Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

The last few weeks have been a bit hectic for me. We decided to end my trial participation due to tumor growth (about a cm on each of my 2 largest tumors, which are in my lungs) and to start a new course of chemo. As I waited for the insurance approval to pour a new kind of poison into my body, I felt a little sorry for myself. I felt, in fact, like the guy in Flowers for Algernon. You know that book? The main character, a mentally disabled man named Charlie, is chosen for surgery to increase his intelligence, but the effects eventually wear off and his cognitive abilities revert to their original state. The worst part is that he knows it's going to happen. I'm no Charlie, but standing at the side of the proverbial pool after 8 months of swimming along chemo-free (no chemo brain, no toxic fug, no being able to smell chemicals on my skin, etc.), I was exquisitely aware of what I was walking away from - and back into. It gave me the shivers. And then I started my new chemo, and

How's that for a good title?! That's right. I'm alive and (mostly) well. This is the quick version because I've been writing another blog post that has gotten pretty deep and needs editing and revising before I can publish it. I hope to share that this week, before all of the current events I reference get lost in the void. So, here's the latest. Last Monday, I awoke at un ungodly hour and shuffled over to the hospital for scans: one CT (no contrast, because I'm allergic to CT contrast dye, which was fun to find out) for the lungs, and MRIs for the abdomen and pelvis. Within hours, I met with my oncologist and we looked at the CT scans (MRIs take longer and there was something wrong with some technology somewhere on campus, which made the wait even longer), and quickly discovered that the clinical trial in which I had been taking part for the last 6 months was no longer working - scans showed that my existing tumors, which are in my lungs, had grown. Without t