Grey Day

It’s a grey afternoon in Salt Lake. Most people would describe the weather as gloomy. It feels more as though a blanket is covering the city, cloaking the mountains. Somewhat comforting to me. I like blankets these days. I was asleep last night when James came poking into my room, somewhere around one in the morning, searching for my i-pod. He sat down on my oversized bed and we talked for a little bit. I reminded him that it has been six months since I was diagnosed. How time flies. Six months have passed by quickly, I’d have to admit, probably in some sort of chemo-induced haze. I don’t remember any of it very clearly, and truth be told, that’s fine by me. I never would have dreamed six months ago, boarding a plane in Seattle, bound for Utah, that my life would possibly change this radically in such a short period of time. I am well acquainted at this point with things most people know next to nothing about: platelets, white blood cell counts, Boudreaux’s Butt Paste (I jest not).

It’s not a New Years Eve where I necessarily care to contemplate what the coming year holds for me. Perhaps it’s because part of me already knows, but more so I think it’s because if there’s one thing this last year has taught me, it’s that I have no way of knowing. I was asked, over the holidays, what my future plans were. “What do you mean?” I responded. The question was clarified: “I mean, after you’re done with chemotherapy.” I don’t know. I really, truly do not know. I mean, I do. Viscerally, deep in the fiber of my being, I know that life will move on. Some day this will be a blip in my life, that crazy, hazy year I spent battling leukemia. Maybe I’ll place it conveniently next to the year I battled acne, or the several years I endured braces as an adolescent. But it’s my world right now, the only one that feels real. This paradox plays itself out in my mind daily, like some eternal game of ping-pong going on inside of me: the one part of me that knows inherently that this will recede into memory, and the irrational part of me that can’t imagine what it will be like to ‘get on with my life’ again. I remind myself that everything occurs in this way. I can’t explain to you how I would ride a bike, but I know that I could mount a bike again and it would all come back. In the same way, I believe that my life, my way of being, will pick up again. I’ll get the hang of it.

So for now, I don’t have any New Years resolutions. I don’t have any musings on the future. That feels a little too far ahead for my planning capabilities. For now, I’m content to sip my peppermint tea and enjoy this grey afternoon. When you think about it, there really is so much beauty to be enjoyed. Happy New Year.

Judd

The Best Medicine

I’ve been neglecting my post as ‘diligent chemo blogger’ for a while. It’s been a busy week. I was hospitalized last Wednesday for my second treatment of the drug Methotrexate. Again, two large black garbage bag looking IV’s were hoisted above my head, to drip down into my blood stream over the course of 24 hours. Again, I was given an inhibitor 48 hours after the beginning of the infusion to start blocking the Methotrexate from killing me. Again, I worked my way through about 2 seasons of 3 sitcoms, not to mention four DVDs. The only difference between this time and last time was a starry-eyed blond bombshell, my friend Katey. Katey brings the best energy into the room with her. You can’t help laughing and having a good time. I’ll admit, I was nervous having Katey come out to visit me. In my current state, I’ve become somewhat anti-social, and I couldn’t imagine talking to one person for five days straight. I knew the second she walked in the door this would not be a problem. We spent our days laughing, making sock puppets and sneaking up to the kitchen for some Earl Gray. Who drinks Earl Gray?

Katey was the boost of energy I needed to get through this second of four hospital visits. I came home from the hospital on Sunday with a few irritating side effects, but nothing too horrific to deal with. Then on Monday night, I had a sudden flare up of what felt like pancreatitis. It really terrified me to even consider the possibility that this nasty pain could be entering back into my life. Erin and James decided to drive me up to the hospital, just to be safe. The doctors monitored me through the night, while Katey stayed stoically by. In the end, no conclusive answers were reached. It was a bit of a fluke, and only lasted five minutes, where my average session usually lasts much longer. I went home Tuesday afternoon once the doctors were convinced that it wouldn’t be coming back immediately. From here at home I can monitor my pain and watch what I eat to see if anything in particular triggers the pain. The last thing I need right now is another few weeks with the feeding tube, so I’m trying to take it easy and just enjoy the holidays with my family. At least this time I’ll be able to eat the turkey! (knock on wood…)

