Sometimes, life takes fairy tale turns. This is such a turn. It started with a phone call at noon on the Thursday before Christmas. There was a cancellation and they had a chemo chair available on Friday morning. At 8:30 am. "Take your dexamethasone ASAP and try and get your three doses in before you see us in 18 hours..."
A friend came through with a ride and at 8:00 am we were on our way to the hospital for my first infusion of docetaxol. When the nurse slips the IV needle straight in, that's always a good sign. When they started hanging all sorts of benadryl IV and other antihistamines, I had the definite sense that this treatment was serious.
The slow first fifteen minutes was another clue. And the second nurse on standby watching still another clue. The instant I mentioned lower back pain, the infusion stopped. When it cleared up a few minutes later, they restarted it with the comment that sometimes the docetaxol got ahead of the benadryl. When the pain didn't recur and the fifteen minutes passed, the infusion went ahead.
I came home and slept the afternoon away. Finishing off the dexamethasone brought back all the old side effects. The hiccups, restless night, and of course the gabs - loss of inhibition. I did manage to stay away from the credit cards though the Lego Dune Atriedes Royal Ornithopter was tempting. I satisfied my Lego urge a few days later at the local Dollar store. It was much more reasonable.
Fatigue was the most severe side effect. The pemetrexed mouth taste faded away, replaced by a much more tolerable oily kind of feel. My appetite returned to some extent. And to my surprise I felt much better than I had expected. I've been telling people that I expected pemetrexed to be "chemo lite" and for me it wasn't. I expected docetaxol to be heavy. And it hasn't been. To the point where last week, I actually contemplated starting to run again. I printed out the "Couch to 5K" training plan.
While I wasn't up to it on Monday I managed to run on Wednesday and then again on Friday. It felt so good! admittedly it was run for minute, walk for a minute but it is a start. Add to that the restart of my EXCEL classes
There is a Hail Mary in the wind and though I can't share the details yet, it is truly amazing. Balancing the reality of my situation with the hope that it brings is mentally challenging. Again.
My conversation late last week with my oncologist was interesting to say the least. Part of it revolved around getting to the bottom of the creatinine and kidney problems. But part of it revolved around at what point do I involve palliative care. To be clear I'm talking about the supportive version, not the hospice part. I live alone in a small apartment. The challenges of receiving home care and meeting other care needs will take some advance planning. My experience around the abscess and homecare earlier in the year taught me that.
And that is where our conversation got interesting. I'm an unusual patient. Starting this journey with male breast cancer, the treatment path that I have followed, and my general resilience have surprised him all along the way. Given how well I have tolerated my first and now second infusion, he thinks that I may be a patient for whom docetaxol works well. That little tidbit lifted my spirits. And as I have discovered that is important to my mental resilience.
I had my second infusion on Friday. And it went well. Yes I'm still heading into the dexamethasone crash as I write this. One of the amazing things has been the incredible support that I have received through all this. People texting, responses in social media, and answers to my newsletter all make me realize how lucky I am. The friends that I have made along the way have been a blessing to me.
It's not always easy for a very private British stiff upper lip to share his vulnerabilities. I have found that living this journey publicly has been valuable to far more people than I could have ever imagined. So for those of you wondering, I have started on the memoir. So far it is a lacklustre chronology of events. ChatGPT assures me though that my emotions will shine through and with an occasional bit of comic relief it will be very readable. So I'm looking for an editor, beta readers, an agent, and ultimately a publisher. Oh and space to write. My goal is 70,000 words. That's a little more than two 3 day novel contests. So far in four weeks of writing I have about 2,000 words. I have a little ways to go.
On the Sunday morning between Christmas and New Year, my church asked me to speak to my favourite Christmas carol. I choose Silent Night, remembering the cold winter nights when I would accompany my father on his vet calls in the early evening. I would wait in the car while he attended to the animal, sometimes for long hours. I would sing to myself, looking up at the stars and imagine that night. That night when God became man. I have always taken great comfort in the God understanding me because He had that experience of being meat - incarnated - being human.
As I face the end of life crawling ever closer, I know that I have a higher power who loves me in the midst of all my messy humanity. In these moments of doubt that brings me great comfort.
Thanks as always for your tremendous support and prayers.