Living without Cancer

If you live through it cancer will take a year out of your life and change you forever. Next month is my one year anniversary and I am pretty amazed when I wake up in the morning!

The sun predictably rises, the birds are always singing, people in the early morning going to work, all that remains the same it is me who has changed. I went through twelve chemo voodoo

sessions and each one kills you a little bit, draining your energy in an indescribable way, adding twenty years to you, turning you into an old man. Now I feel as though I have reversed that clock, found some incredible time machine and am getting younger every day! It is a feeling,

like, wow, I dodged that bullet! and I begin to think how wonderfully, incredibly lucky I have been all my life! My life didn't "flash before my eyes" but it did give me cause to reflect upon it.

In my other blog I talk a lot about my youth, trying to figure out how I got to where I am.

Colonoscopy

That is next! It has been five years and they want more money! I have been here, done that, and it is the cleansing process, that "clean as a whistle" thing that is the worst about this whole procedure. When they say don't leave the house or get far from the bathroom, they mean it!!! The actual filming of my insides my plumber could do. He has the same tools, that fancy camera he snakes down my drain to find what is plugged up. We don't have National Health in the U.S.A., we are on our own, paying cash or if we are lucky a private health insurance.
I am very lucky! My cancer experience cost well over $130,000 DOLLARS! and my insurance paid all of it except the first $1,000. That is the real reason for this colonoscopy. That
fifteen minutes of being on camera costs $2,500!!! but since it is still this year and I have already paid the $1,000 deductable, the insurance company will foot the bill.
I might feel different if my doctor was a hot babe fresh out of medical school but he is an old
craggie doctor who has seen a thousand assholes! LOL!!!! It is a warehouse environment with a lot of waiting patients and he can do 24 in a day. Do the math, someone is getting rich!

Peripheral Neuropathy

Chemo Therapy is a contradiction of terms, like "Free Love" there is no such thing, every thing has its price. "Therapy" sounds like a little nap on a couch or aroma oils and gentle massages. In reality when mixed with Chemo it is like taking a bath in a shark tank. There is tons of "collateral damage" some probably not discovered until autopsy when they cut you open to find out what really went wrong. I am permanently sterile which might come in handy someday, at least in my dreams it could be useful! The "cat scans" and "pet scans" are the equivelent of 420 X-rays and are known to cause cancer in themselves, so that is a great thought.

Your hair grows back and pretty fast too so that's no

big deal and the weight you lose won't stay gone!

What is bothersome are my damned hands! I have

"Neuropathy" in them something bad! They hurt

24 hours a day and the only difference is sometimes

they hurt worse, throbbing and swollen, like stirring

a bucket of cut glass. I am getting used to this; they

are not getting better. When I am not working I

wear rabbit fur lined gloves and that helps a lot. I

wear them when I sleep at night. I am anxious to return to work.

What to do?

I hate television. I was forty three years old before I weakened and bought one and I kept that little 19" Sears and Roebuck televion until three years ago, where on the spur of the moment in a fit of insanity I bought a huge 48" flat screen and a Blue Ray! I don't really know what a Blue Ray is. I have never hooked mine up. It is out of the package and has been sitting for almost three years as an accompany to the T.V. I thought I could just plug it in but it came with a lot of cables and instructions in four languages and frankly I just can't be bothered. I watch the news once in a while unless something horrible has happened or they are going on and on about politics and I hate sports, don't watch them at all. I have one favorite show and that is "House", apparently the most popular show on television! Because I am not up to date on this program I watch a series of reruns on Fridays where shows from three years ago are played all day long, a marathon of "Dr. House"! I don't take naps but always fall asleep while watching T.V.
so I suppose that is the same thing.
If you ever get cancer and I sincerely hope not, your energy level goes to about minus seventeen and this is from a guy who, in the past, has happily worked twelve hours a day!
It is unimaginable to not do anything.

I want to see if I am clever enough to LINK this to my other blog! Now we shall see if I am learning anything?

When I had Cancer (it never had me!) I grew very old very fast. I went from being 63 to being 93 in six months. Cancer doesn't really do this, the cure does; it is a mean mixture of chemicals

derived from Mustard gas used in World War I. Why couldn't they have discovered a good cure made from a fine aged brandy! and I still don't know why they didn't include a few "Happy Pills"

into this recipe so we would at least feel good about the process! Doctors have no sense of humor!

Now I am getting younger every day! Walking again, taking in the neighborhood, doing a little welding and I recently got my paint out!

RUSSIA?

I admit I am one of those Bloggers who look at the statistics. I need at least one other person reading this or there is no reason to publish it. I could just hit the "save" button and keep it for myself. There aren't too many people writing about Cancer on these blogs and I am trying to remove the generic from this experience. Its my cancer, my voodoo doctors, my experience, my battle and my survival. This is the way I did it. I'll try that LINK again! IF this works it will take you to another blog where I describe all this in real time as it was happening to me. It is over now, a war fought well.
The statistics are pretty cool actually and very detailed. Someone from Russia is looking at my writings! How cool is that! In 1958 as a child in elementary school we had drills and had to hide under our desks, a feeble attempt at survival in the event of a nuclear war! Now they read our blogs and we theirs! That is how friends are made.
This statistical map turns green when there is activity from a particular country and with more activity the darker the green; no activity and it remains white. We get to know who is looking at us and when they are not. This would all be an easier experience if we got into the habit of leaving comments then we would know what is interesting and what is not.

Be Prepared!

That is the boyscout motto and often it is interpreted to mean carry a prophylactic in your wallet! Several people have written to me about their own discovery of cancer. Is there any helpful advice I could give them? Keep a journal was the most important to me, a day to day accounting of what was going on and how I felt about it. Looking back on this experience it is so easy to make the list now. There are hundreds of cancer sites on the net. The Mayo Clinic has a great one with its own blog site you can add to or read. At the beginning of this process while I had some energy I would make a to do list, like if the roof needed fixing I would doit now, never put off until tomrrow what could be done today. Tomorrow you might not be able to do it! I would get my finger nails and toe nails trimmed real short because sizzors will be a tool you won't be able to operate. Get a haircut. It will be your last one for a year and you might as well start this process looking good. Don't buy any new clothes! But do make a list for what you want to buy when you have lost that forty pounds you will probably lose. Go out to dinner! Make a list of your ten favoeite meals and enjoy every one of them. You will lose your appetite and all food will taste like cardboard. Remember "this too shall pass". It is not a forever process and with a little luck you will get through it.

Oh, oh, oh! I almost forgot, my thanks to my friends who taught me how to make a link!