Disco, Divas and Determination

Dr. Evil. Was he really that evil? I'm not sure. Nonetheless, he stood for evil. So in my little snippet today, we are going to refer to the big "C" as Dr. Evil. Austin Powers was always fighting Dr. Evil and he always had a fun, gorgeous and kick-ass female heroin there to back him up. I have a few of my own, there names aren't as cool at Felicity Shagwell or Foxxy Cleopatra, but they are the heroins in my 70's retro themed battle.

Diva # 1:

My Mom.





This is her with four generations (my grandma, sister and neice)



I lucked out when it comes to moms. Now, I know you are all reading this saying, "My mom is better than or just as good.." Sorry to burst your bubbles, folks. My mom (and dad) drove into the eye of hurricane a few years ago to drag me back home during one of South Florida's worst hurricanes. Some call it insanity, I call it "My mom!". When I was in college at the university of NC at Wilmington, I was having severe roommate issues. Mom grabbed dad and drove 4.5 hours to help me move out secretly on Thanksgiving weekend while the roommates were all enjoying turkey and stuffing. We left them an empty apartment with nothing to sit on in the living room and no television (Moo-ha-ha). Fast forward to present day, my mom is my trusty sidekick through perhaps my most difficult "life speedbump".
Dr. Evil, quiver in your platforms!!

The Divas-in-training:

My sister, grandmother and my aunt have also been an overwhelming source of support, too. Anyone who knows me, knows that my family is really close. Dad, haven't forgotten you, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you! XOXO






Diva #2:

Betsy

My Physician's Assistant at Georgia Cancer Specialists, is also one of the "divas" in my short story. She works with my oncologist to help me sort through all this madness and mayhem. She is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and a real joy to be around. She's helped make sense out of a lot of things and she's the one administered my bone marrow test, so that makes her one of the few women, besides my mom, who have even seen my butt. Thanks, Betsy! You're one groovy gal!



The Grand Damme Diva:

Dr. Weakland.

My oncologist, Dr. Weakland, happened to be on vacation over my last treatment this week, so I had to take her picture off the website. She's a real life miracle worker and I have to give her the credit to helping me get back to "my old" self. THANKS Dr. Weakland, I really owe you! Much like the other fabulous divas in my life, I owe a great deal of gratitude (one could say my life, actually) to Dr. Weakland and her team at Georgia Cancer Specialists. As far as kickass chics go, she ranks right up there with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can see the obvious resemblance.


Dr. Weakland


















Thanks to all the fantastic people who have sent cards and gifts, emails and left voicemails. You are all very special to me and I am blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. I will get through this. I leave you with one of my all time favorite disco anthems and my theme song through all of this. Look for me on a Friday or Saturday night and you just might catch me screaming it at the top of my lungs!




Go on, now, go! I WILL SURVIVE, as long as I know how to love, I know I'll stay alive!

Eye of the Storm

The wind just picked up here and lightning is flashing across the sky in billions of brilliant pulses.

A storm is coming.

I just got home from dinner with my parents. My mom, who has the nerves of cast iron, made the decision at the beginning of all of this, that she'd come to Atlanta (my family all live in North Carolina) for every treatment. I told her she might change her mind when gas prices get up to $6 or $7 a gallon. She's stubborn. Like mother, like son. We had a great dinner, gnocchi at one of these little French-esque cafes. The dessert was great, perhaps that is more because of the fact that I have my second treatment tomorrow and I know I won't be eating like that for a while Nonetheless, the chocoloate raspberry mousse torte was to die for. My regimen has been to stop eating around 9pm on the before my treatment. The last one went so well that I have to admit I have pretty high expectations for the second go around.

Guess I'll find out, huh?

Tomorrow, like two weeks ago, I'll go in around noon and the treatment should take about 2.5 hours. I hope my same nurse is there. She's a really good sport and humors my incessant line of questioning with the patience of Job. can I help it if I actually want to know a little about all these chemicals being so gingerly pumped into my body?! Well, maybe less of the "gingerly" and more like carefully. Anywho, a lot is going into my veins.

Back to dinner tonite.

I have been considering after all this chemo crap is over to get a new perspective on life. My entire life (even that one year of insanity in S. Florida) I have lived in the South. It's time for me to get a new view. Born and raised in North Carolina, then moving to Georgia in my twenties, a brief stint in Ft. Lauderdale and then back to Atlanta since 2004. My whole life has been spent in the South. Good ole' fried cooking, years of "please" and "thank you, ma'am", that ya'll's and the aint's... Really, I wouldn't have traded in my childhood, twenties or even the past few years I've spent in Atlanta as a thirty-something, but... There's more out there I haven't seen. A change of venue, something new, something completely different. That's what I need.

