And Then I Got Cancer

I miss laughing. I've had a pain in my diaphragm or ribs, I don't know which, for weeks that gives me trouble every time I laugh, yawn, cough, cry, or vomit. This pain wasn't the only reason I haven't written in so long, but I think it was a contributor. To catch you up on what has happened since my last post: I went home from the hospital feeling weak for some number of days, then started having this pain that sent me back to the ED (no one in the know calls it the ER anymore, it's the "Emergency Department"). It seemed for a while that the pain was related to my gallbladder or lung, and I stayed in the hospital for maybe another week waiting to find out what was wrong with me. Someone had done the math and figured out that I had already spent just about 100 days in the hospital since my diagnosis. I'd like to think it was exactly on day 100 that I couldn't take it anymore. On day 100 or thereabouts I woke up watching the clock and telling all ...

I think I get to go home today. I say I "think" because most of the medical teams have thought I'd be able to. I don't have the final word yet, though                                                                                                                                . I'm quite a bit weaker this time than the time I was discharged. It's taking me a whole lot longer to write this post, because I keep making spelling and grammar errors, and going back and correcting them. I don't know if that's a function of my brain or my small motor skills, but either way it's a pain in the butt. On the up-side, my iPhone recognizes my thumb print again. I don't know how chemo...

I haven't written much lately, I know. I've mostly been in pain or tired. This round of chemo has taken much more of a toll on me, and the things I used take for granted before have become major points of consternation. Some time around my last post I asked Brent to bring a ball to kick around at the park. It was a really windy day, which I didn't realize till I got outside, and we had a hard time getting that ball back and forth to each other even in a small area. I felt good that day, though. I felt like I was getting exercise and staying strong and so forth. It was one of those perfect fall cancer days. I can't quite remember when the shift happened. The teams of doctors round on me every morning when I'm still half asleep. Mostly they talk about my fevers and the status of my various infections and how well or if my cells counts are improving. But at some point the Nephrologists got pulled into the mix. I felt awful and weak all the time. Sometimes I had to a...

Figure 1. The last time I wore a suit My Sister said she wasn’t updating her blog because there was nothing funny to write about, so I offered to fill in for her. I am not nearly as good a writer so please forgive me, I just thought it would be worth giving her many fans an update. Imagine that your body is expanding like a balloon and the hurt is coming from so many different places at once there is no non-hurt to compare it to - hurt is the state of the world, without boundaries. Imagine that nausea has been going on for so long there is no longer a concept of non-nausea. Imagine a grey sea of pinging bells, poking needles, concerned whispering visitors, cautiously optimistic news every day until cautious optimism is indistinguishable from the relentless pain and nausea.   Not every single moment is like this of course - just most of the moments.   Sarah’s white blood cell count is coming back up again after hovering at 0 for a couple weeks, when sh...

I haven't written in a while. I've been feeling pretty terrible. A few things happened at about the same time that left me mostly confined to my bed. My hemorrhoid came back, and then it clotted. It was excruciating, and I started taking Percocet. I stopped getting out of bed except to use the bathroom because it was too painful to walk. Maybe that's why I didn't notice that I had a new infection in my blood. Some sort of resistant klebsiella bacteria. The infectious disease team seemed kind of excited that they had to order in the antibiotics from somewhere else because it had only been approved this year and they hadn't had a chance to use it yet. I would tell you the name but it's really long and I can't pronounce or even spell it. Then they got really excited when they said that if this bacteria mutates again, they'll have to use an antibiotic that was only approved two weeks ago and hasn't yet been used in the state of Colorado, or probably at ...

I know some people dread blood draws, but I have never had a problem with needles. But things have changed. Every day that I'm in the hospital, I have someone taking blood from my arm at least once a day. With a central line, it's not a problem at all. But once I get a blood infection, that central line comes out. And getting blood out of my arms becomes a problem. Maybe because my blood volume is lower my veins are smaller. Maybe because I've been stuck so many times my veins are scarred and it's harder to get into them. Maybe with all the drugs going through my veins they are more irritable. But whatever it is, my body doesn't like letting go of blood, and getting that sample every day is a challenge. I have one peripheral line in now, and everyone (including me) prefers that blood is drawn from there so I don't have to get stuck. Yesterday Matt from the IV team came in and worked his magic, using a heat pack, massaging the entry point, pulling on the line to...

I first came to this hospital on August 21st, the day of the eclipse. I thought it was just my luck that I had to get cancer and be admitted to the hospital during the most exciting celestial event visible to the (well protected) naked eye of my adult life. But Mom and Brent and I at least managed to get out to the parking lot for a few minutes to enjoy the goings on. We didn't have eclipse glasses, but a woman offered to share hers with us. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was a psychologist at the hospital. She and Mom got to talking, and told her about her service dog, Waffle, who would do the rounds with patients. I met Waffle later that day. Elizabeth brought her to my room as I was getting settled in. She was a Lab / Golden Retriever mix. She sat at my feet and let me pet her, and reminded me that I wouldn't get to see my own dog for quite a while. They left me with a card that had Waffle's service portrait on the front and a short bio on the back. It reads "Wa...