Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

In a hour or two I will finish up my second chemo cycle. You're probably wondering if this cycle was better or worse than the last one. I'm wondering too.

Very few things feel as intense in hindsight as they do in the present, so for now I am saying that neither treatment was particularly tough. The first had me nervous, and some minor feelings of nausea only made me more so. The second treatment was quicker and more efficient, but it also included a nice flare-up of back pain that had me hopping around the chemo ward, making everyone nervous. The hiccups haven't been as bad this time, but the nausea was worse - in the depths of it I really wished I could have thrown up and have been done with it - but no luck.

I think this shot is safe enough to not hide behind a link - it shows how my 46 hour drip is attached to my port-a-cath. Just a tiny little needle, really, and carrying the bottle around isn't that much of a bother.

Frankie calls it "The Curious Bottle."

Since I've subjected you to my hairy chest I thought I should show you what my head hair looks like after two days of not showering (can't get the port-a-cath wet.)

Since it should start falling out in a week or two I think I may keep with the Eraser Head look!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Ever since early January I've been experiencing some pretty awful back pain. It's ranged from a dull tightness that doesn't allow me to stay still, to acute pain that has me literally crawling on the floor.

Hot baths and showers help, as did a birthday morning spent at Le Scandinave!

Anyhow, I got in for a massage last Wednesday when I was feeling particularly rough. I showed up early and that paid off; she snuck me in for more than my allotted hour. It felt great.

On the same day that I was feeling so good from treatment I got the results of my latest CT scan. My Oncologist had ordered one so we could eliminate any of the worst case scenarios as the source of my back pain.

Unfortunately we weren't able to do that.

Only a month after my previous scan, which was fairly clean, I was now showing not only a 2cm blood clot in my liver, but also two 1cm tumors in my liver and five 2cm tumors in my peritoneum.

There's pretty much no way to classify this as good news.

In the days that have passed Christi and I have achieved a certain level of calmness about the whole thing. We finally talked to the kids about it and that went fairly well. Frankie certainly knows something is going on, but she seems okay. Owen has said that he'd rather not have the facts, which I think is his way of saying that he wishes it weren't true.

If there's a silver (or maybe gray?) lining to this backward step, it's this: most cases of pancreatic cancer go this way. Mine just went this way much faster. It's pushed me one step closer to reality, which is a good thing. This is much tougher on my family than it is for me.

For what it's worth, and I think it's worth a lot, I am feeling happy and am looking forward to what ever future I am lucky enough to have.

Bear With Me As I Entertain A Metaphor

I've been watching all twelve hours of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in the middle of the night as I've struggled with sleep issues (a BluRay version came my way this Christmas), so indulge me on this one:

(If you need to read the books or watch the movies to make this relevant, I'll wait so you can catch up)

The Ring, which threatens to destroy all of Middle Earth, is cancer.

Gollum, a very tricksy and foul creature who is nonetheless crucial in destroying The Ring, is chemo.

And Samwise Gamgee, the Hobbit who protects Frodo with no regard to his own happiness and safety, is my wife.

A Meaningful Life

Ross was my friend for 13 years and my brother for the last four months.

Ross gave me my very own Jeero for strength through my cancer - his Jeero went through many more ordeals than should ever be necessary.

Yet none of that ever diminished his freight train-like passion for life.

Death Star Trash Compactor

That's what my insides sound like.

So far nothing about chemo side effects have been as expected. Actually getting the injections was not too bad. Carrying around a baby bottle for two days was not too bad. I even split a Pizza Libretto prix fixe lunch with CJ on the way home from the disconnect on Thursday.

I was steeled against nausea and digestive problems, but not against intense pain in my gut and back. Generally they tag-team me; first the back, then the gut, then the back, etc.

My only consolation is that my waiting for the other shoe to drop (the aforementioned nausea and digestive problems) may in fact be the stress that's causing the problems.

Hopefully after I start to figure this cycle out things will get a bit more tolerable.

Side Effects, I've Had A Few...

