There is nothing less appealing than coming home at night and writing about your wife’s cancer. The whole idea of it just sucks. That is why we are a month and a half into this and I haven’t had a single post. It just isn’t fun.
So some updates:
- Holly is doing as well as can be expected considering that she is taking poison and being zapped with radiation every day.
- Random trivia: Chemotherapy comes from Mustard Gas. That’s fucked up.
- Xeloda, the chemo that Holly is on, is pretty impressive all things considered. It is oral, so no sitting in the oncology center getting the drip (we have that to look forward to during the second phase!!). I think that we both expected much, much worse based on talking with other people that have gone through chemo. So far so good. She still has the constant nausea, no appetite and fatigue, but she hasn’t had any hair loss, she isn’t getting the tingley hands, and she still manages to work through our remodel and our two kids. Either she is a super-trooper (my opinion) or Xeloda works as advertised (their opinion).
- Our radiation oncologist told us that she is the second youngest (by a year) patient she has seen to have rectal cancer. This is one of those things that just sucks or is good. It sucks because this is just bad luck and not something that she is even supposed to be screened for for another 10 years. It is good because she is much stronger than the average patient.
- Our doctors are amazing. When I have more energy to write about them, I will do so.
- Aside from all of the obvious reasons that this sucks, it also sucks because of what it takes away from your life. Holly hasn’t run since she started chemo (she still walks, does yoga & Pilate’s). She has no appetite for the foods that she loves. There are times when she can’t be away from a bathroom. It just sucks.
- The good news is that everything seems to be going in the right direction. It is still hard to tell, but all of the blood levels seem to point to a solid recovery.
- We learned about our surgery the other day. I’ll save that for a different post. Talk about sucks.
- We vowed that we would educate and try to raise awareness about colon cancer. We’ve convinced at least 3 people to get screened. If I were rich, I’d send one of our soon to be released t-shirts to anyone that gets screened.
- If you know someone that currently has cancer, take them to chemo or radiation. Not only does it change your entire perspective on life, just hanging out with the patients will make you happier and it will make them happier and it will make your friend or relative happier that you are there. It is something that you hear about, but until you are in the room with a bunch of people all about to get zapped or injected you can’t relate.
- We are so thankful to all of the people that have stepped up to help out with the kids, transportation, the house and everything else during this. Even just wishing us the best during a tough time. The support that we have received has been amazing. Thank you.
That is it. People ask me about how I’m doing, how she is doing and so on. Frankly, it could be a whole lot worse. We are dealing one day at a time. What else can you do?