Almost Normal

I am pretty much back to normal now. I am eating without much pain, I have hair and eyebrows, and I have WAY more energy. I didn't even realize how low my energy had dipped when I was in treatment. I probably was a little slow while I was coaching those camps back in the summer...hopefully I can redeem myself with those kids next year. I am also thinking better - my cancer-brain is improving. It still is not perfect, but I haven't felt this good in a while. My hip still hurts as I try to push it, and it kind of hurts to walk. But I am ignoring that garbage and I'm ready to just pretend to be normal. I've been jumping and everything while coaching and I am healing faster and faster from it these days.

I have received maybe 50 birthday cards so far...maybe more. I haven't even opened all of them because this was such a hectic weekend. I feel famous! This is the first birthday that I have received the kind of cards that have the fire-engines and the burning houses from all the candles. I don't mind the jokes about my age though, getting old is a good thing, especially when the possibility of that was in question.

I have not been to the doctor in a long time. It is kind of weird. I am thinking about going in for a blood draw for old-times sake. I can't believe I was diagnosed, treated and cured of cancer this year, and now I am just me again. Weird. Who am I anyway?

Cancer Survivor

The microwave has dinged and the hotpocket's insides have been thoroughly cooked. Wow, my stomach hurts.

But I'm there, done with treatment and in remission. I turn 29 one week from Friday. I never would have imagined that I would be a cancer-survivor before I was 30. Kind of weird how your plans change.

Almost There...

Well, possibly tomorrow is my last day of treatment; that is, if they don't mess up this time. I know they are at least doing SOMETHING to me, because my esophagus is killing me! I am on Vicodin for it. Vicodin is actually sort of fun, but it makes me drowsy and still doesn't take away all of the pain. It hurts just to drink water, especially when I take a large gulp. Let me start with my pains from the feet up:

- I stepped on a hammer the other day and I have a cut on the bottom of my foot that hurts when I walk
- My hip hurts from the old tumor business
- my lower abdomen feels upset and it is growling at me
- my middle abdomen feels empty, like when you are really hungry (because I can't really eat)
- my upper abdomen hurts like a madman, especially when I swallow
- that pain then spreads to my whole chest when I breathe
- every once in a while some acid comes up my esophagus and creates a small forest fire in my throat
- the back of my mouth hurts and sort of waters from the pain from the esophagus
- I have nausea from a combination of all of those things

I am still coaching though! It helps to keep my mind off the pain of cancer and on the pain of watching my team play muahahaha. Just kidding.

Cranky Day

Wow, I was cranky today. I started the day off much less smiley to my technicians. I couldn't help but think about the fact that for three days they lined me up on the wrong dot. I wondered how they could screw that up, and the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got.

To start off each treatment, they first line up my side dots into the molding to make sure that my back is straight. Then they take an x-ray to see if my guts are in line. Then, when all is clear, the buzzer comes on and it radiates me. One of the robot arms actually has to swivel around me a bit, because I think they shoot me from about 5 different angles. Once that is done, they move on to the electron treatment of my sternum. There are three dots in the center of my chest. The one they are supposed to use is the middle one, but somewhere along the line on Tuesday through Thursday last week, they lined me up using the top dot. I really don't get that, and I really don't get why it had to be three days in a row. They do not do an x-ray of that, because the electron treatment does not pass through my whole body. Therefore, there is no backup check to see if they lined me up correctly. Once they radiate that for a little bit, then it is time for the hip.

Now I think I am a unique case because they have to radiate two parts of my body that are pretty far apart. I would assume that normally people just get a prostate or just a hip or just a leg or something. But the fact that I have two parts radiated, relatively far apart, means that they have to move my nekked carcass up towards my head and to my right so the machine can reach me. They have to do this EVERY TIME. However, they do not write it down, nor do they remember. They re-solve this problem about twice a week. Somehow they can line up my hip dots without moving my body, then they go in the back and have to come back once they realize that they didn't move me up first before lining up my dots. Today I told them that they have to move me up higher and they ignored me, then they went in the back and said they are having some computer glitch so I lay there nekked and motionless while they go try to figure it out. Then they come in about 15 minutes later and say that "to fix the computer glitch, we are going to have to move you up." I wondered to myself if they remembered that I had told them that first. On Monday I am going to wonder out loud to them.

This is all an appropriate way to end my treatment. Remember that I started it all off with an egotistical doctor that gave me a percentage that it was 90% not lymphoma? And now I finish with a few doses of radiation to the wrong place. And plus, I have to go in next week very begrudgingly and get my last three doses to correct the three-day error. And all this with probably some low blood cell counts and probably with a continuing esophogitis that does not allow me to eat comfortably. I haven't felt this frustrated since my wheelchair days.

Radiation Fun Extended

Today the aliens had me visit with the head probing doctor after my radiation. This was an unexpected appointment, so I thought it was kind of weird. Maybe I would get a surprise that my treatment was over?! Nope. He informed me that they had given me radiation for 3 days last week to the wrong area of my chest. They had accidentally lined me up using the wrong dot...and the funniest part about that is that he said that my chest hair had kind of messed it up. Dang manliness! Well, the other thing that messed it up is straight-up technician error. They found the problem because one of the nurses noticed two different sunburns on my chest and wondered about it. They went back in their records and were able to tell that they screwed it up. They also figured out that they did do my hip and back correctly, so at least that is good.

This error means that I need to go back Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week to get those doses to my chest that I should have gotten last week, thus extending the end of my treatment to October 11. The other bad thing is that I have now received around 500 units of radiation to one of the few parts of my skeleton that was actually made of quality parts. This should have no negative side-effects, but I don't think my doctor would have me shoot HIM with 500 rads in the chest. Am I mad? Nah. This year has just been like that. You just accept it because it is out of your control and you tell yourself it is just lettuce on your taco and that the only way to make this thing worse is to get mad about it. The hilarious thing about this whole thing is that they have lasers and computers, but the way they are going to prevent this kind of mistake in the future for electron treatments like mine is to draw around the correct tattoo with a Sharpie.

Esophagitis

They say I have Esophagitis. Anytime they append "itis" to the end, they are just flaunting their medical jargon. Esophagitis just means that my esophagus is irritated; it could be irritated from radiation, food, some random other condition, or an alien parasite. Really, I have Bodyitis, because my hip, chest, back and inerts hurt; plus, I have that toe issue and my hands have a rash. It is expected that I get esophagitis because of the radiation. They told me that I just need to avoid eating stuff that irritates it more. The esophagitis is creating some heartburn, which is creating slight nausea. I also have somewhat of a sunburn now. They are having me put Aloe Vera on it.

In spite of the side-effects, my radiation is proceding as planned. I am now 4 days until treatment is done. Today they were having trouble finding one of my tattoos because it was buried beneath my chest hair. I said "I apologize for my manliness" and they sort of laughed. The joking helps with the awkwardness of the whole thing. I am getting sort of used to not wearing any clothes. Don't worry, I still prefer clothing.

Alien Parasite

My stomach hurts in a new and unique way now. It feels like I swallowed a jawbreaker and it got stuck right behind my sternum. Each time I swallow, and sometimes when I breath deeply, I can feel it. I am thinking that the aliens might have implanted one of their own in my stomach and it is teething. I figure in about 2 weeks it will gnaw its way out and do a little dance on my abdomen for me to some Nat King Cole song. The other possibility is that the radiation has irritated some of my guts in there. It isn't all that bad of pain, but I am going to tell them about it tomorrow and hopefully they will confirm that this is an expected side-effect and that I can procede with treatment.