The Cancer Chronicles – Part VI

 

“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head…”©

(With footnotes)

 

                        ♫ Raindrops keep fallin' on my head,
                          And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed,
                          Nothin' seems to fit,
                          Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♫

 

Wednesday, September 2^nd, 2009

Okay, so last time I told you that the lovely Karen told me to stop the Tarceva for five days, but not the dreaded Doxycycline, and she’ll talk to the big guy, Dr. S, when he gets back seven days later, on Tuesday, the 25^th.

Okay, so did I tell you that she calls that next Tuesday? I didn’t tell you that, right? So she tells me she spoke to Dr. S., and to stop the Tarceva, and that she’s prescribing a lower dose. I tell her about the pain. Oh wait, I didn’t tell you about the pain. Friday, the 21^st, I can’t fall asleep because my back and shoulder are bothering me. Advil does nothing, and I take a Vicodin about 3:30 AM, and finally fall asleep by 4:30. By Saturday I’m living on Vicodin in the day and Percocet at night, What that shit, along with the Tarceva and Doxycycline, is doing to my digestive system is not fit for sensitive ears. And now there’s a new pain, a sharp pain in my lower back, dead center on my spine. So, when she calls on the 25^th and I tell about her about the pain, she changes my scheduled appointment with Dr. S. from 9/1 to the next day, 8/26.

Dr. S is not a happy camper; the pain shouldn’t be there. So he schedules a CAT scan for the next day and tells me to stop the Tarceva AND the dreaded Doxycycline. Immediately my spirits soar, despite my pain, and my G.I. tract shouts “Halleluia!”  I feel so good I decide to celebrate with some ice cream. So, Toby and I go to the nearest Friendly’s, and I gets a small Swiss Chocolate sundae with one scoop of coffee ice cream and one scoop of chocolate, whipped cream, a cherry and crushed almonds on top. Living on the edge, baby!!!

                        ♫Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.

Okay, so did I tell you about the motorcycle accident? No, right?  Okay, so we’re coming home from Friendly’s, and we go down this little side street that crosses the Rt.73 connector which is a four lane divided highway with a traffic light at this street. I get the green light and start to cross, but guys from the other direction are still trying to make a left turn in front of me. I slowly assert myself, otherwise they all go nose to tail and I don’t get across. Well, after the two cars in front of me (in my lane by the way) turn I start to go, when I look up and here comes this big fat motorcycle. I hit the brakes and stop; the motorcyclist sees me with shock on his face, squeezes on his brakes, but the Harley Fat Boy just slides and boom into my front bumper. Up goes the rear wheel, down goes the rear wheel, but shorty pants can’t keep her up, so down goes bike on its left side. The motorcyclist (Notice, I don’t call him a biker. Allow me to describe him. He’s about five foot five. His name is sort of Angl-ish, so I figure he’s of English-Irish-Anglo-something extraction. And, he had short curly sandy colored hair with a receding hairline and a similar beard. He looked like a shop teacher. You know, the kind that knows everything, and hardly a “biker” – lf you get my drift; if you get my meaning.) So anyway, he picks up the bike and immediately impugns my intelligence, my mother’s species and the legitimacy of my birth.

I, on the other hand, instead of exploding with rage and returning the complements in spades, sit there calmly, much to my wife’s surprise. He comes rushing up to my window and says, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

I roll down the window and say: “The light looked green to me.”

“I don’t know how the hell that could be; I still had the green arrow.”

(Oh, buddy, that ship sailed a long time ago.) I don’t get the green light until his green arrow goes off. So he’s was poaching –  seeing as how I am in my lane and dead center across the highway, the median strip is athwart my beam, so to speak, and he hits me on the passenger’s side.

Anyway I don’t say another word to him. And he calls 911.

I’m blocking two lanes of traffic, so I move the car across the street where I’m out of the way.

Fortunately, there was an off duty state cop in the highway line of traffic, and maybe he sees what happens, so he pulls up and takes over until a Waterbury cop arrives along with a fire engine, an ambulance and a second patrol car.

In the meantime the statey and the biker are standing chatting. They are joined by the local PO-liceman, and they finally move his bike to behind my car. And the old state cop wisely decides that the accident happens on the street traffic lanes, so it’s Waterbury‘s jurisdiction and home he goes. The first cop deals with Mr. Biker whilst the second cop takes my “vitals”. The EMT checks to see if there’s any injury (and by the way:”Were you wearing your seat belts?” “Of course we were.” “Very good.”) There’s no damage.

Finally the first cop comes over to me and asks my side of the story, to which he replies: “That’s kinda what I thought.”

He goes back to “Operator #1” (He was driving “Traffic Unit #1” – police report legalese.) They chat some more and finally “Responding Officer” says to me that we can go. Hah! So it’s six o’clock and my ice cream pleasure buzz is gone.

            [Police report comes in and Operator # 1 gets a verbal warning for failure to yield while making a left turn, and I, Operator #2, am ex-on-e-ra-ted! It’s his fault. Hah! Mr. Smartass. Mr. Buzz kill.]

