Category: Ruminations

So, P and I have differnt metaphors for this.  I’m fighting, she’s riding the range rounding up li’l wayward doggies.  I’m on  search and destroy mission.  So my take on chemo is a little bit different too.

Mainlining big bags of toxic stuff, that incidently causes you to empty your guts out, and loose your hair, probably will cause premature menopause, and might diminish your hearts ability to pump — is scary.

Yes, the staff at the Cancer Center are top notch.  The facilities are really nice.  But, it looks to me like we are in for 8 weeks of flu, on a 2 week cycle.  I can tell you that the week we were waiting for results from the PT scan I was in full Fight/Flight mode.   People bringing me their penny ante horse shit don’t know how close they were to having me rip their heads off and crap down their necks.  Well I’m not to that place yet with Chemo, but, I anticipate it could get there.

I’m struggling to articulate the spouses experience of this….  Sure fear is part of it, but, more just not being in control of much.  Kinda like the guy on the front of the sled on the luge run — hang on fool.   Basically, Chemo sucks, and my job is to just keep things going, Soccer, Jujitsu, Scouts, and school.  I guess an apt metaphor is some sort of draft animal, oxen, or mule, you pull cause there is something that has to be moved.  Perhaps, the Cow girl trope is more apt than I knew.  There is something more svelt about a cutting pony than an ox — maybe I should just go along with the G.D.O. Cow Girl — alas, folks, who know me, probably would see through that.  An ox in horse’s clothing as it were.

“Hey cowgirl, are you ready to round this thing up?”  B’s warm body enshrouded mine as I was blinking the sleep out of my eyes.  The kat-man-budda (our large siamese boy) crawled in with me for an early morning touch.   I got out of bed and put on my boots.  I’m quite a sight with my new pink tie dyed t-shirt , bare legs and boots.

I got a vision of chemo while in NY last weekend.  One of the drugs is a rusty red, and I saw it going in the port-o-love and directly to my left breast.  It traveled like a fireball and turned into a pale yellow, cooled by the ocean of blue that is my spirit.

I’d say this trail is full of surprises.  Some of them are so sweet.  Some are hot, decaying and frightening.  I saw a mangy fox in our garden this morning.  She was just sitting there by the pepper plants.  She looked really bad, weary of the road.  She was quiet as she got up and walked slowly into the woods.  Her trail to me seems so much harder than mine.  Not many would give her anything but a bullet to put her out of her misery.

My chemo cycle is 14 days long.  The infusion is day 1.  I return again in two weeks, on day one for another infusion.  The experience was relatively uneventful, the port-o-love works well, easy access and dismount.  All staff were very accommodating.  It’s quite a peaceful place.  The kids decided to go to round 2 with me instead of one.  We’re cool with that.

At this point my visualizer is really active.  I drew the whole time I was hooked up except for when I was eating.  Yea, I was hungry and ate all of the fresh fruit and cottage cheese and green salad they gave me.  When you’re a soup snob, hospital minestrone just doesn’t get a rise but being the trooper he is, B helped me finish the soup.  This first pic was just a close up of one I’d done earlier of the lasso gathering the disorganized cells.  I just had to get it on paper again.

I was particularly aware when the Adriamycin was put in.  Saline dripped from the bag, Cytoxin was to go in after the A, which was put in through a separate attachment.  The port is cool, they can draw blood from it or put meds in.  When it was time for the A to go in, the nurse used a separate insertion tube because does not come in a bag like the other stuff.  It was in two large syringes, very red liquid.  My automatic response was something like ‘there it is’ the stuff some refer to as battery acid.  (I’m not going there.) So B and I were driving home wondering who was the one who said “hey let’s put this stuff in a human and see what happens…”  (Kinda like who decided to eat the first lobster?) I am amazed that our veins can withstand something that can apparently burn your skin if it leaks out of the port.

I was reading love mail, and had to tear myself away so we could leave.  And so I’m home now.  Feeling ok, like my brain knows something is in my system, but my body is trying it on for size, not sure what to do.  My guts know something is in there, so I’m practicing the gut massage the accupuncturist taught me, and look forward to seeing him tomorrow.  Then back to the center for a shot to stimulate white blood cell production.

 

It’s good to be home.

As we called and emailed loved ones, friends and colleagues, a web of light began like a tapestry around us.  The love mill spreads fast.  I came to appreciate email because although it seems at first impersonal, it tended to give the reader some time to absorb such unexpected information.  Like this blog, we are able to get information out to those we knew would want it…  We have been getting surprises dropped off on our doorstep and in our mailbox, positive and G.O. energy coming in our direction, phone calls, cards, well wishes, food…love is blowing in the late summer breeze.

Last Sunday didn’t turn out at ALL as I thought it would.  I was feeling a little wrapped up in myself, and planned to do errands with B, and start working on our bedroom which is sorely in need of TLC.  Alas, instead a friend picked me up and swooped me off to her house and we walked her beautiful property.  We saw a pair of sand-hill cranes that have been hanging out on her land for about a year.  It was incredible.  We ate delicious tomatoes and cucumbers from our gardens, soup made by her daughter, we talked and laughed.  She told me of an inspirational dream that she had as a young woman.  She also asked if we’d accept a gift of a cleaning person every other week during treatments.  I found myself letting all that she had given me today wash over me like a warm tide.  It has been like this with so many of you.

