The question about what is next is very much an open one. I guess it is much easier for me to go over what is known. Over the next few weeks I will have my stem cells harvested and stored in the unlikely scenario that my leukemia returns. After that, I am gonna begin the maintenance part of my treatment. This likely involves me taking that drug ATRA that caused all that trouble for me in the beginning. Well, ‘caused’ isn’t the right word… I guess involved in all the trouble would be a better phrasing. But this time, as I take this medication, we are going to keep a very close eye on how my body reacts to it. I go into this stage of treatment with no anxiety or trepidation. I doubt that anything will happen, and even it should, I have all the confidence in myself and the doctors around me that we will get through them just as we did everything else.
In a way, the answers to what is next for me medically are the easy answer. Its what I have been doing for last 8 months now. But I am quickly running out of medical goals. Beyond them lies such a huge and vast unknown that used to be intimidating to me, but now, it really isn’t. I am going to wrap to the classes that I have left over from the spring semester and then polish up my resume and go out and look for some work. For what? I am not 100% sure. But I would like to see what is out there working in the cancer community, at the very least, as a volunteer. I have just gone through something that not everyone goes through. Might as share my experience and what I have learned with others that going down a road similar to the one that I went through.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Coming Home
I am just on my way home from a wonderful trip to Germany, Austria and Belgium where I met up with family and friends many of whom I have seen for the first time since I have been sick. It was quite an experience to see people in person again after only hearing from them over the phone or over email. It is really funny to notice how everyone of them seem to give you the identical greeting. They flash you the biggest grinning smile you have ever seen and seem to give a hug, gripping you tighter than usual, almost as if to make sure you really were still there. They then look at you with disbelief saying how good and normal I look, somewhat stunned that I show no outward signs of what I have so recently gone though. I guess everyone builds their own mental image of what is going on from far away. The moment they see me, they have trouble reconciling the mental image of a sickly cancer patient, with the one of a normal person. It was just funny to notice how uniform and consistent this reaction was.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Normalcy
2 and a half months huh? It’s been way too long…
Where do I begin after so long? Well I guess I good place to start is with what has been happening. The short answer is absolutely nothing. Well… That’s not quite true, a lot has happened, but everything has been slowly returning to normalcy.
My last dose of chemotherapy, and my last day in the hospital was on June 1st. Like all the cycles before I did fine for about a week but then the chemo kicks in and my blood counts bottom out. Like the last the round I managed to get through it without spiking any fevers and therefore managing to stay out of the hospital. You can imagine how nervous I was, not because I was worried that anything bad would happen, but I just didn’t want to go back to the hospital. I was done. I had enough. Luckily I managed to through the nader without anymore complications.
A few weeks later I was feeling strong enough to host a party for my friends. That was so incredibly cool to be able to hang out with all the people that helped me so much though this journey.
Exactly a month after my last dose of chemo, I took my first trip. I flew to Calgary to go to Kim and Gavin’s wedding. That was such an amazing experience. Being out there in beautiful Alberta, for such a beautiful occasion, seeing so many great friends who I hadn’t seen but who were so unbelievably supportive of me and helped me through my ordeal, was almost too much for me to handle. Things were so raw, and still and the memories of the hospital were still so fresh. Was that actually real? Was I really in this beautiful place? Did the last 6 months really happen? Were they just a bad dream?
Honestly, I was still pretty tired at that time. My body still hadn’t recovered from all the chemo. Walking up 2 flights of stairs was enough to get my heart racing. A few days after the wedding a couple of us decided to drive up to Lake Louise and go for a hike. We had talked about it for a few days, I was still pretty uncertain if I could do it. I was a little worried. If walking up the steps gets my heart racing how am I going to get though a hike in the mountains? At some point, I don’t remember when, I had an epiphany. Fuck it. I was in Calgary. I decided that I was going to do the things I wanted to do, cancer and chemo be damned. What was there to lose? If I couldn’t get up the mountain, I would just turn around and go back to town. There was nothing to worry about. So we set out on our hike. It was a fantastic time. The scenery was so beautiful there, in fact almost spiritual. The hike was tough I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with my buddies. But I trudged along at my own pace, took a break when I needed one, and just kept going. Sure enough we got to the top. That was my statement. At that moment it became clear to me that I was back in charge of my life now. And that my friends, is the most amazing feeling. After that hike, nothing was the same anymore. This was my life. And I was gonna live it on MY terms.
