I’ve read a blog titled “Delusions of Adequacy” for several years. The guy writes well, and thinks well. He’s in stage 4 cancer now, and I see him writing through the sleepless nights of chemo-fog. If you haven’t been through it, it’s two nights when sleep doesn’t come, and thinking is, at best, confused. The blessing of cancer is that it does give you time to organize, to say what you need to say, and make your goodbyes.
Renata reminded me that it’s been 17 years since I had the cancerous tumor removed from the colon and went through chemo and radiation. I think that qualifies as success – but surviving the iron crab is one thing. The physical toll is another- and I figure I’ll share a little for the folks who will be lucky. Largely because I’m watching a man I have never met try to share his feelings as he is stage 4, and will never reach my age.
Dr. Park woke me in the middle of a colonoscopy to show me the tumor, and explained he could get me in the operating room the next day – Saturday. His tears did a good job of showing me how serious it was. As I went through the next night, a nurse came in – she didn’t recognize the song from my harmonica – Worried Man Blues.
I did not realize how removing part of the colon and rectum influences the quality of life – I have became an accidental expert on OTC anti-diarrheal meds. It encourages a more introverted lifestyle.
The results of the chemotherapy have made the largest effects on life – first on the continuation of living, but second on the neuropathy associated with the heavy metals. Chemotherapy basically giving you a poison that the cancer can’t survive – and you body barely does. The chemo left me with neuropathy in the hands and feet – I gradually got partial recovery from the neuropathy – for the past several years my signature has been readable. That fifteen years of gradual recovery from the neuropathy seems to have ended. Fortunately, gabapentin has brought back some of the missing strength. There are inconveniences to surviving – but it beats hell out of the alternative. The cane which had become optional has returned to being a necessity.
Getting through the mesothelioma hasn’t been much problem – a little bit of surgery, then healing. Probably about as much problem than a severe case of road rash when a biker lays the cycle on its side. The first mesothelioma was stage 2, the second, caught earlier, was stage 1.
So I’ll be turning 77 in the snows of this next winter. I will be 15 years past the expiration date the oncologist gave me without the chemo and radiation. Recovery is a partial thing – but cancer hit me at sixty. The math is fairly simple – say the colon resection and chemo took the quality of life down twenty percent. I’m working on the fifteenth year past that June, 2012 expiration date. Life is good. Even life with inconveniences provides 80% of the benefits, the enjoyment. The colon cancer was stage 3, my worst melanoma stage 2. I’ve been lucky – and I hope the others who encounter cancer are luckier than I. Life is worth the inconveniences that accompany chemo and radiation. I watch a younger man, in stage 4, and have no message that he isn’t finding on his own and sharing.
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