Back home for a short 2 hours, and then off to a Boy Scout cookout where I was greeted by hugs, concern and warmth from so many.  A 13 year old boy, who has been friends with E since kindergarten, came straight up to me and handed me a bag and gave me a big hug.  It had a hand knit light blue shawl with a prayer under the ribbon that was tied around it.  He said it was made by someone in his church and that he thought of me when he saw it.  He called it a prayer shawl.  Parents whom we have known in scouting for as long as E has been involved came to me throughout the afternoon.  The boys cooked an amazing dinner and so did the Old Goat Patrol (dads).  At the end of the cook out, E came to us with a large cooler with pink ribbons around it.  It was a gift of food from two new scouts and their moms for our family.

I immediately came home and drew LIFTED.  I basically blew off the plans for the day and it became a spontaneous combustion of human connections.  E helped me make a picture of an angel and we have started putting names and numbers of all the people who have offered themselves to us.

I’m fascinated at my willingness to let a man I just met stick 3 to 4 inch needles in my feet, legs, shoulder, and gut.  There really is no hesitation on my part to balance the world of allopathic medicine with a more intuitive and natural approach.  It’s not even a choice.   It feels so balanced as my acupuncturist and herbalist work together to help my body get ready for and tolerate chemotherapy. 

If I saw a porcupine with less than ten quills, I’d think she must have had quite a reason to protect herself.  As I was lying there completely blissed out with about that many needles in my body, I was not exactly sure what I was seeing.  My eyes were closed and the colors green, like springtime growth, and lavendar swirled through my mind.  I have tried to draw it, but have not been able to capture what I was seeing.  

I was alone at this point, and I allowed myself to be distracted and picked my head up to see less than 2 inches of one of those needles sticking out of the center of my belly, about mid way between my navel and sternum.  That meant that more than 2 inches was inside me.  All I said was “WOAH girl.”   And as I was tempted to start looking all around at my quilly self, I let the urge pass and sank back into my spring green and lavender visions.

I left with a very strong feeling that I might choose not to use the pharmacy prophylactically this round.  I’m so curious to first see how my body responds on it’s own and to attend acupuncture on days 2 and 3 of the 14 day chemo cycle.  I want to let the herbs and acupuncture help restore my body’s excellent ability to do it’s job.  I’m not into torturing myself…truly.  I have been encouraged to ‘stay ahead of the nausea’ by P a survivor of 9 years and by the chemo ed nurse.  I am so interested in what I will choose when the time comes.  I’m open to many possibilities as I chose to be when I gave birth to A and E.   My sweet long time friend T reminded me tonight how giving birth puts things into perspective.  I feel blessed to have had that experience.

Going to a cancer center exposes one to a lot of people, with cancer – imagine that.  Sitting in the waiting room is eye opening — sort of.  People seem to be optimists or pessimists, and a few Buddhists.  The disease perhaps has the potential to transform a person, but, more frequently it seems to just pull into relief a person’s pre-disposition — bitter and disillusioned people simply become more so.

I’m reminded of the story of a person, who knew themselves to be impatient to a fault.  But, who spent their entire life acting, pretending to be patient.  Patient with family members, and strangers alike everyone received the same count to 10, a deep breath,  a smile, and start again from the top.  And at that person’s funeral that person was eulogized, celebrated for their patience – which was all an act, a façade.  And so were they a fake, a fraud, or a patient person?

What I learned at ChemoEd:  we have to keep the bathrooms and kitchen even cleaner than we do.  That I will buy soft bristle toothbrushes and hydrogen peroxide for P to gargle with.  Probably I will add Cranberry juice to the shopping lists, just, because it is tough on infections.  Our diet is good and so we just need to keep it up.  Drink a gallon of water a day.  Don’t let the nausea and diarrhea get started.   And that we can’t really predict how P will react to the drugs – just more walking in the dark – but, hair loss and GI distress are fairly routine side effects.  This stuff is just plain toxic, it kills everything and we just hope it kills the bad more than the good.

We attended an hour of education today at the Cancer Center.  It consisted mostly of info about the specific chemo meds that are going to be used (Adriamycin and Cytoxan) and all the possible side effects.   I don’t know, but I would imagine listening to all the possible bodily functions that could misfire, might cause your run-o-the-mill Joe/Jane to hurl right there in the conference.  But being of sound gut and fairly sound minds, B and I held our breakfast quite well. (B  cooked this morning, so there was NO way I was going to give that one up without a fight.)  I pinch myself when I think about whether it is really me getting nuclear dyes and sugars injected into my rather virgin system.  There are meds for the side effects of the chemo and probably meds for the side effects of the side effects.  When I heard that one of the chemo drugs burns if it seeps out of the vein, and that it will make me pee red for 48 hours, I was immediately lifted to the land of Shangri La and attended to internal stimulation for a long slow motion second or two.

Actually our nurse was very knowledgeable about chemo therapy an about my case, which, as you will find out in another entry, was a huge relief to B and I, and actually the norm for this establishment.  This image is a purge of all the colors and stuff that might slough from my body in this process.

I don’t know what to be scared of.  This will be my/our experience and unique to us.  I plan to draw during the infusion, and have been calling the port-a-cath a port-o-love.  The port was inserted about two weeks ago, it’s the round grey thing at the top right of the image below.

I had visions if small colorful hearts going into my body through the port to round up the disorganized cancer cells.  The chemo drugs are agents to help corral the cancer and evict it.  The first chemo date is 9/9, Wednesday at 10:30.