Movin' on up!! A la Weezy Jefferson and the gang.

Where will I wind up?? Who know's? All I know is I need to beat this cancer stuff so I can get on woth my life. More to come on my "change in venue", but it's coming. I want to leave all this behind me. Speaking of leaving, it's late and I need to get in the bed, I have a hard time sleeping some nights and I need to give myself enough time to get to LALA land.

I will close with this: A few weeks ago one of the personalities on my favorite radio station decided to separate from her husband. She is always one of those chipper, happy-go-lucky attitudes on the show that you can just tell has some kind of drama going on behind the scenes. Anyway, she decided to go sky-diving and the radio station wanted to air the jump. Before the plane took off and all the static and feedback started they asked her why she felt the need to do this. Turns out that her and two of her friends had put together this idea to "leave some things behind" when they jumped. Each of the three girls had there "baggage" written on a piece of paper which they were going to leave on the plane when they jumped. The theory was that the pieces of paper (the thing that wanted to forget) would be lost at 14,000 feet once they hopped out of plane. I thought it was very poignant and quite a way to cathartically purge themselves of these negative vibes.

When I am done with all this and I am finally cancerr free, I want to figuratively take that jump. I need a catharsis of my own.

The thunder rolls...

Back in the Saddle

Today was a GREAT day! I felt like a million dollars.. Went to the gym, second day in a row (thank you very much) and did some retail therapy. Shopping is what will get me through all this, you know. I am realising that chemotherapy will have its ups and downs, much like life, and it's gonna be up to me to go with the ebb and "flow". So, in going with the flow, I'll eat when I can (as much as I can) and when I can't work out, I won't. My friends and family are all still calling (keep those get well cards a-comin!) and I am very blessed to have such a wide array of people talkin' to the Big Guy for me.

Thanks. I repeat, THANKS!

Flow. It's really all about that. I'm keeping my eyes on the prize here. I recently read the book, "The Last Lecture", by Randy Pausch. If you haven't had a chance to read it, go pick it up, it's one of my picks (along with being on the NY Times Best Seller List). The author is a college professor at Carnegie Mellon University, a computer science professor who specialized in virtual reality. He also happened to diagnosed with ten tumors in his liver.


Flow. It's all about the flow.

In his book or really his "lecture" he talks about realizing your childhood dreams. The book is actually his "last lecture" on attaining your childhood dreams. Randy was asked, at a pretty poignant time in his life, right after he found out that he condition was terminal. He battled over whether or not to give the lecture, because at the time he had also just moved his family to Virginia so that after his passing his wife would be closer to her family. I can't tell you how many times I almost lost it while I was reading this book in the airport. While on a business trip to Houston, I picked the book up in the airport bookstore because the cover was cute. Little did I know this book would have such relevance to my own life (the cancer anyways). I don't intend to give away the ending, but go pick it up, it's a short read, but a great book.

Why do I bring up this book?

I want to end this post by restating something Randy put throughout his book. Paraphrasing was always my favorite part of English class.

"We don't get to change the cards we are dealt. Only how we play our hand."

Play your cards wisely and live your life the way you wold if today were your last.

Dream well.

One Down

Today was my first chemo treatment. I have to say, it was about a quarter as bad as I thought it would be, well, the treatment itself anyway. The clinic where I am receiving the therapy is located at Crawford Long Hospital here in Atlanta, a division of Emory Healthcare. The staff is overwhelmingly friendly, I attribute it to the fact that they all have some weird fascination with bald people.
The area itself resembles most any doctor's office, except they have exceptionally comfortable reclning Laz-e-boy chairs. Of course, the dead give away is that each chair is equipped with it's own nifty IV pump. The pumps are both battery operated and have a plug in the wall, lucky for me because I had to get up to use the restroom about every 4th minute while receiving the therapy.


Here's my dad reclining in one of the comfy chairs. He slept almost the whole time, so I don't know why he looks so unhappy- he didn't have a needle in his arm!








My nurse was very attentive. A few of the drugs involved in my treatment are "pre-meds". These are to help aid fighting nausea and to keep me healthy. All the drugs are administered through a port (a catheter) which is basically a gateway into my veins.

PORT OF ENTRY


My treatment itself is a combination of 4 drugs. The combo is known as "ABVD", which stands for the first letter of each corresponding drug administered:
Adriamycin
Bleomycin
Vinblastine
Dacarbazine
All of the drugs in my chemo "set" are forced into the catheter, meaning that they are not hanging bags like most drugs in an IV and for those of you who have only seen an IV on tel vision, I am hating you right now... The forced drugs are manually "pushed" into my body by the nurse. I'd be surprised if you haven't stopped reading by this point.

