Happy Holidays

I haven’t made a post in 11 days and I’m laying in bed watching a classic Christmas tale, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Perhaps you prefer It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, A Christmas Story, or one of the many variations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Whatever your holiday movie is, everyone has their favorite and families have their holiday traditions.

Around the holiday season, my father usually whips up a big batch of his amazing potato latkes for Hanukkah. Outside of lighting a menorah and my mother hanging decorations, this is the basic holiday festivities in my parents’ house.

My Christmas Eves for the better part of the last dozen years has been spent in the company of my best friends from high school. I’ve enjoyed Christmas morning breakfast at my father-in-law’s house and Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law’s house. I was unable to attend any of those events last year due to diagnosis and recovery from cancer. This year, I will not be in attendance either due to an impending divorce and lack of invitations.

However, not everything is doom and gloom. I was fortunate to spend the first 3 days of Hanukkah with Gabe this year. He helped light the electric menorah (safe for the young ones) and learned how to spin a dreidel. He came with me to the Masonic Holiday party my lodge held and even met Santa Claus. He asks to the use the potty on a consistent basis, gives me hugs, kisses, and tells me, he loves me. Not too bad.

So, here are my Christmas gifts to you. A positive attitude can help in the healing process. Only you can make yourself happy. Listen to others but remain true to yourself. Best wishes and good health to all.

Happy Holidays!
~Cheers

Side note:

I have received lots of feedback since starting this blog months ago. The majority have been positive and recently some negative. Most feel I am a fairly talented writer. Some people were surprised with the information concerning my disease and fight and happy it was shared. Some people think I am looking for pity and one even wants me to stop posting.

I learned a very important lesson in the hospital from a nurse who was in his second relapse with cancer. When you go through something this tough and trying, you earn the right to live for yourself first and tell everyone else to screw. There is nothing positive about cancer. I will not sugar-coat my experiences and feelings.

Best Wishes

This week, I originally planned on writing about some happy memories from my past, but recent events have changed my mind.

I may not feel well and am still in the midst of recovery from treatments, however my treatments worked and I am extremely fortunate to be in full remission. I am lucky to have insurance that covered my treatment costs. I don’t wish or want disease, especially cancer, on anyone.

There are many who will be diagnosed this year and not have insurance for treatment or will receive treatment that will not work. These people are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, family, friends, lovers, spouses, co-workers, and complete strangers. No one is safe from this disease and research must be done. I’m not asking for donations of money, but take the time to think about others less fortunate then you and maybe say a prayer for better times whether you are religious or not.

Here’s my topic for the day:

Follicular Lymphoma is the second most commonly diagnosed non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Approximately 22% of all non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients are afflicted by Follicular Lymphoma. It is a slow growing lymphoma that arises in B-cells (a type of white blood cells). It is considered a “low-grade” lymphoma due to its slow nature in behavior and how is looks under the microscope.

Some patients may never need treatment, although the median survival time is 10 years with a wide range from less then one year to 20 years. Because the disease moves so slow, diagnosis usually goes unnoticed until it is too late. By the time, most patients (80-85%) are diagnosed the disease is widespread throughout the lymph nodes, bone marrow and major organs.

Now, I am not afflicted with Follicular lymphoma but my father-in-law is. His daughter and I may have our differences and are no longer together but he has always been a gentleman towards me. He helped to move us in when we bought a new house. He came and mowed the lawn when I was too sick and unable to. He went from shop to shop and person to person for donations towards a benefit to help us when I was unable to work. He always had a Memorial Day BBQ and Christmas morning breakfast at his house. He always gave his time to help when and where it was needed. I wish nothing bad for this man; just good fortune and health. Unfortunately that isn’t the case.

He and I have many things in common. We are both divorced. We both live at home with our parents. We both love our kids. We both have fought and continue to fight battles with lymphoma. The difference - my fight is on the upswing and his is going down.

I have recently been made aware that he will enter the hospital on Thursday for back surgery. Due to the disease and treatment, he now has a fracture in his back. (I also fractured my back due to treatments.) Radiology shows a mass in his back near the fracture. Doctors don’t know if this mass is a bone fragment from the fracture or a possible tumor and they won’t know until he is laid open on an operating table.

I want to send my prayers and best wishes out to George, my father-in-law. He is a humble man, who doesn’t ask from anyone. I hope everyone will join me in sending good karma his way. I may not be religious but I believe good spirits and positive thoughts can be uplifting to the body, mind and soul.

~Thank you and Cheers!

The Camel is Broke

An old adage states, “It take two to tango.” This is true. Another states, “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Both of these adages ring true when speaking of my marriage.

We fell in love quickly, probably too quickly. We rushed everything from getting to know each other, to living together, to buying a house together, to having a baby together, and to getting married.

We had conflict. We had financial woes. We had in-law issues. We had fading romance. We had both been laid off and needed to find new jobs. We had our first baby. Lots of life altering events and a very short time and then comes the straw…I got sick. WE HAVE A CAMEL DOWN. BROKEN BACK!

