July 2008 Archives

I was going to be there today but.. she died before I got there.

At least the last time I saw her she was leaving for their place on the island.  So she left me...for the lake, so I got to see her on the way to being at her favourite place.

I wish I could have been there today though. I'll be there this afternoon.Thanks for your support and supportive e-mails the past few months.

This was my ex's younger sister, who happened to be the same age as my eldest sister. She died early this morning or yesterday of cancer. I am...it's very sad. But this was nicely written. The imagery is comforting.

Often, people get into introspective moments and conclude that they are not all that great. That perhaps they will never be happy at work, in love or in anything. They might have a poor body image, or believe themselves to be not very intelligent, or anything. What do you do when you care about such a person, and tell them what you really think; that they look great or are more intelligent than most people they know, but the words just fall flat against their despair?

What do you do? How long can you go on believing in the best of that person when they do not believe themselves? You can only build someone up so long before you get tired and stop doing that for a bit. It's not even necessarily that you have to do this all that often. It's that someone you care about is hurting because things may not be going well for them, or they don't feel very good about themselves, and there isn't much you can do about it. It's frustrating, especially when you know that ultimately, it isn't your responsibility no matter how you feel about the person.

I consider it a responsibility to try to bring someone close to you up when they are down, but it is hard to be creative when it comes to this. I think it's easier when you are young, but in the last seven or eight years life has become too complicated for simple compliments. Maybe solid solutions are required. A simple listening ear may no longer be adequate.

You want to help, but it's hard to know what to do anymore.

Taken at Jouvence, 2008. Yes, I did end up going. More about it later. View the rest of the set here.

Things have been happening lately, for sure. There's been a emotional and physical upheaval. I won't get into all the details in this post, but I will describe some of the physical.

Last Wednesday, I started feeling a pain and soreness in my neck. At first I thought that it was muscle pain related to posture (I may not have the most ergonomic environment at work or at home), and since I am now prone to minor muscle soreness, this seemed reasonable. But it never went away that day. In fact, it swelled up to the point where you could see it if you looked.

I was supposed to leave to go to the Retreat Yourself '08 retreat sponsored by Young Adult Cancer Canada (formerly Real Time Cancer) on Thursday afternoon. I still had some pain and swelling Thursday morning when I got up at 5:30. I figured that the prudent thing to do would be to get it checked out by a doctor, so I arrived at the hospital at 7 am. There was no one else in the emergency ward, so everything happened pretty quickly initially. I saw the triage nurse, then I got registered, seen by a medical student and then a doctor all within 90 minutes, which is pretty fast for a Canadian emergency ward in a large city.

I have a few questions about genocide:

1. Is what the Germans did to the Jews during WWII genocide? (Note: it is frequently referred to as such.)
2. Is what the Europeans did to the native North Americans genocide? (Note: it is very rarely referred to as such.)
3. When is genocide justifiable?
4. Did the people who instigated and perpetuated these campaigns (which included murder, rape, enslavement and torture) know any better? In other words, can their deeds be understood and forgiven within the greater context and culture of the time, therefore lessening the impact and responsibility of what was done?
5. Is it only genocide if you are the victim? Is it something else if you are the aggressor?

I would appreciate it if you could answer these questions as best you can in order to discuss what genocide actually is, and what impact it has on the future.

As you know, I've been pretty stressed and depressed with the anticipation of the results of last week's scan. I've been very pragmatic and conservative about my expectations until this morning. This morning, and all day until the actual results, I was fearfully hoping that I could  hit a home run and be clear. Today I got the results. In keeping with tradition:

There is a previous history of esophagectomy and gastric pull-up for esophageal carcinoma. Since the previous PET scan, the patient has been on chemotherapy with the last dose given in May, 2008. The previously described small hypermetabolic focus located in the retropancreatic region on the left side of the celiac axis and inferolaterally to the surgical clips visualized on the CT scan, shows a similar maximum SUV of approximately 11 and on scanning, there is no evidence of significant change.

The previously demonstrated small lobulated hypermetabolic focus located anteriorly to the superior vena cava and therefore laterally to the ascending thoracic aorta (at the transverse horizontal plane of the carina level) shows a slightly more lobulated appearance and an SUV of 10.6 as compared to 9.7 in January, 2008.

There is a new focus of increased uptake in the region of the left lower internal jugular vein channel, at the horizontal level of the thyroid gland, measuring approximately 1.5 cm in diameter with a maximum SUV of 10.3.

There is no evidence of abnormal increased uptake at the sites of the small pulmonary parenchymal abnormalities visualized on the CT scan.

The rest of the total body PET scan shows no evidence of other sites of abnormal increased uptake to suggest the presence of active lesions avid on the FDG radiotracer at this time.

Very minor changes of the hypermetabolic foci located one of them in the mediastinum and the other in the retropancreatic region, since January, 2008, compatible with metastases. New small hypermetabolic focus in the left internal jugular vein channel, which is highly suspicious for a new metastatic lesion.

The rest of the PET scan appears normal.

I decided to post here again,so feel free to check it out.

Tomorrow, I will find out the results of last week's scan. I fully realized today what Julie already knew: I am frightened about tomorrow. I can talk all I want about my lack of faith in this chemotherapy bullshit and about how I am going to take care of this on my own and so on, but in the end, I am scared shitless about what the doctor will tell me tomorrow, no matter how calm I look on the outside. With each passing hour, I get a little more anxious.

In other news, I may get onto another project as early as next week. It'll be a summertime assignment, probably, so we'll see what happens.