Recently in Chemotherapy, Part 3 Category

I promised to update people on things, and here is my chance to do so.

The last month has been up and down in a number of ways. Work has changed completely. We are in the last stages of our project. People are working overtime, but not huge amounts of it. We have essentially run out of people to do/fix the subtitles so, since I wasn't doing much as a PM anyway because of the nature of both the project and management, I was tapped to be the Senior Subtitle Implementation Programmer. (Did you like that new title I just made up? I've got management written all over me.)

This has changed certain things. I no longer have time to read blogs all day, and so I no longer feel the need to write about certain things right now. I'll get back to it, though, as I think that it is an important topic that most people would rather not discuss frankly. I am not nearly as bored as I was. It was a good bored, not a bad bored, so it wasn't really terrible at all. I got to read blogs all day, after all.

I hope to survive. I do have expectations of survival, but they aren't nearly as strong as they used to be. Last night I was awake all night thinking about my decline and death. I had to remind myself at 5 am that my chances are actually very good. It's hard to think positively (or rationally, sometimes) when you are suffering. That's what chemotherapy is. Suffering. I should see it as a cure, as a salvation, but when you can barely think, feed yourself or even stand, it's hard to be positive.

But I am not sad or depressed, since I am not fully into the belief that I will die. No one has said it, and treatment is only half over. Anything can happen, and that is where hope and fear coincide. I'll probably be my normal self in a day or two.

My brother-in-law says that I should be enjoying myself as much as possible. I wonder what the subtext is...

UPDATE: Immediately after writing this, I came upon this. If you believe in...stuff, well this is probably stuff worth paying attention to.

Bad news: In order to have chemotherapy, you need to take a blood test two days prior to treatment to test for various things, not least of which is your white blood cell count. When I had my TCF treatment, they knew that I would possibly become neutropenic, and accordingly put me on 10 days of Neupogen to boost my counts. It works extremely well. However, on FOLFIRI, I was never put on Neupogen after treatment. What they expected was that since the treatment is much less adverse and that I am still relatively young (I think I have white hairs because of chemo, and not age) that I would not need any Neupogen. It's a pretty expensive drug, after all. I was originally supposed to have my second treatment on Wednesday, March 5 nearly a week ago. I failed the test (they don't like it when I put it that way, but it IS a failure), and had to push back treatment by one week.

And today, I learned that I failed the white blood cell test again. This means that treatment will be delayed by at least a week, probably happening on March 20. I am not happy about having treatment on a Thursday, but them's the breaks. Basically, the doctor made the wrong call in my treatment, and this is the result. My PET scan will need to be pushed back, and I may have to do a seventh treatment to make up for the month that I didn't have any. This also screws up my plans for summer school, sports, travel and pretty much anything I wanted to do in the spring.

Good news: I can now pretty much guarantee that I will make it out for Sunday with no problems whatsoever. For those that do not know, my tradition is to get to Hurley's at 9 am the day of the parade, eat the breakfast provided, drink the Irish coffee included, drink a couple of pints, go to the parade at noon and hang out on the south side of Crescent and Ste-Catherine (drinking), then go to some other bar or two and drink until around 7:30 pm. Of course I am not alone; I am with some core people, and I always either make new friends for the day, or encounter old ones. If you are interested, please let me know and we can make room for you at our table.

I wish I weren't alone today
I wish I were okay
But if you were here with me
I wouldn't know what to say

I feel as though I have no will
As though I weren't at all
I can not even walk outside
To feel the sun, it's call

It's better than it was before
That much I must admit
At least I still reach out to you
As much this permits

Still I wish I weren't alone today
But writing this has helped
I have a couple hours left
For killing cancer's whelps

Addendum: I know it says that I am all alone today, but I'm not really. There are many people wishing me well, this I know. I still draw strength from you.

In case you forgot, I started more chemo two days ago, and it ends this afternoon. This afternoon can't come fast enough, though.