The real problem

It’s Saturday now.  I’ve just been moved from the observation room.  It wasn’t most comfortable to sleep with all those wires and cables attached to my body, but it wasn’t too bad either.  Nurses entered periodically to do what they had to do to us three patients, and the blood pressure monitor came noisily alive every hour, but I hadn’t done much beside doze the day before.  I don’t feel sleep-deprived or tired.The intervention took place as planned on Friday morning.  Everything went all right.  The doctor didn’t...

Expect the unexpected

This blog has now reached a certain maturity and with it stability.  I post updates on Thursdays after the weekly visit to my doctor told me a bit more about myself and the progression of my disease.  This regularity means that nothing bad has happened in the intervening days.  No sudden deterioration of my health and no visits to the emergency department.  This is what I thought when I optimistically prewrote this first paragraph on Wednesday night.This week was a very good one.  On Monday, for no good reason that I can...

Getting better

Today is the last day of my recovery period.  It was a remarkable week.  On Friday and Saturday, I was a total wreck.  But then it got a little better every day.  Yesterday and today, I was largely back to normal.  Normal, in these strange times, means that I have aches and pains, and that I don’t run at full speed.  In particular, it means that my stomach and my digestion are off.  I have a hard time ingesting enough food, and it’s a struggle to digest it.  My stomach is a big, hard metal ball that just...

Down and up

On Thursday, I went to see my doctor again.  Nothing special, just a checkup, a look at my blood values, how am I doing.  They seem to come weekly now.  At this point, I don’t mind.  This new therapy is still a bit cryptic to me.  Should I expect to suffer so much?  Or is there a different way of approaching this?The doctor had no good answers.  He noted down all the symptoms I listed and nodded.  There was no “You can avoid this.” or “This will pass.”  It sounds as if I were to stay deep in this shit. ...

Suffering

The first year of chemotherapy was a walk in the park.  With almost no side effects I know how lucky I was.  What I didn’t know was how bad it can be.  The current chemo program is an eye opener in this regard.  I have to take four pills – of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, if anyone cares to know – every morning after breakfast.  I assume these pills go straight to my stomach.  There, they fuck with my stomach and then they fuck with my digestion.  My life has become brutal.At mealtimes, I eat what’s on my plate,...

State of mind

Among the items I found under the Christmas tree was the book The Happiness Hypothesis.  Thinking that I could use some of the points in the book to introduce today’s post, I dropped into an impossible tangle of psychology and philosophy confusion.  Every word I wrote removed sense and logic from the paragraph.  Eventually I gave up.  There’s no need for blather.  I am quite happy at the moment.I am feeling so much better than a week ago.  Last Wednesday and in the morning of  New Year’s Eve, I had my pleural...