Continued from March 19
Written originally in 2007; it's actually been 7 years now since this day! Woohoo!
Seventeen years ago today, my best friend and I took our first steps on a road that would eventually lead us to get married and have our beautiful daughter. Four years ago today, I passed another milestone: I had my first chemotherapy treatment.
When Ainsley was only 6 months old, I found out that I had stage II Hodgkin's lymphoma. I had discovered lumps under my arms before she was even born, but after being misdiagnosed for months the cancer had spread to almost every lymph node group in my chest. This was the bad news; the good news is that Hodgkin's is one of the most curable cancers, even in more advanced stages.
I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to beat it. Like any cancer patient, though, I was afraid of the chemo. I knew only a few things going in: I knew I would have four different chemo drugs plus some other medicines to counter the chemo side effects on a four-hour-plus drip once every two weeks. I knew I would probably lose my hair, and that I would feel nauseated and fatigued. And I knew my husband would be by my side.
What I didn't know was how much fun a little Ativan can make the whole chemotherapy experience.
The first part of that day, I had to have a bone marrow biopsy. When I was scheduled for this procedure, I was asked whether or not I wanted to be sedated. Now, I'm someone who tried really hard to have a drugless childbirth and who hates feeling groggy and out of touch. But this was a no-brainer. Who really says, "No, thanks, I want you to drill a hole in my pelvis and extract tissue from my insides with a really big needle without the benefit of medication"? So as soon as I arrived that morning, they got me going with an IV full of calm and forgetfulness. That's the thing they tell you with Ativan--it allegedly makes you forget all the crazy stuff your doctor is doing to you so if you ever have to go through that again you don't run away screaming with your paper gown flapping in the breeze.
Whether or not this is true depends on the timing of the Ativan. I hadn't been on the drip for very long before the doctor came in with the corkscrew and some lab slides, so I remember more than I'd like about the biopsy. For most of the chemo, though, I just have to take Jason's word for it.
I remember curling up in a ball and feeling a little stick. Wow, I thought, this doesn't hurt bad at all. Then the doctor informed me he had just done the first shot to numb the area. Darn. I knew it couldn't possibly be that easy. There was itense pressure on my hip as the real needle went in. It was almost more than I could take without crying out. I closed my eyes, and in my head, I saw the doctor pulling and pulling a bright red magician's scarf from my hip, and the more he pulled on it the more I felt my very life-force being pulled from all the way down in my toes. Finally, in my drug-induced hallucination, I saw him wave the end of the scarf and proclaim, "I've got it!" It was over. But 4 years later, I can still feel that pull as the marrow was being sucked up into the syringe.
And then memory starts to fade. I remember that I had a very good (and very funny) nurse. I remember getting up to go to the bathroom, and even though I thought I was sitting down on the toilet, completely missing it and peeing all over the floor (and since they had just pushed the most toxic chemo drug in my cocktail, the nurses had to put on their haz-mat gear to clean up my deadly bodily fluids.) The rest Jason has filled in for me. According to him, I got fixated on the anti-nausea medicine and insisted that the nurse hadn't infused it and proceeded to ask her about every ten minutes. Fran, the nurse, just went along with me and made good-natured fun of my altered state with my husband. They had a lot of fun at my expense that day, apparently. I also know from today's news reports that 4 years ago today we also entered into combat in Iraq, and Jason is surprised every year when this is news to me. We were together when the first reports about the war started coming in that day, but that memory has also been erased by Ativan. And I must indeed have had my anti-nausea meds--though it makes my stomach feel a little icky even now that chemo is long over, Jason says I requested a burger and salad from Wendy's on the way home.
I don't need to remember the details to remember that I had never felt closer to my husband than I did on that day, our lucky-number-thirteenth "dating" anniversary. This man, who does not like blood and gore and big, scary needles, sat right there with me through the biopsy and through every drip. He remembered all the rules and all the things I was supposed to do those first couple of days to stay comfortable and help the drugs do their job. He cooked for me, he took care of Ainsley--he made it possible for me to get better. It's not something you ever see coming in a relationship; you take those vows and say the words "in sickness and in health", but you assume that you have the better part of a lifetime to spend with someone before you have to nurse them through a life-threatening illnes. You sure don't expect to spend your thirteenth anniversary with your high-school sweetheart in a chemotherapy suite.
