Cancer - A Long Overdue Update

Part III – A Long Overdue Update

    It's been a while since I've updated this part of my blog; things have been a little crazy. My wife has now completed five of her six cycle of chemo, with the sixth one scheduled for Friday. Before the last cycle we received some amazing news; she's now cancer-free!

    She's still suffering from the side effects of the chemo, and she's confused as to why the sixth cycle is required, knowing that the side effects are cumulative (each cycle is worse than the last) and that she's cancer-free. The doctor has explained to her that the minimum treatment is six cycles, but she's concerned that the chemo drugs are indiscriminate in their killing, and that if there are no remaining cancer cells to kill, how many "good cells" are going to suffer? I understand her logic, but I'm the type of person that tends to "follow protocol" when I'm dealing with important things like this.

 

    The side effects are bad enough that she had to take a medical leave-of-absence from work. She's been home for about a month now. As far as we can tell she's probably going to be out until the end of July; maybe even longer, but we hope not. The sooner the chemicals are ot of her system the better as far as we're concerned. She was sick before we knew that she had cancer, then had three surgeries in January, directly followed by the chemo treatments. She's tired of "recovering," and she's defensive about getting the final chemo treatment.

    On a good note, now that we know she's cancer-free we're making plans for a victory celebration. Ideas are "a-plenty" for ways to celebrate; the most popular being a family vacation centered around either a cruise or a trip to another country. She also wants a formal party of some sort where the men's dress is coat-and-tie and evening gowns for the women. Whatever we end up doing, it's going to be amazing!

    When my wide was first diagnosed, one of her main concerns was, "Will I live through this?" The doctors assured her that she would and tried to calm her fears, but our day-to-day life, as well as our outlook on life-in-general, immediately began to change.

    Before the diagnosis we lived day-to-day; well, we existed, that is. But things we were either afraid to do or that we didn't want to waste time day-dreaming about suddenly had more of a sense of urgency about them; they needed to get done, and we needed to do them! My fear of heights took a back-seat and I decided that if she wanted to do something, I was going to do it with her! I didn't care if she wanted to do something as crazy as jumping out of a perfectly good airplane! Thank God she's dead-set against riding the rides on top of the Stratosphere hotel in Vegas!

    Personally, I had already made the decision that even if her condition had been terminal (and thank God that it isn't!) that I was going to do my best to complete the items on her bucket list before I even started on mine. Now that she's cancer-free we've decided to not only dream about things that we want to do, but we're going to do everything in our power to make those dreams happen.

    The lessons we're taking away from all of this:

        Follow your dreams!

        Live! Don't just exist

    ...and the old cliche:

        Don't sweat the petty stuff!

        Cuz it's ALL petty stuff!

Cancer - How It Has Affected and Is Affecting My Family

Part III – The Results Are In

    January 7th came, and the surgeon removed several axillary lymph nodes and sent them out for testing. He advised us that, barring any complications, the results should be back within three business days. But the three business days came and went, as did the fifth, seventh and tenth. My wife and sister-in-law had a running joke that results would come back negative and that she was either allergic to the convenience store coffee she drank daily or she was allergic to doing the dishes. Her oncologist, however, decided on a different approach. He decided that this most likely meant that she did have lymphoma, and that the lab was busy trying to type it. Privately, my wife had already come to the same decision. He started her on a few medications to get her ready for her chemotherapy regimen...just as a precaution. The plan was to get ahead of the treatment so that she would be ready to start as soon as the results came in. When they came in a few days later, they were proven to be correct - the lab had to run twenty-seven different tests on the nodes, which is why it had taken so much time. That's when she got the formal diagnosis.
    Her next procedure was a bone marrow biopsy - a required procedure for lymphoma patients solely for the purpose of determining the total treatment regimen. Of course the doctors and nurses told her that she would only feel a pinch and some pressure, but very little discomfort. They lied. The doctor injected her with numbing medicine, waited a few minutes, and then began to work a stainless steel tool, similar to a corkscrew without the curves, back and forth in a twisting motion in her right buttock. I was sitting at the head of the operating table letting her hold my hands and watching as they performed the procedure. When the tool made contact with her hip bone it made the sort of sound that your steak knife makes when you hit the bone in your steak by accident. As it turned out, my lovely wife has a very thick pelvic bone that was also very hard, causing this "5-minute procedure" to drag on for almost thirty minutes.
    The final procedure was to install a "port" (portable catheter) into the upper right side of her chest. This would allow nurses and other hospital staff to access her blood stream without having to put an IV into her. Since my wife has small, rolling veins, we viewed it as a very good idea. The port would allow them to take blood samples, as well as administer IV and chemo fluids without taking any chances of collapsing her veins throughout the chemo regimen. And with the results in and all the procedures done the treatment was defined; she would have chemo treatments (called "a cycle") every three weeks for a total of six to eight cycles.