                               ♫ So I just did me some talkin' to the sun,
                                    And I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
                                    Sleepin' on the job,
                                    Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♪

 

Well, I get the CAT scan on Thursday, the 27^th, and they tell me that it’ll take 24 hours for the analysis. So, Toby and I wait all day Friday for the phone call and by 5:45 we decide to get some pizza. Of course the doctor calls at 5:46. The message says he’ll call back in the morning. Which he does – on a Saturday, for cripes sakes.

He says that he doesn’t like to use the phone, but that it’s better than keeping me waiting. The CAT scan showed no change in the cancer, and they found two new spots.

The Tarceva did nothing for me except make me intimately familiar with diarrhea and acute post-adolescent acne. So much for false positives. I guess I wasn’t Asian woman enough.¹

So, doctor says he’ll see me as scheduled on Tuesday, 9/1 and we’ll discuss a new protocol.

                               ♫ But there's one thing I know,
                                    The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me,
                                    It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me. ♪

I met with the doctor on the first, and we discussed using a combination of three drugs that are found to be very successful and written up in the New England Journal of Medicine last year – Taxol, Carboplatin and Avastin. And, we’ll start on Tuesday, the 8^th.

So, I shook Dr’s hand and I was off to the Boom-Boom Room at the Chemo Lounge for some more Zometa and Decadron. (Yea, Decadron!)

While I’m there, doctor came by and asked Holly, my IV nurse, how my veins were. She said they’re horrible. So, he said that he’ll schedule me for a Porta-Cath. That’s a device that’s inserted just under the skin below the clavicle. From the Porta-Cath there is a long tube which they insert into a large vein nearby and run the tube into the jugular vein. I wish I could come up with something funny, so I could say: Buddumbump-kishhh! That’s humor in a jugular vein!²

But I got nuthin’.

So tomorrow I go to St. Mary’s to have the Porta-Cath inserted. And, I’m really looking forward to the 8^th, when I’m told to expect to be there at least five hours.

 

                               ♫ Raindrops keep fallin' on my head,
                                    But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red,
                                    Cryin's not for me,
                                    'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin',
                                    Because I'm free,
                                    Nothin's worryin' me. ♫

                                    © Hal Davids / B.J. Thomas

 

1. If this is too esoteric for you, refer to Chronicles Part I and Part III.
2. I’m sure this is too esoteric. Back in the day, way back, when Mad magazine was in comic book format, they used as a motto: “Humor in a Jugular Vein”.

The Cancer Chronicles – Part V

 

(No, the next part will not be Part W.)

 

August 18^th, 2009

I know you’re all dying to hear what agonies I’m going through now, so here goes.

I saw my GP, you remember, Dr. Phil, last Tuesday for a follow-up, but complained about a very dry mouth, roof and tongue (it felt as if I had burned it with some hot tea or pizza. My throat was rough and it hurt to swallow (water?). I was told earlier by the oncology APRN that this was a side effect, but it wasn’t this bad, and what the hell, I was there anyway.

So I stop Nasonex and Claritin because it could be drying out my throat and I see an ENT man, who sticks this damned camera thingy up my nose and down my throat and says he doesn’t see anything. My wife says: “Are you sure you went down his throat and not up into his skull?” [Ha! Ha! Very funny! Everyone’s a comedian.] [Just like the oncologist, when the MRI of my brain came back and he said: “They said: ‘Insufficient material’.” [Ha! Ha! Very funny! Everyone’s a comedian.]

So, he thought it could be the side effects or reflux laryngitis, so continue the Prevacid and watch what I eat.

So anyway, my cough is back, my throat’s no better and I went to see the APRN, the lovely Karen, this Tuesday, Aug. 18^th. And she quickly noticed that my rash has become “quite flamboyant”. So I said, if you think this is flamboyant, you should see me in New York City on Gay Pride Week. [Buddumbump-kishhh - Everyone’s a comedian!]

Karen decided that with the rash and the throat problems the side effects of the cancer drug (Tarceva, for those of you with short memory spans) can be doing more damage than good. So, she asked me to stop the Tarceva for five days and gave me a prescription for MORE STEROIDS!!! YOWZA! So, now I’m on some delightful little drug called Methylprednisolone. (“Or what the boys in the locker room call, methylpred”, he said with a swagger.)

Karen will converse with the oncologist, Dr. S (remember Dr. S?) when he gets back from wherever on the 25^th and I’ll converse with him on the 1^st. And then I’ll go see Holly and get some Zometa and Decadron (or what the big boys call dexamethazone). And on Wednesday I’ll mow my lawn, my neighbor’s lawn and paint the house. On Thursday I’ll go hit home runs for the New York Yankees. And on Friday... [The comic points to the audience, turn his head to the right, cup his ear with his left hand and hears:” The Rabbi Slept.”]

[Buddumbump-kishhh! Everyone’s a comedian!]

 

Well that’s the news from Lake Waybeyond, where the women are strong, the men smell strong and the kids smell each other. [Buddumbump-kishhh! Everyone’s a comedian!]

Rudy the Strong

Live strong.

PS. On a lighter note Toby, my sweet wife and love of my life, has had her first annual (anniversary?) mammogram and consultation and she is cancer free and doing well.