When I look at Jason today, it's sometimes hard to recognize the teenage boy who first got up the nerve to blurt out his feelings for me 17 years ago. And I know I have grown up, too, and am no longer that naive, skinny little thing who could barely look him in the eye and stutter back a reply. Those two kids have become thirty-somethings balancing careers, parenthood, and marriage. The feelings we had for each other back then have grown up, too. On March 19, 1990, he told me he loved me in a cold high-school bandroom. On March 19, 2003, he showed me he loved me by taking my hand and helping me through the darkest place I have ever been. And that, my friends, is true love.
Happy anniversary, Jason.
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, May 21, 2007
T.V. Cancers
I haven't watched Desperate Housewives much this year. It lost a lot of its charm for me. But when I read that they were giving Felicity Huffman's character, Lynette, Hodgkin's lymphoma, I knew I had to start watching again.
And it's really eating at me today. I must say, as a Hodgkin's survivor, I am a little torn about how they're handling it.
I read EW's wonderful "TV Watch" columns to get me up to speed. So I knew going in to it that Lynette had sustained some kind of injury to her shoulder and the scans she had after the accident showed what the doctor thought might be lymphoma. I thought they would start with her getting a lymph node biopsy (usually an outpatient procedure, but still no walk in the park) and getting the dreaded news. But her story started with her on the phone very glibly telling her sister that she had Hodgkin's and saying, "If you have to get a lymphoma, it's the one to get." Hm.
That's very true. Really, if you have to have cancer at all Hodgkin's is a good one to get; it is very curable. The character's nonchalance about the whole thing during her conversation with her sister just didn't sit so well with me. I know Lynette is a strong woman who doesn't let anything get in her way, and who would rather walk on hot coals than appear weak or need help, but telling people that you have cancer, especially family members, can be the hardest part of having cancer. Even if you know deep down that you're going to beat it, and retain that optimism when you tell people you're sick, people usually don't react well to hearing the "C" word and don't let you off the hook as easily as Lynette's sister seemed to. No matter how steely your persona, telling your sister that you have cancer is going to be an emotional moment. Even if, like Lynette, your main purpose for spilling your news is to ask for money for your high insurance deductible.
Most of Lynetts and Tom's struggle last night seemed to be with the financial logistics of cancer treatment. We struggled with that, too. But what I didn't see, and wanted to see, was the elephant in the room of any cancer diagnosis: what if I don't make it?
Maybe the writers will address this next season. And we did get a great little monologue from Lynette's mom, herself a cancer survivor, about how the chemotherapy will take Lynette lower than she's ever been in her life. My favorite line: "You can fight the cancer, or you can fight me. You won't have the strength for both." It seemed to me, though, that Hodgkin's was not given its due respect last night. Yes, it is among the more curable cancers. But the 5-year survival rate is still not 100%. For the stage I had, it's not even in the 90-something percent.
People do die of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Even young, strong people like Lynette. Every so often, I do a Google search to find the latest updates on treatment and such, and inevitably I will come across a web page dedicated to someone lost to Hodgkin's. These stories break me heart; many of these people were young, and underwent treatment successfully once only to have the cancer come back.
Not only do we have to worry about recurrences, which are so much harder to beat, but the treatments themselves damage our bodies. The standard chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin's can cause lung and heart damage and is associated with an increased risk for a particularly nasty flavor of leukemia. Adding radiation to the mix, like I had, means that heart disease risk goes up even more and adds a risk for both lung and breast cancer. Some risks aren't as deadly, but still life-altering; it takes a long time to get over the fatigue caused by such intense chemotherapy, and because Hodgkin's is essentially a cancer of the immune system, we survivors get sick more than our cancer-free friends and have a harder time recovering from even the common cold. Then there's the whole fertility issue; if you are a woman treated for Hodgkin's past the age of 30, it is very likely you will have early menopause.
T.V. cancers seem a lot different from cancer in real life. So many of the characters experience miraculous recoveries that sadly don't happen that often in real life. I think this is particularly true for breast cancer; it seems every T.V. woman diagnosed with it beats it. Because of this, I didn't think it was too big a deal when my sister's friend was diagnosed with it at a fairly early stage (this was before my own cancer.) Not long after I finished treatment, my sister's friend had a recurrence and only lived a few more weeks. She was 40 years old. Look at Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow; not even the famous are given happy endings when it comes to cancer.
Maybe I am being a little too harsh on the Housewives. Perhaps this is a setup to show how the very tough Lynette will be shaken by cancer. I hope so; when I watched regularly, Lynette was the character I most identified with. She admitted that dirty little secret that parenting isn't easy and broke down from the stress of trying to be the perfect mom. I don't think it would be fair for her to have that admission, but then breeze through Hodgkin's lymphoma as though it's no more serious than having gall stones. It would be a slap in the face to the thousands who die of this cancer every year.
