What a couple of years those have been,
if I may say so myself, which I guess I just did.
But you can say the same thing too.
Right? Haven't the past two years been full of ups and downs, fear
and fun, happy and sad for you? That's what life is like, brothers
and sisters. We all get our own personal roller coaster and can ride
it as often as we want. Unlike their amusement park counterpart
though, whether you take or ride on this particular coaster or not
isn't up to you. There's no line showing minimum height requirement.
Breathing are you? Step right up and take the ride of your life!
Now, I will say that there is very
little that has happened during the last two years that I would have
anticipated on the day I got my diagnosis. When my doctor said I had
multiple myeloma, my first thought was, “What the hell is that?”,
followed by, “Did he just say it's incurable?”
All the other initial thoughts and
emotions tumbled in on top of those like an unsuccessful game of
Jenga.
Obviously, I wanted to know what the
prognosis was, but not really; only if it was going to be good. I
waited for him to say, and the longer he took, the shorter I figured
my time left was going to be. Turns out, he had other things to talk
about and in the end not he, nor I, nor Sheri really wanted a
guesstimate on this cancer's effect on my lifeline.
I was sick and we were going to do
everything in our power to counter whatever moves cancer might have,
though I became unfond of any comparisons to chess. This was my life
we were talking about, so keep your little horsey thingies to
yourself, thank you very much. “Pawn” cliches were also frowned
upon.
So, it was September 2013, I was 65
years old and had a rare form of cancer. Now what? I suppose Sheri
and I could have looked ahead and seen an endless parade of doctor's
appointments, medical procedures and other crappy stuff, especially
since Sheri had already gone through it with our son Jason when he
was a baby. But the truth was, we just didn't feel like it. Really,
one challenge at a time was more than enough. Besides, this really
put us into areas where we couldn't possibly have anticipated what
was going to happen next.
Initially, a stem cell transplant was
in the background, not really talked about, while a combination of
chemotherapy and steroids was the treatment of choice. Then, my
oncologist retired, my new oncologist and my doctor from Boston
joined the team and a stem cell transplant moved front and center,
“especially for someone who was otherwise healthy as you,”
meaning me.
It was at this same time that I found
out I had a damaged chromosome that could affect how my cancer
responded to treatment. Oh well, nothing we could do about that; over
the side that goes.
We had no idea how much had to be done
before the transplant. Drugs had to be administered to bolster the
healthy stem cells I did have; that actually hurt. We had to make all
these arrangements with the hospital and Sheri needed to prepare to
spend the better part of a month in Boston.
I had to have all the blood in my
system passed through a machine that removed enough healthy stem
cells to go ahead with the transplant. Then I was given killing doses
of chemotherapy, my stem cells (sea monkeys as we were calling them
by this time) were put back in and we waited to see if they would
thrive, which they did.
My hair fell out and my friends and
family gave me tremendous support; those were predictable. I spent
almost three weeks in isolation in the hospital and had to avoid
being around people for another four months after I got home. Those
were both harder than I thought they would be.
Given how well the transplant went, I
had no idea how much trouble an unknown stomach issue would bring,
and continues to bring now. That was definitely an instance of plan
the plans, not the outcome. We have struggled and fought with that
for months and it still continues to wear me down... bad.
After all, two years ago I was looking
at dealing with cancer, fully sure that whatever that might mean, we
would deal with it and move on. Well, as it turns out, we are dealing
with it. It's the moving on part that's at issue. My medical staff
continues to to delighted and amazed at how well my body has reacted
to my cancer treatment. My monthly checkups show that the myeloma is
truly inactive.
I've even come to realize (about two
hours ago, seriously) that my cancer being incurable is a bit of a
positive thing. So many people chase exotic cures, often fronted by
charlatans who have nothing to sell but false hope ... I've never
felt the need to do that. Incurable, but treatable; I focus on the
treatable bit.
This other thing though... But, here's
the way I am trying to look at it. Two years ago we were on the brink
of this scary unknown called multiple myeloma and we have weathered
that in stellar fashion. As far as the stomach problem... I guess
I'll just keep moving my horsey thingie, sacrifice a few pawns and
remove that from our list of worries as well.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere
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