I had another PET scan on Monday, and my doctor called yesterday to tell me the results came back negative. Which means the tumor is officially gone! Yay!
Unfortunately, that doesn't get me out of doing chemo. The doctor says I have to finish out the treatments, to decrease the odds that the cancer could return. In fact, my next session is tomorrow. Boo! But you know what, whatever, I don't even care. Chemo shmemo. The tumor is gone! YAY!!!!
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
Summer Travel Plans
I'm so excited for summer right now! This week I booked airline tickets to two different destinations, both of which I've been wanting to go to for quite some time. The first trip is a long-weekend jaunt with a friend up to Portland in June, for the express and simple purpose of visiting Powell's City of Books. And yes, I realize how totally nerdy this sounds, but hey, Powell's is one of the world's largest independent bookstores — possibly the largest. How can I not want to go there? Call it a sort of pilgrimage, if you like. Whatever the case, I can't wait! (I realize I do not sound any less nerdy now, but I don't care.)
The second trip will be in August, when I head off to Switzerland for about a week to visit my brother. Woo-hoo!
Actually, it's possible that Switzerland will be the third trip, because I'm also thinking of taking a weekend in July to go up to San Francisco, but then again, that doesn't really count because that's still in California, and plus I used to live near there, so I've been there a lot already, unlike Portland and Switzerland .
Wow, that last sentence was really, really long.
Anyway, the point is, the travel bug has been biting in a major way lately. And thankfully, the cure does not involve chemotherapy! Whew. On the other hand, I'm a little surprised at how much money I spent on airline tickets this week. Surprise will no doubt turn to horror when I get my credit card bill, but hopefully I will survive. It would be kind of embarrassing to win the battle against cancer only to die of sticker shock.
The second trip will be in August, when I head off to Switzerland for about a week to visit my brother. Woo-hoo!
Actually, it's possible that Switzerland will be the third trip, because I'm also thinking of taking a weekend in July to go up to San Francisco, but then again, that doesn't really count because that's still in California, and plus I used to live near there, so I've been there a lot already, unlike Portland and Switzerland .
Wow, that last sentence was really, really long.
Anyway, the point is, the travel bug has been biting in a major way lately. And thankfully, the cure does not involve chemotherapy! Whew. On the other hand, I'm a little surprised at how much money I spent on airline tickets this week. Surprise will no doubt turn to horror when I get my credit card bill, but hopefully I will survive. It would be kind of embarrassing to win the battle against cancer only to die of sticker shock.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Weekend Recap
Howdy all, hope you had a good weekend. Mine did not get off to an auspicious start, thanks to Saturday, which was one of those days where you end up feeling like the universe is doing really annoying things specifically to you on purpose. For example, take lunch. I decided I wanted an omelette from a local restaurant that makes some pretty good ones. Well, when I got there at about 12:30, I found that though I could still order from a truncated breakfast menu they had stopped serving omelettes.
Now I realize that may not sound like a big deal. But here's the thing about being on chemo, at least for me. On the rare occasions when you actually feel like eating something, it's usually a very particular thing. And if you can't get that particular thing, it's more upsetting than usual, because in that moment, nothing else sounds good.
But there wasn't much I could do in this case. So I left the restaurant and drove around aimlessly until I stopped wanting the omelette and started wanting a sandwich.
I won't even go into the harrowing details of my sandwich search. Suffice to say I went to three different places, and came up empty-handed every time. At one place the sandwich-making person was going way too slow with the person in front of me. at another everything was too expensive and the atmosphere was all wrong, and at the third they didn't take credit cards and I had no cash. I finally ended up going to Goldstein's for a bagel sandwich, which was not at all the kind of sandwich I wanted, and which I didn't like when I finally ate it.
I was very cranky after that.
Thankfully, I was in a much better mood on Sunday, so when I went with a couple friends to the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA, I actually had a great time wandering among the seemingly endless array of booths (booksellers, writing societies, small presses, Scientologists, etc), and attending a couple of panels. I'd hoped to make an early-morning panel featuring author Uwem Akpan (Say You're One Of Them) among others. but unfortunately we arrived late and couldn't get in. So we went to the food court to get some lunch instead, where I paid way too much for the worst chicken teriyaki bowl I've ever had in my life (a friend called it teriyucky).