And you know what bothers me the most? I am going to be glued to the television every Sunday night next season, watching how they treat her illness. Darnit.
And it's really eating at me today. I must say, as a Hodgkin's survivor, I am a little torn about how they're handling it.
I read EW's wonderful "TV Watch" columns to get me up to speed. So I knew going in to it that Lynette had sustained some kind of injury to her shoulder and the scans she had after the accident showed what the doctor thought might be lymphoma. I thought they would start with her getting a lymph node biopsy (usually an outpatient procedure, but still no walk in the park) and getting the dreaded news. But her story started with her on the phone very glibly telling her sister that she had Hodgkin's and saying, "If you have to get a lymphoma, it's the one to get." Hm.
That's very true. Really, if you have to have cancer at all Hodgkin's is a good one to get; it is very curable. The character's nonchalance about the whole thing during her conversation with her sister just didn't sit so well with me. I know Lynette is a strong woman who doesn't let anything get in her way, and who would rather walk on hot coals than appear weak or need help, but telling people that you have cancer, especially family members, can be the hardest part of having cancer. Even if you know deep down that you're going to beat it, and retain that optimism when you tell people you're sick, people usually don't react well to hearing the "C" word and don't let you off the hook as easily as Lynette's sister seemed to. No matter how steely your persona, telling your sister that you have cancer is going to be an emotional moment. Even if, like Lynette, your main purpose for spilling your news is to ask for money for your high insurance deductible.
Most of Lynetts and Tom's struggle last night seemed to be with the financial logistics of cancer treatment. We struggled with that, too. But what I didn't see, and wanted to see, was the elephant in the room of any cancer diagnosis: what if I don't make it?
Maybe the writers will address this next season. And we did get a great little monologue from Lynette's mom, herself a cancer survivor, about how the chemotherapy will take Lynette lower than she's ever been in her life. My favorite line: "You can fight the cancer, or you can fight me. You won't have the strength for both." It seemed to me, though, that Hodgkin's was not given its due respect last night. Yes, it is among the more curable cancers. But the 5-year survival rate is still not 100%. For the stage I had, it's not even in the 90-something percent.
People do die of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Even young, strong people like Lynette. Every so often, I do a Google search to find the latest updates on treatment and such, and inevitably I will come across a web page dedicated to someone lost to Hodgkin's. These stories break me heart; many of these people were young, and underwent treatment successfully once only to have the cancer come back.
Not only do we have to worry about recurrences, which are so much harder to beat, but the treatments themselves damage our bodies. The standard chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin's can cause lung and heart damage and is associated with an increased risk for a particularly nasty flavor of leukemia. Adding radiation to the mix, like I had, means that heart disease risk goes up even more and adds a risk for both lung and breast cancer. Some risks aren't as deadly, but still life-altering; it takes a long time to get over the fatigue caused by such intense chemotherapy, and because Hodgkin's is essentially a cancer of the immune system, we survivors get sick more than our cancer-free friends and have a harder time recovering from even the common cold. Then there's the whole fertility issue; if you are a woman treated for Hodgkin's past the age of 30, it is very likely you will have early menopause.
T.V. cancers seem a lot different from cancer in real life. So many of the characters experience miraculous recoveries that sadly don't happen that often in real life. I think this is particularly true for breast cancer; it seems every T.V. woman diagnosed with it beats it. Because of this, I didn't think it was too big a deal when my sister's friend was diagnosed with it at a fairly early stage (this was before my own cancer.) Not long after I finished treatment, my sister's friend had a recurrence and only lived a few more weeks. She was 40 years old. Look at Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow; not even the famous are given happy endings when it comes to cancer.
Maybe I am being a little too harsh on the Housewives. Perhaps this is a setup to show how the very tough Lynette will be shaken by cancer. I hope so; when I watched regularly, Lynette was the character I most identified with. She admitted that dirty little secret that parenting isn't easy and broke down from the stress of trying to be the perfect mom. I don't think it would be fair for her to have that admission, but then breeze through Hodgkin's lymphoma as though it's no more serious than having gall stones. It would be a slap in the face to the thousands who die of this cancer every year.
And you know what bothers me the most? I am going to be glued to the television every Sunday night next season, watching how they treat her illness. Darnit.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Lest I Forget
I can go days without thinking about it. But sometimes the fear and the anxiety come roaring back, and I find myself consumed by it.
