Getting Kicked In the Pants Repeatedly

I was telling a friend about my newest developments and he had a great line to me: "man, you just keep getting kicked in the pants!" And he is kind of right, especially today, with the following two pieces of not-so-good news.

First, the read that I made yesterday of my MRI was mostly accurate, I probably have an additional tumor in my back (I did miscount, it was the T8, not the T7, vertebral body that had the likely neoplasm). So, the kick-in-the-pants is that I have what is "consistent with" (looks like) a "metastatic focus" (tumor) in my thoracic spine (backbone) and in the sternum (middle of the chest-bone). That probably places me at Stage IV Lymphoma, which is the most advanced stage and probably makes it so that I will need a lumbar puncture (LP/spinal tap) where they stick a needle into my vertebral column and suck out some cerebrospinal fluid to test if there is lymphoma in my central nervous system. If it is (and maybe if it isn't) in my CNS, they will inject me with chemotherapy in my spinal column, in addition to the normal intervenous and oral chemotherapy. They have to inject it in my back, because the chemotherapy injected into my blood cannot pass the blood-brain barrier. Stage IV also doubles the rounds of chemo I need, from 3-4 to 4-8. The Stage IV probably lowers my prognosis, but no one really has given me one. I still have a very favorable prognosis either way, they still really, really think I'll be cured.

The second kick-in-the-pants is that we just found out that my City Beach volleyball team, which double-qualified in open for Junior Olympics (top 28 teams in the nation) due to phenomenal wheelchair coaching and a little skill from the players, will not be able to go this year because of paperwork that was filed less than 1 week late. It was a technical mistake that should not have been made by City Beach, and a technicality with which USA Volleyball is being extremely strict. I think I am more bummed about this than my stupid cancer! You know I am a volleyball coaching nerd if that happens.

Two pretty firm kicks in my pants. Are these things unjust, and should I play the victim? If I do choose to be a victim, I will ensure myself some self-inflicted misery on top of the painful pant-kickings, I have done that before in my life. I'd rather just experience the physical pain and avoid all the psychological traps. We'll see just how much vomit piles up though and see how I wade through it (I'm sorry, I haven't talked about vomit in like 3 days).