Sunday night, June 21st, Father's Day, 10 PM: a little over half way through with my chemo..

Hi guys,

Hope you are all doing well and that the dads and step-dads among you had a great Father's day. I was blessed myself because this was really the first day in the last 2 weeks I have not been feeling like I was hit by a truck. Feel really great actually. Week 5 is now behind me, so I am a little over half way done with my chemo, as I have 4 more weeks left.

What a difference a cycle can make though. This second one really did a number on me. I expected it to hit me harder then the first one but not like this.

It started out pretty good and the first three days in a row were fine. I even attended a birthday party of one the boys in my youngest one's class and had some good food and a great time chatting it up with some of the parents. I was told I pretty much looked like I was not on chemo at all. And I felt like it too. Not sick, not bloated, no headache, lots of energy and a very clear mind. I had more energy then most of the parents there (not like the kids though, sweet Lord, what we could accomplish if we still had 6 year old energy, eh?).

But, what a difference a short time can make. Fast forward 6 hours to 4:00 AM. I woke up with excruciating pain in the fingers of my right hand and could not move them (chemo attacks your nerve endings). I walked to the master bathroom and thought that maybe running some cold water over the hand would help and Advil, lots of Advil. Odd thing was that the more I woke up, the more I realized how every step was more difficult to make and it was real hard to simply walk. My whole body felt numb, especially my feet and the right side of my face. My right eye was almost shut closed and I had that terrible ringing in my ears again.

When I got to the bathroom and turned on the light I turned to the mirror to look at my eye and thought for a moment I was still asleep and having a nightmare. To my great shock I found I looked like Frankenstein. My skin was yellow/green with patches of grey, like a two week old corpse (sorry for that image :))

Not my best look, I tell you. My whole body and face were swollen from holding water (they pump about a gallon in you a day) and with my hand looking like a claw and my right eye shut well, let's just say I am glad I was alone in the bathroom and not around people. I might have been chased out of town!

It took two hours of me standing there leaning over the sink before things returned somewhat back to normal. Advil helped as well as turning on the heater to start sweating to get rid of some of that water. Two hours later I could straighten my body and hand and a shower later I felt, and more importantly, looked a bit more human.

I brought the kids to school and then had my 4th session for that week and boy did that one feel like fun. They had to pump a whole new array of drugs in me to get me through. My oncologist assured me though, that this was normal and had this to say:

"Marc, I am going for the cure with you, I am not trying to keep it at bay, so I am going to throw everything I have at you. Your pulmonary tests showed you are the strongest patient I ever had so though this sucks, I am not going to back down"

Great guy.

And so Thursday came and went, as did Friday. Saturday I felt pretty good till I had my Naulasta shot to get my white blood count up. The shot doesn't hurt but boy the effects are weird. Very disoriented the rest of the day, as well as the rest of the week actually.

The way my body deals with chemo is in waves. You feel good for 3 hours and then an equal time or longer you feel like utter crap. You feel like you need to violently throw up for three hours and then you feel like you are starving for an equal amount of time!

And the Heart burn! I mean, this is really heart burn. That beautiful organ God gave you to pump your blood now has to pump heavy metals like platinum through it and ever so often it gets too much and you feel like, well, a chemical burn is taking place in your chest. There is nothing you can do about it, you cannot pump your chest with your fist a la Chris Farley and anti acids don't address what is wrong. You just have to stick that out. It happens to your skin too. You can feel fine and all of a sudden your face or forearms feel like they are on fire. It is the weirdest thing. More then once I have had to suppress a bit of a panic attack because it comes on so fast you are simply not prepared for it.

Chemo brain is fun as well. Half the time you are simply staring and have utter lack of focus. You cannot read a book or watch a show because it's like vertigo and makes you feel ill. Cartoons kind of work though, and thus I have caught up on Tom and Jerry since oddly enough I can watch that without feeling like I just came out of the worst carnival ride ever :)

The bad thing about it is that you are never resting. Even though I lay down a lot, your mind is not resting and neither is your body. It doesn't help that for the last 5 weeks there has not been one night of sleep that lasted longer then 5 hours and even during these hours I wake up once or twice feeling like I am having an out of body experience.

And as bad as what I just described was, this past Monday's session hit me even harder resulting in me warming and hugging the porcelain god about 70 times (not joking) on Tue, Wed and Thu. Could not even hold water down. I ended up just camping out in the bathroom J

But you know, by Friday night I was pretty OK and I have had a great weekend actually. And I really dare not complain at all. I have the most curable form of cancer and my prognoses are over 90%. You'd bank your house if you had those odds in the lottery. I'll take this and more, since the last cycle will be even worse, because I know I will be cured 4 weeks from now.

I hope none of you think that any of the above is complaining. After two weeks like this it is kind of nice to write it down. I feel completely fine at the moment as if I have never had cancer or chemo. I feel like I could set a record at the gym :)

Isn't that something? What a mind trip this is!

Next is Bleomycin day. Bone fever and splitting headaches await. Piece of cake. Bring it on.


All the best,



Marc