I am a cancer survivor, and my treatment went so well and I've been so healthy that it's easy for me to forget, 4 years later, that I had a life-threatening disease. The closer I get to that 5-year mark, the benchmark that for many marks a division between "remission" and "cure", the easier it is to forget that a recurrence is a real possibility for anyone who has been treated for cancer, both days and decades after treatment ends. The well-publicized cancer recurrences of both Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow in recent weeks have shaken me because they have reminded me that, for survivors, remission is a fragile and precious thing.
I used to think about my cancer daily and obsessively. I am lucky, I suppose, in that if my cancer ever comes back I am probably going to see an unmistakable physical change in my body; my Hodgkin's lymphoma affected the lymph nodes under my arms and above my collarbone, and caused them to swell to golf balls. Part of my morning ritual the first year or so of remission was to check, and re-check, and triple-check for lumps and bumps. I darn near made myself crazy doing that; if you check your body long enough, you're going to discover unusual anatomy. Visiting the oncologist every 3 months initially was a great touchstone, though, and I eventually learned what was normal and not worth worrying about.
Oncology visits are only scheduled for twice a year now, and it gives me a little more time in between to wonder and worry. One of my cancerous areas was under my breastbone, and since I can't feel that lymph node, it's more troubling. Flickers of pain in my chest or a particularly bad chest cold are enough to raise my anxiety, but when things settle down, I can go back to living a pretty normal life. Sure, I have a few permanent side effects from chemo and radiation (many of us do), but I can get by. I am here. I am strong. I have had clean PET scans. I am closing in on 5 years.
But then there are times, like the past couple of weeks, where it seems as though I am absolutely surrounded by cancer. It's all I think about. It is on the cover of literally every news magazine that has come into my library this week, fueled I am sure by 2 prominent people recently announcing that their cancers have come back. It's on every episode of the nightly news. And it's a part of my work--I chair my county's Relay for Life and work on the planning and fundraising here at school since we are hosting the event. It makes it so hard to forget.
Truthfully, I don't want to forget. Cancer is part of who I am. No good can come from just wallowing in it and feeling sorry for myself, but good can come from my cancer if I accept it and embrace it. I know that my cancer could come back; my oncologist has told me that Hodgkin's can come back as long as 10 years out of treatment. (Though he also said such a recurrence 10 years out is as rare as a foot of snow on Easter Sunday.) (It's pretty darn wintry out there right now, less than a week before Easter--this isn't helping my cancer anxiety much.) I have been told that I will need annual cancer follow-ups and PET scans the rest of my life. The best I can do is to live each day as fully as I can and not let "what if" ruin the normalcy I am finally feeling. Sure, there will be bad days and health scares. But I am one of the lucky ones. Chances are, I am going to live long enough to watch my daughter graduate from high school. I am already very close to one goal I set for myself--to wave goodbye to Ainsley on her first day of school. A sobering number of young cancer survivors do not get those gifts. For their sake, I should take nothing for granted. For their sake, I should never forget.
I am a cancer survivor, and my treatment went so well and I've been so healthy that it's easy for me to forget, 4 years later, that I had a life-threatening disease. The closer I get to that 5-year mark, the benchmark that for many marks a division between "remission" and "cure", the easier it is to forget that a recurrence is a real possibility for anyone who has been treated for cancer, both days and decades after treatment ends. The well-publicized cancer recurrences of both Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow in recent weeks have shaken me because they have reminded me that, for survivors, remission is a fragile and precious thing.
I used to think about my cancer daily and obsessively. I am lucky, I suppose, in that if my cancer ever comes back I am probably going to see an unmistakable physical change in my body; my Hodgkin's lymphoma affected the lymph nodes under my arms and above my collarbone, and caused them to swell to golf balls. Part of my morning ritual the first year or so of remission was to check, and re-check, and triple-check for lumps and bumps. I darn near made myself crazy doing that; if you check your body long enough, you're going to discover unusual anatomy. Visiting the oncologist every 3 months initially was a great touchstone, though, and I eventually learned what was normal and not worth worrying about.
Oncology visits are only scheduled for twice a year now, and it gives me a little more time in between to wonder and worry. One of my cancerous areas was under my breastbone, and since I can't feel that lymph node, it's more troubling. Flickers of pain in my chest or a particularly bad chest cold are enough to raise my anxiety, but when things settle down, I can go back to living a pretty normal life. Sure, I have a few permanent side effects from chemo and radiation (many of us do), but I can get by. I am here. I am strong. I have had clean PET scans. I am closing in on 5 years.