And that brings me to being nauseated. Sorry, I didn't say this was going to be a cake walk, folks - it's cancer. Again, here's that word "luckily". Luckily, with modern medicine and so many bulimics out there, pharmaceutical companies have come up with some AMAZING nausea medicines. Be forewarned, they AIN'T cheap, so... I wouldn't recommend binge drinking and asking for any of the stuff I'm on unless you have some extra petty cash. Most of the afternoon I felt a little like I'd eaten some bad guacamole and washed it down with sour milk, but that has subsided and allowed me to spend a little time with you.

I want to thank all of you reading this and let you know how much I appreciate your thoughts and positive energy. Only 11 more treatments to go!

Good night, X.

Luck

Luck was once defined (by someone I can't seem to recall this morning) as the place where preparation meets opportunity. In the theatre, you say "break a leg". I'm pretty certain there is little luck involved, but it never hurts to be a little superstitious right before you are about to have a quart or two of a harmful chemica pumped into your body in an effort to kill part of it.

Wish me luck, cross your fingers, pray, send me positive energy and speak in tongues if that's what you do, just WISH ME LUCK!

Day of Reckoning

Seeing as how I am not probably gonna get any sleep either because tomorrow (or later today) is my first chemo treatment or because I am now addicted to blogging, I figured I would type a little more. As I sit here in my mud-mask (yes, one can obviously have a chronic illness and be quite vain at the same time) I noticed that I didn't describe more about the results of the rest of my ump-tene hundred tests performed on me. To the credit of modern cancer research, I have to say, it's all impressively ingenious on the types of tests used to locate and classify stages and the pre-work involved in the chemotherapy.

When pushed out of the boat, you can sink or you can swim.

Last week I underwent several different tests. Hodgkins Disease (and perhaps all forms of cancer) have 4 distinct stages http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=4265. These stages are marked by where in the body the disease "presents" itself. I am in stage two, meaning that if you divide the body into 4 quadrants, one line down the center of the eyes to the pelvis and another line separating the upper half from the diaphragm and lower half below the diaphragm, my infected areas are all above the diaphragm and on both halves of the top quadrant. The disease is not in the bone marrow (which apparently is a little harder to treat), nor is it below the diaphragm. Good news, again if there is "good" news. All I know is, if your doctor is ever performing a bone marrow test (PRAY you never find it necessary) and he/she says you will fill some "slight" pressure, PUNCH them directly in the face and then let them know you are ready to begin.

Other, less painful tests, like the Pulmonary, which tests breathing and the echocardiogram, which is exactly like a sonogram for pregnant women, are a lot less invasive and require NO needles. These two I loved. The pulmonary tests takes place in a little booth, that sorta resembles the car from the Jetsons. You have a cute little nose clip that basically is a retooled clothespin on your nose. You are asked to breathe into an apparatus that measures how much air flows through your lungs during different intervals. The fun part is listening to the nurse scream, "BREATH! BLOW, BLOW, BLOW!" A scenario most adult men never get to hear unless they go to a Lamaze class or don't pass out at the first contraction in the delivery room. Echocardiograms are just cool cause you get to see what looks like an alien flapping around on a television monitor. In reality, it's a sonar of your heart that is reversed and upside down.

So, we know what we are fighting. Now comes the fun part!

Chemotherapy is the use of chemical agents to stop cancer cells from growing(http://www.chemotherapy.com/treating_with_chemo/treating_with_chemo.jsp). Most everyone knows the side effects of chemo, but they don't know how it works.

All men are not created equal.

Everyone responds differently to the treatment and side effects vary. Insert disclaimer here.. Vomiting, hair loss, nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhea. All the fun things that make life worth living, right?! As you can imagine, I am not thrilled about the treatment, but this is how the doctors are going to cure me, so I get to flex and plump a vein.

It's late, I'm tired and my mud mask is off. Good night.

A Date that will Live in Infamy

I was born in the latter part of March and if you're into astrology, you probably know that makes me an Aries. If you know a bit more, you may know that, at times, Arians are known for being quite opinionated, boisterous, love being the center of attention, are extremely health-conscious and are very (repeat) passionate. In college, I diverted that "passion" towards my health and treated my body as a temple to relieve stress. "Garbage in, garbage out", I would tell people. Advising friends, family and loved ones on nutritional habits and even coaching some of them in the gym is not uncommon behavior for me. Since the age of 19, I have worked out usually 4 or five times a week. Running, swimming, rollerblading, weightlifting, etc. Anyone reading this who even slightly knows me, would agree that I always lived by the mantra "a rolling stone gathers no moss.."

