Live From the Chemo Room 26

Olympic Edition

I'm thinking of asking my chemo roommates if they want to do a little Opening Ceremonies style Parade of Maladies around the place. We could each carry a little sign saying what type of cancer we have, and the nurses could be the announcers and say pithy things like:

"The Prostate Cancer team is making its way onto the track now. Prostate is one of the most popular cancers among men over 50. It's often characterized by reduced flow and pain when urinating, but you'd never know it by the smiles on those faces!"

"Oh, I can tell by the roar of the crowd that the team from Breast Cancer has entered the arena - look at those pink outfits - stunning! This is the largest delegation at this year's games - 349 women and this one man. This team dominates in the pool, can you guess which stroke is their best one?"


"Here comes the Colon Cancer team. Oops, there goes one of them running to the porta-potties. And there goes another one. Now the whole team is headed to the loo, as they call it here in London. I just love the British! Bangers and mash anyone?"

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It's a somewhat slow day here. Dr. Z has the day off so a lot of patients that might otherwise be here aren't. Twana is in charge, and she tells me we'll schedule my scan in a few weeks to see how those lung spots fared against the radiation.

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I'm very excited that my friends at www.ihadcancer.com have asked me to be a regular contributor to their site. I'll be writing a column that talks about the various procedures we go through. Some of it may sound familiar to you faithful readers, but it will be a little less focussed on my personal experiences. Still humorous, or at least intended to be. You can be the judge. Watch for it in the next few weeks.

The View From Inside The Microwave

Well, not quite a microwave, but this is my radiation machine. And now that I've completed my second (hopefully not) annual Summer of Stereotactic Love, I thought I'd help you visualize what happens in this lead-lined room.  You enter through what looks like a normal sliding door, until you realize the door is actually a cinder-block wall. I'm guessing the motor to slide that thing could easily power my mini-van.

Then you see this contraption. The black table is where I lay in the mold I've mentioned before (not pictured). On the wall behind is a four-armed rotating beast of a machine that does all the dirty work. The big arm at the 12 o'clock position is what actually "shoots" the radiation into me. The 3 o'clock arm is a scanner, which is used to make sure I'm aligned perfectly after they shifted me around on the table. Remember the tattoos I received? They use those to align me visually, then the scan to get it precise within a mm or two.

The two flat paddles at 6 and 9 o'clock are just for receiving whatever comes through from the ones opposite them - like the plates in an old x-ray machine.

The cool part is when they raise the table so I'm aligned with the center of that circle on the wall, then slide the table toward the wall. Now all four arms rotate around me. I guess they could try rotating the table, but then you'd feel like a roast on a spit.

The whole process of scanning, radiating, scanning for lung #2 and zapping lung #2 takes about 30 minutes. During that time I have to lie as motionless as possible with my hand clasped on top of my head. Somehow the software accounts for my breathing throughout the process, but I try to keep it on the shallow end just in case. The mold helps me say still, and my feet are strapped together. Still, it's hard not to squirm a little, especially once my hands and arms go to sleep. So I'm always happy to hear the giant door slide open and to see the techs telling me it's time to relax.

I gave the office two copies of my book when I checked in this morning. By the time I was checking out they had already devised a schedule for who would get to read it first, second, etc. I love it when people seem excited about reading my stuff - whether here on the blog, the book, or elsewhere. I just hope they're still fans once they've actually read it!

Read On!

This isn't the only great place to go when you want to consume cancer-related content.

I came across this blog recently. Nadia is a young woman who has been facing ovarian cancer since April. Her ups and downs emotionally and physically ring very familiar to me, and her writing is top notch.

Speaking of young adults, I love stupid cancer, or more appropriately, I love the organization behind www.stupidcancer.com. They have a great collection of blogs you can find here, and much much more  in terms of support for the unique challenges of young adults with cancer.

And if you want to know what happens when good writers get cancer (who wouldn't?) check out the great work of Brian Mansfield from USA Today. Brian covers Nashville for the paper and has a great soundtrack going via his blog entries.

One more spot to check out. The creative juices are always flowing at www.ihadcancer.com . They use social media tools (Pintrest anyone?) to connect cancer survivors, fighters, and supporters in many different, often fun, ways. Check out their blog for Hope, Health, and Happiness tips.

Live From the Chemo Room 25

It's my 25th post from the Chemo Room. I think that's silver for those of you considering gifts.

Before we get to the race report, I have to share this with you. I learned today that there are different degrees of fear. There's trepidation, then good old fashioned fear, followed by phobia, and then there's what I saw in Dr Z's office. The first stop here at the Cancerporium (after the waiting room) is a room with two nurses stations where they take your vitals, and, often, draw blood. Frequent flyers with ports get stuck with a needle directly into the device that you barely feel, but lots of patients here still give blood the old fashioned way. And nurse Sally had herself the most needle averse Member of the Club I could ever imagine. The poor woman was literally hysterical, laughing uncontrollably while asserting that she wanted to go home, and stomping her feet. Then she let out this gem:

Sally: "Come on now, you've pushed out a baby, this little old needle isn't that bad is it?"
MOTC: "Pushing out babies was easy, I'd rather do that then get stuck with that needle"
Me (from across the room): "Damn! That's serious!"
Sally: "For real, this needle's got this tiny little point, that baby had a head and shoulders."
MOTC: "I don't care, I'll take childbirth any day!"

Wow, that's fear!

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There are some things you just don't want to hear from your doctor. I heard one of them today. "This has never happened before," was the opening line from one of the technicians at the radiation oncologist's office. He continued, "but the mold we made that holds you in place for your procedures has deflated." Upon hearing this story, Marcie, for reasons unknown, put together the "never happened before" and "deflated" parts and said to me, "don't they have Viagra for that?" Thanks, babe.

I thought those molds were solid, but apparently they're not. So now I have to go back for another fitting next week and we'll push back the last 3 treatments by a few days. It's not a big deal, medically speaking, just a hassle for me given that the office is 20 miles from my home.

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Speaking of 25th anniversaries, I think this may have been my 25th Peachtree Road Race. Close enough for a segue anyway. The weather wasn't as bad as I feared, and I ran comfortably, finishing the run in 52:30. I think I'll shoot for running faster than my age from now on - meaning I'll need to trim a minute per mile from my time next year. But I'm happy with how it went. Marcie and the kids were there to cheer me on around the 5 mile mark, and I ran a couple of miles with my friend Elizabeth and Katie from the neighborhood.

We did all our usual 4th of July things as a family, the barbecue in the afternoon, watching fireworks across the city from atop the mountain in Vinings. Doing the usual things can feel pretty special sometimes.