My understanding is 50% of marriages end in divorce. I am comfortable being a statistic. This was a relationship heading for the rocks and built to fail from the beginning. Hindsight shows me that. But it didn’t have the end the way it did…in the manner in which it did.

She took me to chemotherapy and clinic appointments. She made sure my benefits and social security were applied for and taken care of. She took 10 weeks unpaid from work to stay home and support me while I was a lump of useful human flesh. (Granted the 10 weeks were paid for with the funds from the benefit event that were supposed to last a year - different subject for a different time.) I couldn’t even stand in the shower by myself without almost passing out.

However, after our affairs were squared away and she returned to work, the love I once felt and still thought was there changed. She became rude. She became outwardly mean. I couldn’t take it anymore. I yelled. I questioned. And finally I got my answers.

She wasn’t happy. “Like two ships passing in the night,” she claimed. No romance. Friends at best. Kissing tales of weeks past with a co-worker. Did I really need this? No, but with a resounding YES.

Had I grown less romantic? Yes. Who would feel romantic while receiving chemo and feeling like shit day in and day out? Did we have problems? Yes. Show me a marriage without some conflict and I’ll sell you a bridge. I asked for couples counseling. It was refused. I asked to give me more time to recover and things would change. She was too far past that.

The result = divorce.

I have avoided this subject for too long now, but when someone says, “I bend over backwards all the time for you, always at the last minute.” I get a little pissed off seeing I can’t control cancer and I can’t control a suppressed immune system during flu season. There ARE things I could have done differently but in every relationship there has to be a push and pull and there will always be work to be done. Remember the vows, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, ‘til death do us part. It’s just rhetoric.

I don’t want to be painted the bad guy because I am sick? I don’t necessarily want her to be painted the villain because she left at the worst possible time. Everyone makes mistakes and unfortunately timing sometimes IS everything. I won’t apologize for being sick. She’ll never apologize for doing or not doing what she did.

There is no right or wrong. Everyone has their own opinions. I’m just tired of apologizing for what’s out of my control.

Cheers!

Footnote: Italicised text credited to content written in email by Kristie Callahan written 12/6/09

you be the judge - retraction

Due to deep personal feelings and rash decisions, I have decided to pull my last post. I had a morning argument with Gabe's mom and should have calmed down before blasting her on the internet. I will repost this subject again at a later date with more information and slightly less venom.

Cheers!

To Port or not to Port

An Infusion Port (also called a Port-a-Cath, Mediport, etc.) is a type of IV catheter, which is surgically implanted under your skin. It provides an entrance into your veins and arteries. Your infusion port allows medications or solutions to be given intravenously whenever needed.

Let’s talk past and present. On May 14th of 2008, I entered Brigham and Women’s hospital to have a dual-port placed for infusion use during chemotherapy.

This is a very minor and quick procedure. IV line placed in arm. Sedatives administered. X-ray. Ultrasound. Please hold your breath. Twenty minutes later. Please hold your breath….”You just asked me to do that?!” You are all done we just need a picture to make sure it is in right. “Oh, ok.” It’s that simple. Two days later I had my first chemotherapy and the rest is history.

The purpose for placing a port in my body instead of using a regular peripheral line in my arm is simple too. The chemotherapy regimen my body was about to endure would have stripped the veins in my arms. The ports would assure the poison would travel into a main artery and leave my veins useful for a later date.

I’ve had very few issues with these ports. Flushing with saline and heparin has never been a problem. Blood draws recently have taken a few minutes to start but then flow fine. And I have never experienced pain, until yesterday.

Please tune up the orchestra for the passing out ceremony. Port accessed…begin saline flushing…shooting pain up my neck…getting dizzy…going cold…sweat dripping…and…..WHAT HAPPENED?! That’s right. I passed out. I told the nurse I was going to and who am I break a promise. Here comes the wheelchair. Here comes a nice hospital bed. Here’s the question…what’s wrong with the frickin’ port?!

They try to access it again. Same pain, shoots straight up the right side of my neck. I don’t taste the saline and there is no blood return. At least the second time I didn’t pass out. So instead of a simple clinic visit, I get poked twice in the chest for no good reason except to cause a pain in my neck (no pun intended), poked once in each arm for blood cultures (necessary to have cultures from two different areas when checking for infections), had 2 chest X-rays (one to check the port and one to check for a respiratory infection) and a nasal washing (check for influenza and pneumonia, Dana Farber’s version of water boarding).

Being cancer free doesn’t mean stress free, pain free, or free from any normal sicknesses, viral infections, or flues that afflict everyone else. It just means I’m cancer free and still share everyone else’s problems. Please don’t welcome me to the club, I am charter member.

Here’s my update since Thanksgiving. Been fighting a viral infection resulting in two missed days with Gabe, one missed date, one clinic visit, one passing out, four placed IV lines, two chest X-rays, one nasal washing, one pain in my neck, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I know this is the time of year for giving, but really…Give me a Break!

Cheers