Today I went and saw Chris M. up at chemo and spoke with him for awhile. It’s sobering to talk with someone who has been going through chemo for years. He put it pretty plainly when he said that their goal is to make you as sick as you can stand. He said that the best way to explain it was “like you were strung out.” Chris goes through rounds of chemo every week – 1 week light, the next heavy, and he never gets more then a day or two where he is feeling ok. I can’t imagine the strength of will that it takes to keep coming down for treatments, that it takes to simply keep going, when you have that stretching out for you for your entire life. Chris was diagnosed with colon cancer at 23 yrs old, went through surgery, a year of chemo, and was pronounced clear. At the two year mark, when he was expecting to be told he was good to go, he was told that it had metastasized and was everywhere. He’s now going through experimental & brand new chemos that have all sorts of great side effects – the current one being an acne-like rash that covers a good portion of his body that bursts and bleeds often. He is still funny as hell though, and has some great stories about dealing with doctors: “There was no way I was going to let him check me…he had sausage fingers! I told him to let the nurse with small hands check me.”
He’s only 26 now.
So I got my Radiation planning done today, and that was a joy of embarrassment. Yes, I am actually forgoing the bare-ass pun that I could so easily use there. So here’s how it went: I go back into the room and change into the oh-so-fun gown, then sat in a room with 3 old guys and struck up a conversation with them about their radiation treatment. It was almost surreal – this guy who was thin as a matchstick who didn’t say anything, and the other two guys – one who looked like a banker that drove up from Spanish Fork (an hour plus drive) every day for his 15 minute treatment, who was 2 sessions away from being done, and another who was an islander who was halfway through his treatment. They both started talking about how bad the diahrrea was, and then I (thankfully) got called away.
I was pretty nervous about this, but I had no idea what I was getting into – A pretty, young nurse walked me back to a room with 2 other pretty, young nurses, and I thought, “of course its going to be 3 young hot women that are sticking contrast dye up my ass, running me through the CAT scan, and tattooing me for the radiation.” If there is a God, he has one hell of a sense of humor. After I introduced myself and made them all feel a little uncomfortable as I pretended not to know how the contrast was going to be introduced: “Oh, is this the oral? No wait, the intravenous contrast? Wait a minute, it’s going where?”
They started to explain the planning session to me – I would lay on a foam board with a section cut out for my belly (“don’t let your downstairs furniture get in there, or else it will be severely burned in a few weeks”), they would scan me, set up how the radiation beams were going to enter doing the least damage to other organs, and then they would tattoo me with dots around my ass to make sure they could set the machine (and me) in the same position every time I come in.
I think the saddest thing is how quickly you can get used to people sticking strange instruments, tubes (for all I really know, pieces of fruit), up your ass. By a few weeks from now, I’ll be so comfortable with my pants off around people, I’ll probably start forgetting to wear them to work.
After they scanned and adjusted me a few times, they let me lie there half in the CAT scanner, for 15 minutes or so feeling the cool breeze, while they went in and out checking things and conferring with a whole range of doctors. It was a really weird feeling because strange docs kept coming in and out and telling me I was doing just fine. I’m beginning to think they were just selling tickets to come and see the albino ewok they had captured. I could also swear I heard some giggling…
Anyway, once that was done, I got to sit down and hear another once-over of the joyous effects that the radiation treatment will have (severe inner and outer burns), as well as possible complications with the other organs that it partially irradiates (bowels, bladder, etc…). I decided while listening to this, that I would go in for the first appointment with aluminum foil wrapped around my frank and beans, and tell them that I’m keeping my boys safe. That oughta get a laugh…
A last story from the radiation planning: as we were pulling out of the parking structure, and up to the parking ticket shack, Tara and I were talking about the appointment
Me: “Y’know, I just have to keep reminding myself that some people actually pay young women to do that.”
We then pulled up to the ticket shack.
Me: “Yeah, but I’m not getting any sexual gratification from it.”
Parking ticket lady: “….”
She took that ticket and opened the gate quicker than I have ever seen it happen before.
I also talked with most of my management staff as well as previous supervisor and vice-president of the company today about the cancer, and everyone cried at me. It’s strange being the one with cancer and telling everyone else that it’s going to be ok. It’s touching that they care so much.
Thought of the day: Chemo is going to bite.
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