Smile, You Are Healed

I had a difficult question posed to me during a recent session with a counselor. I was talking to her about the pain from my pancreas, the exhaustion I’ve been feeling from chemotherapy and just a general sense of feeling lost in the middle of this mire. “I want to be well again. I want to be healed.” She responded, “what is it you’re healing from?” The most obvious answer was not, I was certain, what she was getting at. This wasn’t about cancer. This was more. I fished for answers, but nothing seemed to come to mind.

During my recent stay in the hospital, one of the nurses—Gigi—brought a copy of a book into my room: Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra. The book argues that too often Western medicine ignores the powerful influence the mind can have in a person’s healing. I was made all too aware of this being in the hospital. In there, healing is IV’s, bags of chemotherapy, small pills that come at regular intervals. My body is checked frequently to make sure that I still have a regular blood pressure and temperature, or that my white cells and red cells are high enough to advance. It’s not that the doctors don’t care about my mind. They’re always asking how I’m doing. But how do you measure the mind’s involvement in the healing process? As I lay in the hospital, I thought more about the statement I made: I want to be healed. The mind is a powerful thing, an influential factor in a person’s well-being, and we bring things into existence from our mind.

More and more each day, I’m learning that healing is a question of mind over matter. Language is everything. Intention is crucial. So I’ve challenged myself a little. I’ve started meditating to the intention “I am healed.” It sounds paradoxical. In the eyes of some, I might not seem healed. In my own eyes, I feel sick, I feel achy, tired, nauseous, whatever. Yet I’ve begun to alter my thinking (and my language). It’s not that I want to be healed. I am healed. The difference is small, but important. I am trying to approach my position from a positive, more powerful place.

When I got home from the hospital on Sunday, someone had written a note on my bed. “Smile, you are healed.” I’m not sure what I’m healing from, what inside of me is being reconciled. When I said this to my counselor, she laughed. When I asked what the chuckle was about, she responded “God save us all from the healer who hasn’t healed themselves.”

Back in the Saddle

You have to push for things in the world of medicine. Very seldom is anything simply ‘granted you.’ Instead, it isn’t until you’ve made a fuss for five minutes that a change in course of protocol will be taken into consideration. That said, I’ve become a more aggressive advocate for my health and well-being (and a little more demanding in general). Part of what has been so difficult to cope with over this last month has been the knowledge that in terms of how long I have to receive chemo, I’ll now have to come in for treatments a month later. So I’ve been in limbo, not moving forward with treating this disease, just resting, not eating or drinking (although I did get the tube yanked out of me on Wednesday, an experience I shan’t soon forget). I’ve been waiting to start back up, waiting for this pancreas of mine to stop acting up. So I pushed to continue with chemo.

I got the news I wanted to hear. On Tuesday, the doctors declared me in good enough health to begin my next round of chemotherapy. I must be the only person in the world who’d get a big smile when being told they were starting chemotherapy again. This round packs a punch. Once ever two weeks I am hospitalized where I receive several chemo drugs, but one big one in particular: high dose methotrexate (my siblings have decided it sounds like a menacing villain for Batman to fight.) Two giant bags, covered in black plastic, were hoisted above me and the yellow liquid that slowly seeps out of each has been pumped into my body for the past two days. I feel fortunate (knock on wood) that thus far, with the exception of some diarrhea, I haven’t felt too bad with it. I can sense I’m weaker than I was before, but that feels like a natural reaction to the drugs. I’ll be out of the hospital in another few days. Then I rest for another ten days and do it all over again. Four times this round. I know, I get tired just thinking about it. But I’m back on track, and that feels really good.

In other news, I had an interesting run-in with a baking pan over the holidays, but you’ll have to email me to get the full story on that!