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Chapter 12: A New Leaf...Life After Treatment

Wow. It’s been a long strange trip up to now. I apologize to those of you who’ve messaged me asking how I’m doing. I suspect when you follow someone writing about their cancer journey and you don’t hear from them, you think the worst. So, I’m sorry for the delay in posting but I’ll try to explain. It is now approaching two months since I completed my last chemoradiation treatment for throat cancer. It’s been such a turbulent period of time, both emotionally and physically, that I’ve not been in the mood to write. That’s probably because I’ve been mired in a very dark and unsettled state of mind and it’s been hard for me to make any sense out of what I’d been feeling. And given the fact my feelings were changing daily, if not minute by minute, nothing I could have posted would have truly captured the emotions surrounding this post-treatment period. Suffice it to say, the new year started off sucking. However, I’m now in a much better place. In fact, as I’m writing this, I feel absol...
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Chapter 11: Close to the End

With only one chemotherapy session left and three radiations to go, I figured I had rounded the corner and was racing towards the end of this torture.   Soon I’d be entering a period marked by some well-earned rest and rehabilitation. But as is often the case, I figured wrong. Turns out the corner I was rounding led me into a huge concrete wall that literally brought me to my knees. So, here’s what happened. Up until the Monday before New Year’s, I’d grown comfortable believing I had escaped the worse. While the many things I went through during the previous six weeks could hardly be described as “smooth sailing”, they didn’t match my dire predictions of how this chemoradiation was likely going to assault me. I figured my stamina as well as my ability to fend for myself would finally run out of steam somewhere around the first or second week of December. This guess of mine was based on discussions I had with doctors, nurses, and fellow cancer patients as well as the many read...
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Chapter 10: Almost Done With Phase 2

The countdown is on. By the time I post this chapter, I’ll have under five treatments to go. And so far, I’m doing pretty good. My doctors have even told me as much. And while I have vowed to post real-time blogs in order to better capture the emotions of the day, my daily schedule doesn’t make it possible. In other words, this cancer treatment stuff has been real work. At the end of the day, I am spent, consumed both emotionally and physically. And frankly, there’s been no real emotional rip currents going on to speak of. The good news is I’m still sleeping upstairs in my bed (instead of downstairs on the couch with my 120lb canine), driving myself to appointments, swallowing, fighting with my brother, and yelling at my dog. Nevertheless, I remain quite mindful of the fact that the effects of radiology as well as chemotherapy are cumulative meaning I’m not out of the woods quite yet. In fact, their effects will live on for a couple weeks after my last treatment. That’s how they ar...
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Chapter 9: Things Are Good...This Too Shall Pass

  Things are Good....This Too Shall Pass I wrote a portion of this chapter while relaxing in my oncology recliner listening to the slow drip of Cisplatin as it fell into a tube and then got pumped into my bloodstream. I was fearing this moment because of what happened to me after my first infusion, falls and hospitalization. Today’s date is Thursday, December 6 th and, as of now, I’m feeling okay and my hemoglobin is within acceptable limits. However, there was a minor glitch which caused my second dose of chemo to be delayed by one day. I was supposed to be treated December 5 th . It happened, yet again, because my hemoglobin levels were too low to safely proceed. Turns out I’m anemic, a condition meaning I don’t produce red blood cells very fast. It also means I’ll probably be getting transfusions throughout the remainder of treatment. By the way, glitches and surprise discoveries are inherent parts of this whole process. That’s because everyone is genetically differen...
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