Coming up...Part IV - The Next Steps

Cancer - How It Has Affected and Is Affecting My Family

Part II - Family Traditions

    Around December 20th my wife began having pains in her lower abdomenal area. She made an appointment to see her physician again and went in on the 23rd for a follow-up visit. I went with her, as I did on many occasions. The doctor stated that the pains were caused by swelling of the lymph nodes in those areas, and that her symptoms were suspicious of some type of lymphoma. The doctor wanted to order more tests, but, since it was the last day before the long Christmas weekend started, instead of sending her through the normal process, she sent her to the hospital's emergency room, that way the test results would be in her hands that same evening. She had a biopsy scheduled for January 7, 2011, and until the results were in no one, not one single doctor (she was seeing three different ones concurrently by then), would give her even a "most-likely" answer regarding her condition.
    During our lovely six-hour stay in the ER they ran more blood tests, a urinalysis, and a CT scan. The blood tests and the urinalysis results came back inconclusive, but the CT scan showed that all of her lymph nodes, as well as her spleen, were enlarged...some bigger than golf balls. The doctor, due to liablity reasons refused to give us a "probable" diagnosis, but did inform us that the it was no longer "very suspicious" of lymphoma, but was "extremely suspicious."
    We had plans to spend the next evening - Christmas Eve - at her sister's house with her family. It had already gone from a small gathering of family members to a fairly large gathering of family and close friends. Given the information that we had at the time, my wife decided that we would have "the best Christmas ever!" She also decided that, instead of "spending the evening" with the rest of her family, we would all spend the night there and open presents as a family in the morning. Of course, she never mentioned the "best Christmas ever" idea...just that it sounded like a lot of fun. The thing is, her brother and sister began to suspect that something was going on, but they refused to make any comments...just in case.
    One of the family traditions at these holiday get-togethers is to play a game of Pictionary. My wife and her sister are the "dynamic duo" of the family - an unstoppable force that has rarely ever been beaten. The one time that her brother and I beat them, a never-ending dispute started in which they denied that we won, and we, in turn, denied them. Since that time I have refused to partake in the tradition - no need to have a dispute between me and my wife! As it was Christmas Eve, my wife insisted on playing the traditional game. My sister-in-law reminded my wife that there was no way I was going to play, which would leave her brother without a good partner. My wife said, "He'll play tonight," and her sister caught on. "OK! WHAT'S GOING ON?" she said...so my wife explained it all to her. They both agreed that she should tell her brother, and just as she started to he changed the subject and left the room.
    During the course of the game, which, for once, was a close one, my brother-in-law accused his sisters of cheating. This prompted a heated banter that ended with my wife proclaiming that this was "the last game of Pictionary EVER!" My brother-in-law proceeded to grab the die, all the drawing paper and all the pencils. He said to her, "TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK NOW!"...telling us that he knew that there was something very serious going on with her, but he wasn't ready to deal with it at the moment.


Coming up...Cancer - Part III - The Results Are In

Cancer - How It Has Affected and Is Affecting My Family

Part I – A Little History for You

    Cancer has long been a part of life in my family. My great-grandfather died of skin cancer. My uncle died of some rare form of cancer that made him dwindle away to skin and bones before he died. My grandfather survived a battle with prostrate cancer before dying of lung cancer that metastasized to his liver. My mother-in-law battled breast and stomach cancer. My father-in-law was believed to have a minor case of bladder cancer. And now, as of mid-January, 2011, my wife has been diagnosed with a rare form - there's that phrase again - of lymphoma, affecting only 1% of all lymphoma patients. She suffers from a condition called "angio immunoblastic T-cell lymphoma."

    Around Halloween of 2010 she found a small lump on the left side of her collar bone. Friends suggested that it was probably just a swollen lymph node and that she was "probably coming down with something." A few weeks later she had found several more lumps, prompting her to pay a visit to her physician. The doctor agreed that she might be coming down with some sort of cold or infection, but she also wanted to run some tests to be sure. Blood samples were drawn and an appointment was made for an ultrasound.

    A few days before the ultrasound was to be done cancer took another swing at my family when my grandmother passed away from lung cancer that had metastasized to one of her ribs, a few vertebrae, and, most likely, the base of her brain. We made the trip from Los Angeles to the Charlotte, NC, area to attend the viewing and funeral along with many, many other family members and close friends. Unfortunately, during the week-long trip, my wife noticed that the lumps were not only getting larger, but there were even more of them - now there were several large lumps in each arm pit (axillary lymph nodes). We began to grow a little more concerned and she began scouring the internet and searching all of her symptoms, which is probably the absolute worst thing anyone with any type of condition can do.
    She kept coming back to lymphoma and leukemia as being the most probable diagnosis of her symptoms. On top of that, if it was lymphoma it was a choice between Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin's. And if it was non-Hodgkin’s there were at least twenty-three (23) different varieties. All of our family members and friends kept telling her to stay off the internet because she was only depressing herself, but she refused to listen. She insisted that she was just "gathering information" and "informing" herself so that she knew more about the possible conditions and would be able to discuss all options with the doctor or doctors, as the case may be. Our anxiety about the situation was only made worse by the fact that every test came back negative or inconclusive. At this time we hadn't shared any of this with anyone else, as we didn't want to "poke a stick at a sleeping bear" and stir up any negative feelings before we knew something more definite.

Coming up...Cancer - Part II - Family Traditions