First, let me thank each of you for your support and sympathy. I am deeply touched by your comments here and all the emails I have received. I was especially moved by Evan's comment to the last post. If you haven't read it already, you should. My experience is a toothache compared to what this poor fellow has survived and his endurance is a model for us all. Thank you Evan!
Today marks the halfway point in my chemo and radiation therapy. So far, I have had no side effects other than fatigue. It is amazing how far advanced treatment is now compared to the 'old days'. We have a little "Breakfast Club" of patients who get their radiation treatments about the same time every morning. I'm the only guy and the only one that has to sit in the waiting room in my clown suit (gown) open all the way down the back. All the ladies are there for breast cancer radiation and thus to get to wear most of their clothes. Their strength is remarkable and all of them, like me, are determined to get through this and go on with their lives. Natalie is in treatment for double breast cancer and has already lost her son to cancer. She is our cheer leader and says that if she can live through her son's dying, she can live through anything.
Everyone is amazed that I manage to drive almost two hours to get there every morning at 9am for fifteen minutes of treatment only to turnaround and drive home again, but I really don't mind it other than losing so much productive time. I have finished three novels on CD and started my fourth today. Mostly Tony Hillerman stories. I love the way he weaves American Native folklore into the mystery stories.
Dr. Bob, who you may remember was my apprentice until he moved to Watsonville, was here this week for several days and did a yeoman's job of potting up last spring's rooted cuttings for this year. Other friends have volunteered weekends for April, and with the help of a part time 'grunt' worker, Mary, we hope to muddle through this period. So far, we have kept up with the orders by working all weekend. Now that the weather has turned warm and dry, it is not that much of a challenge. Pulling plants in full rain gear in rainy 45F weather with a 30 mph wind blowing is not my favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.
My portable chemo pump is quite remarkable. It stays with me, and on me, 24/7 except for when I take a shower, then it hangs outside the shower door but still attached. I have to be careful not to get wrapped up in the tubing. It pumps 0.6 ml an hour of 5FU into a port in my shoulder that goes into a catheter under my skin into the vein in my neck. I get a refill and recharge every Wednesday. It has a series of warning sounds if things go wrong. This week, I was on the freeway on my way to the clinic when I heard one of those high/low sirens that European ambulances use. I could just barely hear it. I turned off the CD, looked in the mirror, no emergency vehicles. Then I scanned the dashboard to see if the car was trying to tell me something, nope, no warning lights. Finally, I realized it was me! The pump was empty and giving out this constant siren sound. Not quite sure what to do, I drove the last twenty minutes trying to ignore it until I got to the clinic where the nurse said, just take the batteries out...Oh. I can do that? Sure, it's empty, you can do that at home if you have to.
Here's a pic of me in my clown suit next the giant radiation machine. The two halves that you see here are attached to a massive yoke so the the whole thing can rotate around your body as you lie one the table in the foreground. I am standing next to the "beam stopper". There's about a thousand pounds of lead in that big round disk. The other side is the business end that beams high energy x rays into a tight pattern that irradiates the tumor but little else. It's a fascinating machine that actually has a linear accelerator to speed the electrons into the tungsten target to generate the x rays. The doctor told me they really wanted a bigger one, but the engineers said the floor foundation wasn't strong enough to hold it!
Keeping up with the email has been a challenge, but I can do it, you just might not get a response as quickly as you are used to. Orders should not be a problem until surgery this summer, and we will just cross that bridge when we come to it.
Brent