But then there are times, like the past couple of weeks, where it seems as though I am absolutely surrounded by cancer. It's all I think about. It is on the cover of literally every news magazine that has come into my library this week, fueled I am sure by 2 prominent people recently announcing that their cancers have come back. It's on every episode of the nightly news. And it's a part of my work--I chair my county's Relay for Life and work on the planning and fundraising here at school since we are hosting the event. It makes it so hard to forget.
Truthfully, I don't want to forget. Cancer is part of who I am. No good can come from just wallowing in it and feeling sorry for myself, but good can come from my cancer if I accept it and embrace it. I know that my cancer could come back; my oncologist has told me that Hodgkin's can come back as long as 10 years out of treatment. (Though he also said such a recurrence 10 years out is as rare as a foot of snow on Easter Sunday.) (It's pretty darn wintry out there right now, less than a week before Easter--this isn't helping my cancer anxiety much.) I have been told that I will need annual cancer follow-ups and PET scans the rest of my life. The best I can do is to live each day as fully as I can and not let "what if" ruin the normalcy I am finally feeling. Sure, there will be bad days and health scares. But I am one of the lucky ones. Chances are, I am going to live long enough to watch my daughter graduate from high school. I am already very close to one goal I set for myself--to wave goodbye to Ainsley on her first day of school. A sobering number of young cancer survivors do not get those gifts. For their sake, I should take nothing for granted. For their sake, I should never forget.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Full-Speed Ahead
Tuesday night was our Relay for Life Kickoff celebration. Last year, with the help of many people in our school district, I revived our county's Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. It was the most exhausting thing I've ever done, but also one of my proudest moments. We're organizing it again at my school this year, and I was starting to feel the sophomore slump. Until Tuesday night.
Tuesday night I found out that our humble little Relay was recognized by the ACS as an "All-American Relay." We were the only Relay in northern Kentucky to win that this year. We have a cool sign we will be able to display at the next Relay showing our "All-American" status. In with our swag there was also a very classy glass plaque recognizing me as a "Mid-South Division Community Volunteer of the Year." I am such a sucker for awards; somewhere in my mom's house I still have all the certificates and pins I won in middle- and high-school. Everytime I win something, I get all misty and start pretending I've just won my Oscar:
"I'd like to thank all of you for supporting me and for helping a young librarian from Kentucky to overcome so many obstacles so that I could acheive what I've always wanted to achieve--to be named the Mid-South Division Community Volunteer of the Year. It's an honor I couldn't have dreamed of years ago, when I spent the last weekend in June inside in the air-conditioning drinking Icees and eating frozen Snickers bars and falling asleep listening to a Reds game instead of staying awake for 24 hours straight and watching people walk around a high-school track all night.....Wait, why did I say I was honored again?"
Seriously, I am honored and moved. Mostly because I couldn't have done it without the commitment and dedication of a whole lot of people that I didn't even know that well before I asked for their help.
We're doing a good thing. And doing good things feels good. So I am energized that we will get past some of the bad luck that has dogged our 2007 Relay team and have another successful event. And after it's all over and the money has all been counted, I know I will probably have an Icee, a Snickers, and some drowsy Reds-game-watching just waiting for me.
Tuesday night I found out that our humble little Relay was recognized by the ACS as an "All-American Relay." We were the only Relay in northern Kentucky to win that this year. We have a cool sign we will be able to display at the next Relay showing our "All-American" status. In with our swag there was also a very classy glass plaque recognizing me as a "Mid-South Division Community Volunteer of the Year." I am such a sucker for awards; somewhere in my mom's house I still have all the certificates and pins I won in middle- and high-school. Everytime I win something, I get all misty and start pretending I've just won my Oscar:
"I'd like to thank all of you for supporting me and for helping a young librarian from Kentucky to overcome so many obstacles so that I could acheive what I've always wanted to achieve--to be named the Mid-South Division Community Volunteer of the Year. It's an honor I couldn't have dreamed of years ago, when I spent the last weekend in June inside in the air-conditioning drinking Icees and eating frozen Snickers bars and falling asleep listening to a Reds game instead of staying awake for 24 hours straight and watching people walk around a high-school track all night.....Wait, why did I say I was honored again?"
Seriously, I am honored and moved. Mostly because I couldn't have done it without the commitment and dedication of a whole lot of people that I didn't even know that well before I asked for their help.
We're doing a good thing. And doing good things feels good. So I am energized that we will get past some of the bad luck that has dogged our 2007 Relay team and have another successful event. And after it's all over and the money has all been counted, I know I will probably have an Icee, a Snickers, and some drowsy Reds-game-watching just waiting for me.
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