After that we went to another panel about the "Poetry of Engagement", which was more interesting than it sounds, particularly when a woman in the audience who everyone thought had a question for one of the panelists turned out to have more of an almost-rant about the environment (when she turned to the audience and asked who still used plastic bags at the grocery store, I wanted so badly to raise my hand, just to see if she would yell at a cancer patient about killing the earth, but I didn't).
Later, we tried to get into Jane Smiley's interview of S.E. Hinton, but alas, it was a packed house. So we roamed around for a while until it was time for a fiction panel called, for no discernible reason, "Closing Time". You'd think they'd have had some beers or something for everybody, with a title like that. but no. More's the pity. Still, it was entertaining. My favorite bit was when author Wells Tower was talking about revision, and said that at first people think of revision as being the clean-up after the party (the party being the initial act of writing). Then as you get more experienced, you start to think that revision is the party. But after a while you recognize the truth – that actually there is no party, it's all just a lot of hard work. I laughed at that, because a) he said it a lot funnier than I just did, and b) it really sums up how I feel about writing most of the time, but especially lately, and I was glad to know I'm not alone.
Now I realize that may not sound like a big deal. But here's the thing about being on chemo, at least for me. On the rare occasions when you actually feel like eating something, it's usually a very particular thing. And if you can't get that particular thing, it's more upsetting than usual, because in that moment, nothing else sounds good.
But there wasn't much I could do in this case. So I left the restaurant and drove around aimlessly until I stopped wanting the omelette and started wanting a sandwich.
I won't even go into the harrowing details of my sandwich search. Suffice to say I went to three different places, and came up empty-handed every time. At one place the sandwich-making person was going way too slow with the person in front of me. at another everything was too expensive and the atmosphere was all wrong, and at the third they didn't take credit cards and I had no cash. I finally ended up going to Goldstein's for a bagel sandwich, which was not at all the kind of sandwich I wanted, and which I didn't like when I finally ate it.
I was very cranky after that.
Thankfully, I was in a much better mood on Sunday, so when I went with a couple friends to the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA, I actually had a great time wandering among the seemingly endless array of booths (booksellers, writing societies, small presses, Scientologists, etc), and attending a couple of panels. I'd hoped to make an early-morning panel featuring author Uwem Akpan (Say You're One Of Them) among others. but unfortunately we arrived late and couldn't get in. So we went to the food court to get some lunch instead, where I paid way too much for the worst chicken teriyaki bowl I've ever had in my life (a friend called it teriyucky).
After that we went to another panel about the "Poetry of Engagement", which was more interesting than it sounds, particularly when a woman in the audience who everyone thought had a question for one of the panelists turned out to have more of an almost-rant about the environment (when she turned to the audience and asked who still used plastic bags at the grocery store, I wanted so badly to raise my hand, just to see if she would yell at a cancer patient about killing the earth, but I didn't).
Later, we tried to get into Jane Smiley's interview of S.E. Hinton, but alas, it was a packed house. So we roamed around for a while until it was time for a fiction panel called, for no discernible reason, "Closing Time". You'd think they'd have had some beers or something for everybody, with a title like that. but no. More's the pity. Still, it was entertaining. My favorite bit was when author Wells Tower was talking about revision, and said that at first people think of revision as being the clean-up after the party (the party being the initial act of writing). Then as you get more experienced, you start to think that revision is the party. But after a while you recognize the truth – that actually there is no party, it's all just a lot of hard work. I laughed at that, because a) he said it a lot funnier than I just did, and b) it really sums up how I feel about writing most of the time, but especially lately, and I was glad to know I'm not alone.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
An Accounting
So I'm really trying to be good and do what the doctor said; namely, eat more. It is by no means easy, since I continue to have absolutely no appetite. But here's what I ate today:
Breakfast:
Oatmeal with raisins
A handful of dried apricots
A milk chocolate Ghirardelli square with caramel inside (because it is NEVER too early in the day for chocolate, kids, appetite or not)
Lunch:
A bottle of vanilla-flavored Ensure (it's not just for old people anymore!)
A cup of raspberry yogurt
(OK, I didn't do so well in the lunch department. Sue me.)
