Round #6- almost done!

It's surreal that I have just completed my sixth and final R-CHOP treatment! Everything went smoothly yesterday except that it took a little while to get my port to work correctly. I had to raise my arms, turn my head, cough, stand up, lie down, and try combinations of those movements in order for the nurse to be able to draw blood. My hernia-check jokes were under-appreciated (referring to turning my head and coughing), but otherwise I was once again taken care of very well by the staff at the cancer center. They even gave me a chemotherapy graduation diploma that had been signed by all the nurses and my oncologist.

So the next step is to ride the wave of this treatment with its potential side effects and then I will get a PET scan in 6 weeks or so to check the status of the lymph tissue in question. I was thinking that it would be sooner than that so I'm adjusting to the idea that I have to wait a little longer to get that information. But my oncologist says she's not worried about it, and I will continue to focus positive energy towards the best possible outcome, which is that there is no sign of abnormal activity any more. I'm even suspicious that the abnormal activity may be gone already and that this last treatment might not be necessary. But it appears to be pretty common practice to overtreat this type of cancer with the hope that it will never come back. So I'm down with that. Tomorrow I'll get my last Lupron Depot and Neulasta shots (for ovary protection and white blood cell boosting respectively) and then will be taking a few more weeks of pills- prednisone, zofran, levofloxazin, claritin, and ibuprofen. I can't wait to be done with this cycle and moving into the next phase!

I'm so grateful for how this has all played out. I've been able to remain active and relatively functional, the treatment has been working (as shown in the PET scan after round 2), I've received so much support in so many ways from so many people, and I've learned so much about myself and my role in the world. I've been focusing my energy on expressing this gratitude, acknowledging that I am not done with this world and that I intend to be around for a long time, and letting cancer know that it can go now. Thank you for reading this, and if you have supported me in some other way through this process, please know that I appreciate it! I have been pretty overwhelmed with the amount of support that has occurred and intended to acknowledge each act with a thank you note or phone call. I hope to find a way to get caught up on that soon, but in the meantime please know that your notes, meals, prayers, phone calls, and gifts were all greatly appreciated, needed, and meaningful. This has truly been a group effort and it would have been so much harder without your help!

Life and Death

What a week. I got a surge of energy after getting those nightmares out of my system. I've been sleeping more soundly, although I've had a couple mornings of getting up at 4/5am and not being able to fall back to sleep. I've coped with that by listening to relaxation/visualization audio tracks on my iPod and getting up to do yoga so that I don't go straight to work instead. I've been focusing on drinking enough water and eating well and drawing boundaries with work. I try not to bring work home with me if I can. My final chemo treatment is less than a week away now, and I'm really looking forward to getting good news in July after a PET scan. Unfortunately, I'm about to max out my lousy student health insurance benefits, so things are possibly going to get a but crazy in the financial department pretty soon. Plus, my temporary position as interim executive director will be gone once school starts in the fall. I'm actually pondering applying for the permanent position since I've been doing a decent job as interim, but I'm not sure how I would manage that as a full-time student.

Over the last two weeks, we've lost two important women in the community to breast cancer. It is a huge loss to the community and their families and I don't quite know how to sit with it. I can only think about it so much before I start to worry about my own situation. I've been crying a lot today, and then I try to redirect my energy towards a positive vision of my long, healthy future. I also seem to find comfort in my work when I'm faced with overwhelming emotional stress, so I directed that energy into a grant application this week. My parents will arrive on Wednesday night to be present for my final treatment, so that will be nice. There's also a lot of new life in the world- several friends had babies over the last few weeks, too. Such is the coming and going of humans on this planet. May you be well.

Rough nights

This week has been a challenge... lots of work going on and also some of the toughest nights of "sleep" I've had in my life. Most nights since I started treatment I'll wake up at some point to use the restroom and will have a hot flash. The last two nights, I've woken up every 30 mins or so starting at about 4am just feeling hot and clammy. I take my temperature to make sure it's not a fever and it's not. Having a fan on provides some external comfort, but ultimately it's my internal environment that needs comfort. Last night I had two very vivid dreams linked to the body sensations I have right now. If you're squeamish about graphic anatomical descriptions you might want to skip this... The first dream was very brief- I was pulling a long, rope-like cord from my mouth, kind of like when a magician pulls a scarf from their pocket. I was pulling frantically because the cord was blocking my airway. I woke with a start and was relieved that I could breathe, but a little scared that I felt I had been drowning/choking in my sleep. I went back to sleep and later on dreamt that my tongue had come out, still attached to my esophagus and other organs. I was holding it in my hands in front of me and it looked swollen, discolored, and coated with dead tissue. I then realized that I couldn't speak and tried to scream. The scariest part of these dreams is that the sensations involved were present when I woke up so it was like waking up into the nightmare instead of the normal relief of realizing it was "just a dream." I still found relief and comfort once I knew I could breathe and speak, but it sure was emotionally exhausting to have these visceral experiences in the middle of the night. I hope that I'll be able to sleep with more peaceful dreams tonight.

It's hard to believe that two weeks from now I will have received my 6th and final round of R-CHOP. Every time I say or write that I'm tempted to add an "I hope..." to the end. I really do hope that this will be the last time I have to be treated for cancer, but I also understand that there are no guarantees. For any of us. It will be a relief to hear "you're in remission" after my PET scan in July.

Another thing I've been struggling with is how to react when people say "I look good." There's usually a tone of surprise behind the comment, which makes me wonder what people were expecting me to look like. Colorless? Waif-ish? I sometimes feel uncomfortable when people comment on my appearance because I know that there's so much more to me than my external body. It's also problematic for me because although I may "look good," I don't always feel good. Ours is such a visual species and I often wish that our other senses were more dominant. Although I'm not sure I'd want people saying, "you smell good" either. Does this sound too sensitive? It must be hard for people to know what to say, and I don't want to be critical but I also want to express how it affects me when only one aspect of my experience in my body is focused on. I'm also in a heightened state about this because of the gender and women's studies class I'm taking right now. The complexity of society's values around gender which includes hair, makeup, body type, fashion, etc... interesting stuff but also a bit exhausting. So I guess for now I'll just say "thank you" when someone says I look good.

My mom sent me a guided visualization audio recording that also includes some affirmation meditations. To paraphrase one of the sayings:
"Thank you, cancer, for helping me to idenitfy what's important in my life. I know that I have work to do, and you can go now."