But by far the most annoying has been the hiccups. Bouts of 90 minutes. I've at least learned to fall asleep while they're happening.

In other news, a lot has happened since I started chemo but the energy's not there to put it all down right now.

All things being equal I feel like things could be a lot worse.

She's My Everything

I just finished a smoothie & salad that included just about every anti-cancer food known to exist.

And they were delicious!

I provide the comic relief in this operation, but my lovely Christi provides everything else.

Post-Birthday Ride

I like to get out for a ride on my birthday whenever possible, but yesterday I was busy being treated to a spa, spending time with my family and getting a nice dinner (with an even nicer apple pie for dessert.)

So I got out for a ride today instead. Report below:

Folfirinox > Gemcitabene?

With apologies to my friends and coworkers at Shaw Media who have already read this, here's a copy/paste of my chemotherapy information:

I have chosen a course of chemo called Folfirinox. It's not yet approved in Canada, but there's reason to believe it may be more effective than the standard pancreatic cancer treatment: Gemcitabene. With Gemcitabene, cancer can reoccur elsewhere in the body 80 to 90 percent of the time.

I didn't like those lousy odds so I chose the Folfirinox. The trouble with Folfirinox is that it's much more toxic; besides some very serious side effects, I will certainly experience hair loss, nausea, and my favourite, diarrhoea with constipation.

Since this is a new treatment nobody really knows how I'll react; it will likely cause me grievous harm.

What I do know:

• A port-a-cath (a tap into my vein) will be inserted on Monday, January 9th
• My first day of chemo is Tuesday, January 10th - it's a 46 hour procedure, meaning I will go home with a pump.
• My second day of chemo is Thursday, January 12th.

I don't have my full schedule, but I believe that I will have two sessions of chemo every other week for six months. Unless my body can't handle the toxicity, in which case the plans will change.

***

The idea here is obviously to go after this thing as aggressively as my incoming health allows. I am sure over the next six months there will be times when I greatly regret the decision to take the harder and more uncertain route.

But hey, isn't rising to the challenge supposed to put hair on one's chest?

Paying Attention

In my own mind I am famous for jumping in on a subject by saying: "I read about that in The New Yorker...but I can't quite remember the details..."

Well, I read about this in The New Yorker, but I can't quite remember the details: the human mind has a neat trick of 'digitizing' common experiences. In the same way that an MP3 condenses a full song by removing all the bits you hardly notice, our brains tend to process less detail every time we experience things we've experienced before.

So as we age, and things that were once unique occurrences - starting our cars, doing the dishes, noticing plants sprouting - pile up, less and less ends up in our short and long-term memory.

The net effect is that time seems to move faster as we get older.

For myself in particular, I can recall how the two months between the arrival of the all-too-alluring Consumer's Distributing catalogue and Christmas morning seemed to take about eight months.

The point of all this? The past eleven weeks of my life have been so intense that it's seemed like a year.

So I've lived longer already!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back To Work I Go

...sort of.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my first day back at work since my operation. There were a lot of ups and a few downs between November 4th and January 3rd, but the currently "hot" down is the fact that I haven't been cleared by my medical team to return to work full time.

Which is frustrating, because as you can see from my previous post, I'm feeling pretty great.

But I may not be in less than a week. Details will follow, but the short version is this: the chemo I ultimately chose is both experimental and highly toxic - so my ability to work over the next six months is very much up in the air. I may react well enough to be of some use to Shaw Media, but I may not.

I think my coworkers know that I miss seeing them every day, but I also quite miss the creative atmosphere, the challenge of constant improvement, and even the frustrations that come with pitting those things against more mundane financial targets.

Basically, I'm not interested in becoming a full time iPad jockey. Although I am pretty damn good at Catan now.

But the rules dictate that I can't return to work until I have paperwork allowing me to do so. I also won't get paid full time until said paperwork is done.

So my triumphant return is looking more like a one day office tour.

But hey, feeling better than they say I am is not the worst problem in the world!