Cancer: Week 7, Day 1

Seven weeks of treatment.  My final radiological treatment is one week from Tuesday (tomorrow); my final chemo treatment is this Thursday.  Then I'm done with therapy and things will get worse for three weeks.

Nausea comes in waves.  I've never been so sick in my life. 

Cancer and Rock Bottom

Last night, Wednesday, I hit rock bottom.  My digestive tract was malfunctioning in ways I couldn't believe were possible.  Nausea came in waves, accentuated by a spike in my fever.  I was so miserable I wanted to die.  Why should I live through this?  I couldn't come up with a good reason, but the effort of assembling myself, my pistol and a conveniently private place where my remains would be guaranteed to be discovered by the authorities was just too much effort.  So here I am.

Cancer, Week 6

I'm still alive.  My dietician tells me I'm not eating enough, which is probably true, so this week is going to be food week.  The problem is that my mouth is so dry that anything resembling a bread product is automatically rejected.  My sense of taste is, for all intents and purposes, gone.  Everything tastes like low-grade sawdust.  My energy level is down, which isn't helping.

The team on the radiology side have got their act together and are handling their set of side effects very well, meaning my pain level is easily tolerable.  The chemo side has been a different matter up until I switched oncologists; I picked the one the nurses feared, respected and universally disliked.  I met him and consider him a good, regular type guy who happens to be a whole lot smarter than everyone else.  Question: how would you handle it if the people you were forced to work with were all retards?  Let me amend that question: how do you handle it?  Because we've all been there, right?

This morning things aren't too awful bad.  We'll see how the day shakes out.

One good thing is that I no longer need Lorazepam (Ativan) to get through my radiology treatment.  I'm happy with that.

Status Update

I'm too sick to write.  Most of the medical staff tell me I'm doing real good.  One reminded me they never said this would be easy.

Thank You

My sincere thanks to everyone who has prayed for me or who has left a comment.  You have no idea what a line or two of encouragement means, so I'll tell you: The lift is enormous.

Still Alive

To those who can't tell from the next post, I'm still alive.  I'm sick as a dog, but I'm alive and I am not giving up.  For one thing, there's all those anti-freedom moonbats out there who would celebrate my demise - and I'm not going to give them the satisfaction.

English As Our Official Language

What's the problem with making English the official language of the United States?  This comes up every few years and every time it does, the media is flooded by moonbats who rant, rave and screed about racial prejudice and other bad things.  You know what?  I no longer care.

Keep reading for my own somewhat profane rant.  Warning: politically incorrect.