A few days after I got back home, I had my bone marrow biopsy. This was the moment of truth. Where we would find out for sure if things have gone as expected. A week later, on July 22, I heard the most beautiful words: “No Detectable Leukemia”. At this moment, I knew for sure that what I felt in Calgary was in fact the truth. This was really my life now.
The weeks that followed are actually quite uninteresting, and that is the beauty of them. I spent most of the time catching up on schoolwork that I was unable to finish while I was sick. I started exercising again, going out with friends, enjoying ballgames, staying home and being lazy. These things are so normal and really uninteresting. And that’s the beauty of it. The beauty of normalcy.
Where do I begin after so long? Well I guess I good place to start is with what has been happening. The short answer is absolutely nothing. Well… That’s not quite true, a lot has happened, but everything has been slowly returning to normalcy.
My last dose of chemotherapy, and my last day in the hospital was on June 1st. Like all the cycles before I did fine for about a week but then the chemo kicks in and my blood counts bottom out. Like the last the round I managed to get through it without spiking any fevers and therefore managing to stay out of the hospital. You can imagine how nervous I was, not because I was worried that anything bad would happen, but I just didn’t want to go back to the hospital. I was done. I had enough. Luckily I managed to through the nader without anymore complications.
A few weeks later I was feeling strong enough to host a party for my friends. That was so incredibly cool to be able to hang out with all the people that helped me so much though this journey.
Exactly a month after my last dose of chemo, I took my first trip. I flew to Calgary to go to Kim and Gavin’s wedding. That was such an amazing experience. Being out there in beautiful Alberta, for such a beautiful occasion, seeing so many great friends who I hadn’t seen but who were so unbelievably supportive of me and helped me through my ordeal, was almost too much for me to handle. Things were so raw, and still and the memories of the hospital were still so fresh. Was that actually real? Was I really in this beautiful place? Did the last 6 months really happen? Were they just a bad dream?
Honestly, I was still pretty tired at that time. My body still hadn’t recovered from all the chemo. Walking up 2 flights of stairs was enough to get my heart racing. A few days after the wedding a couple of us decided to drive up to Lake Louise and go for a hike. We had talked about it for a few days, I was still pretty uncertain if I could do it. I was a little worried. If walking up the steps gets my heart racing how am I going to get though a hike in the mountains? At some point, I don’t remember when, I had an epiphany. Fuck it. I was in Calgary. I decided that I was going to do the things I wanted to do, cancer and chemo be damned. What was there to lose? If I couldn’t get up the mountain, I would just turn around and go back to town. There was nothing to worry about. So we set out on our hike. It was a fantastic time. The scenery was so beautiful there, in fact almost spiritual. The hike was tough I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with my buddies. But I trudged along at my own pace, took a break when I needed one, and just kept going. Sure enough we got to the top. That was my statement. At that moment it became clear to me that I was back in charge of my life now. And that my friends, is the most amazing feeling. After that hike, nothing was the same anymore. This was my life. And I was gonna live it on MY terms.
A few days after I got back home, I had my bone marrow biopsy. This was the moment of truth. Where we would find out for sure if things have gone as expected. A week later, on July 22, I heard the most beautiful words: “No Detectable Leukemia”. At this moment, I knew for sure that what I felt in Calgary was in fact the truth. This was really my life now.
The weeks that followed are actually quite uninteresting, and that is the beauty of them. I spent most of the time catching up on schoolwork that I was unable to finish while I was sick. I started exercising again, going out with friends, enjoying ballgames, staying home and being lazy. These things are so normal and really uninteresting. And that’s the beauty of it. The beauty of normalcy.
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