Afternoon snacks:
Wild cherry sorbet + vanilla frozen yogurt (probably the best-tasting thing I had all day)
One Cheezit (which so completely repulsed me that I couldn't even remotely entertain the idea of having more—sad, because normally I like Cheezits)
Three or four chocolate animal-cracker type cookies
Dinner:
Two homemade bean-and-cheese burritos with salsa and lite sour cream
A couple very thin slices of tri-tip
Dessert:
A Chinese almond cookie
Another Ghirardelli chocolate caramel square
Hmm, when I see it all written out like that, it doesn't seem like I ate much at all. Yet right now I feel as though I've completely gorged myself.
Bleah.
Breakfast:
Oatmeal with raisins
A handful of dried apricots
A milk chocolate Ghirardelli square with caramel inside (because it is NEVER too early in the day for chocolate, kids, appetite or not)
Lunch:
A bottle of vanilla-flavored Ensure (it's not just for old people anymore!)
A cup of raspberry yogurt
(OK, I didn't do so well in the lunch department. Sue me.)
Afternoon snacks:
Wild cherry sorbet + vanilla frozen yogurt (probably the best-tasting thing I had all day)
One Cheezit (which so completely repulsed me that I couldn't even remotely entertain the idea of having more—sad, because normally I like Cheezits)
Three or four chocolate animal-cracker type cookies
Dinner:
Two homemade bean-and-cheese burritos with salsa and lite sour cream
A couple very thin slices of tri-tip
Dessert:
A Chinese almond cookie
Another Ghirardelli chocolate caramel square
Hmm, when I see it all written out like that, it doesn't seem like I ate much at all. Yet right now I feel as though I've completely gorged myself.
Bleah.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Not for the Faint of Heart
Today I had a bit of a scare. As I was standing in the office kitchen this morning talking to a co-worker, I suddenly began to feel sweaty and a bit nauseated. Then my vision went cloudy and the weakness I'd already been feeling in my knees got definitely worse. I became super-lightheaded and realized that I was literally about to faint—something that had never happened to me before. Somehow I managed to finish the conversation without losing consciousness and walk, or stumble rather, back to my cube. I put my bottle of water down on my desk and went to the restroom to get myself together. Once I'd recovered sufficiently, I returned to my desk and did what any other normal person who had just nearly fainted would do.
I checked out my symptoms on the Internet.
The web is definitely a mixed blessing when it comes to diagnosing illnesses. Before I ever knew I had cancer, I had a few symptoms that, when I researched them, suggested I might be about to die from congestive heart failure. Either that or I had a pinched nerve. Hmm.
So of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that when I typed "fainting" and "chemotherapy" into my Google search bar together, the first link that popped up started with the word "CARDIOMYOPATHY" in all caps, just like that. In case you're wondering what that is, let me save you the trouble of retracing my steps since (naturally) I already clicked on the link: "Cardiomyopathy is a serious disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and doesn't work as well as it should."
Now that's reassuring.
Finally I came to my senses and just called the doctor's office. The nurse who answered did not freak out and tell me to call 911 immediately. Instead she calmly suggested that I wasn't eating or drinking enough, which I had to admit was true. She said she'd leave a note for my doctor and that he'd give me a call to see how I was doing. He called me about an hour later, and after asking me a few questions, said the same thing as the nurse: "Make sure you're eating and getting enough fluids."
Heh. Easy to do when you feel hungry and food tastes good. A little bit harder when the thought of eating is almost enough to make you faint.
I checked out my symptoms on the Internet.
The web is definitely a mixed blessing when it comes to diagnosing illnesses. Before I ever knew I had cancer, I had a few symptoms that, when I researched them, suggested I might be about to die from congestive heart failure. Either that or I had a pinched nerve. Hmm.
So of course, it shouldn't surprise anyone that when I typed "fainting" and "chemotherapy" into my Google search bar together, the first link that popped up started with the word "CARDIOMYOPATHY" in all caps, just like that. In case you're wondering what that is, let me save you the trouble of retracing my steps since (naturally) I already clicked on the link: "Cardiomyopathy is a serious disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and doesn't work as well as it should."
Now that's reassuring.