Energy has never been in short supply.

Friday, June 20, 2008 all of my perceptions about myself and my "healthy" lifestyle were crushed under the heavy boot of a biopsy of some removed lymph nodes from a few days prior. I was hit by the proverbial "speeding bus" and my life was forever changed. Now, some of you may be saying, there goes Geoff, being dramatic again, but I did really feel like my world had just ended.

Flashback (que the annoying wind chimes).

In April, I noticed some small lumps that had appeared in my neck on the right side just above my collar bone. Thinking little of it due to the fact that I was in the midst of a job search, I delayed going to see the doctor because I had no health insurance. Shortly thereafter, I started a new job and partly because my mother is a worry wort and partly because I am a self-proclaimed hypochondriac, I went to the doctor. He stated that I had probably picked up some sort of infection that my body simply couldn't ward off and prescribed some antibiotics and took about 800 vials of blood (I HATE needles). Two months later and my "lovely lady lumps, as I had so affectionately named them (the Dixie Chicks sounded too gay), were still there and becoming increasingly more visible. My doctor referred me on to an oncologist/hematologist.

At this point, I was more than a bit aware that what I may be facing would be life-altering, but the "C" word had only been hinted at here and there. The oncologist took one look (and a few painful prods to my neck) and proclaimed that she wanted, "those outta there". One week later I was the operating table in one of those very fashionable backless gowns that so many people are fond of wearing. The surgery revealed what the surgeon told my parents was a group of nodes (lymph nodes are similar to grapes on a vine) the size of a cocktail shrimp.

Yes, imagine having a prawn in your throat for two months - fun stuff!

So, in place of the crustacean, I now have a bright pink two inch scar going down the side of my throat. My friends had a contest to come up with the best story, it's a tie between shark attack and stabbing wound from a gang fight.




The nodes were out and I was told that pathology could take between two to five days for the results. I was on pins and needles for the next two days, mostly from the fact that I just had creature removed from my body, but also because I was scared shit-less.


Friday, I got the call.

My sister's birthday happened to be the same week as my surgery, so my mom, dad and I were at Dillard's department store looking for a gift. I had called and left a message for my oncologist to find out the results of another 800 vials of blood that they ran test on. Sidenote - there is a pathogen you can get from ostrich meat that "presents" itself a lot like cancer. Who knew? I received a call back from the very perky physician's assistant who works in the office. She relayed that the one test that had been completed which searched for markers on the removed tissue had come back looking great. None of the markers the doctors were looking for had repeated themselves, a good sign.

My oncologist called back.

I took a deep breath.

She asked me how I was recovering from the surgery. I just had a one ounce shrimp removed from my neck... How great could I really be? She became very somber and her voice very stoic... "I am afraid you have Hodgkins." It's very hard for me to remember exactly what she said at that very moment so please don't ask her, but all I heard was what I thought was a death wish at that moment and translated it was, "You have cancer, do you have a last will and testament?" Since that moment, I have come to the realization that cancer is not a death wish. I still don't refer to it as that, though that is clinically what I have. To be precise I have Hodgkins Disease Lymphoma. Lymphoma is a type of the "C" word that attacks the lymphatic system and causes the lymph nodes to grow in an uncontrollable manner until they cannot perform their intended function, which is to remove interstitial fluid from the tissue of the body and to produce immune cells called lymphocytes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphatic_system).
Mine, for some reason, had gone all wonky. Luckily, if there is a "luckily" in all of this, Hodgkins Disease has fewer forms and more research done on it. It's about 90% curable in young adults. At 32, I am still considered a "young adult". No comments, please.

Mutants in my temple.

Over the course of the next 6 months, I plan on keeping my friends, family, loved ones and the occasional passer-by updated on my experience with this lovely chronic illness which has chosen to reside in my body. It's not gonna be easy, I don't expect it will be fun, but one thing is for sure.. It AIN'T gonna kill me! My friends and family both near and far have all asked how I am doing and I figure this is the easiest way to keep them all updated. I still expect phone calls, emails, cards, flowers, small gifts, money and dead birds from my animal contingency of loved ones.

This blog is in no way meant to dissuade phone calls or smoke signals of any kind in an effort to contact me personally. Please feel free to call me anytime, but don't get crazy (Bon Qui Qui reference)



I love you all and appreciate all the love and support you have given me thus far.

You keep me STRONG!