now legitimately rockable.

Five Lessons from Cancer College

I've been spending more time at Princess Margaret Hospital lately than I have at home.  It is a magical place, full of wonder and amazement.

During chemo cycles, I'm at PMH daily for a week.  Infusions occur daily in the Chemo Ward, which is a fancy term for giant ward with IVs and La-z-Boys where cancer patients come to get their chemo juice.

I've mainlined more hard drugs than Mick Jagger.

On off-weeks, I'm at PMH a few times a week for bloodwork (more needles) and oncologist appointments where I hope to catch a glimpse of my very busy Rockstar Onco-Doc.  He's fantastic.

A few things I've learned:

1. Fear of needles is a bogus fear.  You really should be more afraid of the phlebotomist.  Particularly the one who forgets to take the tourniquet off and makes you sit there for an hour while he fills four vials drop by drop with the tourniquet still on.

2. When you find a good phlebotomist or onco nurse, grasp on for dear life and do not let them go.  If necessary, ply with chocolate.

3. Takes one to know one.  The only people who are going to know you are wearing a wig are likely also wearing wigs.  When walking by such person, eye them knowingly.  Then keep their secret.

4. When at the hospital with your (older, wiser) mother, nine times out of ten, the hospital volunteer will mistakenly address her as the cancer patient.  When this happens, threaten to rip your wig off if they do not recognize you for the rightful cancer patient you are and attend to your needs immediately.  Just because you have fabulous hair, bag and Blackberry does not mean you are exempt from cancer.

5. Your onco nurse holds your life in their hands.  Be nice, or you won't get a popsicle and you'll have to sit in your chemo chair for three hours while the guy next to you smugly sucks on his.

Cancer Lottery

About two months ago, I was diagnosed with this. 

Every year in Canada, 0.008% of the population is newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Of this group, 2% will suffer from germ cell malignancies.  That is a grand total of 0.00016% of the population of the entire country.

Talk about winning the lottery.

The blog...

Yes, the picture is incongruous.

... is up and running!