Finally I came to my senses and just called the doctor's office. The nurse who answered did not freak out and tell me to call 911 immediately. Instead she calmly suggested that I wasn't eating or drinking enough, which I had to admit was true. She said she'd leave a note for my doctor and that he'd give me a call to see how I was doing. He called me about an hour later, and after asking me a few questions, said the same thing as the nurse: "Make sure you're eating and getting enough fluids."
Heh. Easy to do when you feel hungry and food tastes good. A little bit harder when the thought of eating is almost enough to make you faint.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Cumulative Effects
Round #4 of chemo was last Thursday, and I'm starting to see what people meant by saying the effects would be cumulative. The weekend was pretty much a wash. All I wanted to do was lie in bed, and that's mostly what I did. Today I made it back to work, but felt completely drained. Also majorly lacking in the appetite department. I ate, but didn't enjoy it.
What I did enjoy, however, was spending money I really shouldn't have, on some cute new clothes. Retail therapy works wonders, I must say. I never would have believed it, but thanks to cancer, I've discovered it's true!
At least, until I get next month's credit card bill.
On a completely other note, it's been incredibly hot here in Southern California. I mean, I know that's usually a given, but the past few days it's been a bit ridiculous. I went sans a hat yesterday and today, for the whole day; when it's over 95 degrees Fahrenheit, you're almost glad you're bald. I mean, assuming you are. Which I am. And if you're not, this weather might seriously make you consider it.
Man, it's so hot, I'm not even making any sense anymore. Or maybe it's another cumulative effect... but one that's related simply to being alive in my case. Can't really blame the chemo for that one, I guess. More's the pity.
What I did enjoy, however, was spending money I really shouldn't have, on some cute new clothes. Retail therapy works wonders, I must say. I never would have believed it, but thanks to cancer, I've discovered it's true!
At least, until I get next month's credit card bill.
On a completely other note, it's been incredibly hot here in Southern California. I mean, I know that's usually a given, but the past few days it's been a bit ridiculous. I went sans a hat yesterday and today, for the whole day; when it's over 95 degrees Fahrenheit, you're almost glad you're bald. I mean, assuming you are. Which I am. And if you're not, this weather might seriously make you consider it.
Man, it's so hot, I'm not even making any sense anymore. Or maybe it's another cumulative effect... but one that's related simply to being alive in my case. Can't really blame the chemo for that one, I guess. More's the pity.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Unsettled
Tonight I received an email I'd been dreading, from the husband of a long-lost friend of mine. A friend who, I found out late last year, was struggling with a particularly bad cancer situation. I got back in touch with her after I heard the news, and we exchanged a couple of emails. Then I didn't hear anything from her for quite a while. I finally dropped her a line asking how she was doing and got no response. Until this evening, when her husband wrote to tell me that she had passed away about two weeks ago.
She was 33 years old. Like me.
I try not to think about death very much, but sometimes, like tonight, the subject is hard to avoid. And although my faith tells me that death isn't the end, the truth is, it still scares me a lot. Death is the ultimate unknown, and I've never handled the unknown very well. I like to feel as though I'm in control of my life, and in control of the things that happen to me. But having cancer has been a major a blow to that illusion. Even though my prognosis has been good from the beginning of this whole surreal saga, I've found it difficult not to think about my mortality.
"O death, where is thy sting?" wrote the Apostle Paul in his letter to the early church in Rome. Well, I'll tell you where it is. It's in the word "goodbye" when we don't get the opportunity to say it. Or when we do, knowing it's the last time. And it's in the sobering realization that we ever have to say it at all.
She was 33 years old. Like me.
I try not to think about death very much, but sometimes, like tonight, the subject is hard to avoid. And although my faith tells me that death isn't the end, the truth is, it still scares me a lot. Death is the ultimate unknown, and I've never handled the unknown very well. I like to feel as though I'm in control of my life, and in control of the things that happen to me. But having cancer has been a major a blow to that illusion. Even though my prognosis has been good from the beginning of this whole surreal saga, I've found it difficult not to think about my mortality.
"O death, where is thy sting?" wrote the Apostle Paul in his letter to the early church in Rome. Well, I'll tell you where it is. It's in the word "goodbye" when we don't get the opportunity to say it. Or when we do, knowing it's the last time. And it's in the sobering realization that we ever have to say it at all.
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