Scientists explore how the humble leaf could power the planet

Scientists explore how the humble leaf could power the planet

• Artificial photosynthesis, eh? I guess I’d want to see how it’s going to be more cost effective with no more environmental impact than, say, you know, growing plants.
• Funny. I submitted a project to the SpaceLab student outreach program back in 1973 when I was still in high school. The idea was to determine the feasibility of using hydroponic green algae as an energy and food source in space. My project was not selected to fly on the satellite.

Living With MBD

Metastatic Breast Disease (MBD). It’s a sobering thought, even admidst dissolving of brain tumors by radiation. Advanced cancers perhaps aren’t the death sentences they used to be, still, when taken in all their invasiveness, are things to be respected.

I may always be on some form of chemo. I may be on Tamoxifen, as long as possible. With luck, my tumor marker numbers will continue to go down, until they are part and parcel of my whisper factor, the cancer that makes up my particular MBD.

Radiation oncology has its place to play amidst all the chemicals as well.

In any equation, you have things like overriding pain that has to be controlled — the cancer causes its own little bits of grief after all, and if you’re like me, your cancer is here and there in your body; I’m Stage III, I don’t know how I’d handle it being Stage IV for example. Some people out there are totally brave.

Right now its just one step in front of the other, and slip-sliding into states of head consciousness where I can deal with the enormity of the disease, not only my own process, but my husband having cancer too — we’re certainly not the only two cancer family in the world right now, but the fact that we both have a cancer at this time is pretty rough.

I’m not complaining though, at least we can both move still and are not incapacitated except for the general fatigue that comes from being on chemo meds and roids.

Thanks to a bit of help from some friends we’re managing over here.

I’m debating, after the radiation is over, about breaking into a brand new blog about living with MBD, how people cope, what they can do, etc. I’m giving it serious thought.

Bacteria make computers look like pocket calculators

Bacteria make computers look like pocket calculators

• Ashby’s Law trumps Moore’s Law. Not much more to say.

Moving Along to Plan B

While my body is recovering from its anemia, we’re moving along in treatment to Plan B, which is receiving radiation therapy for a small mass that’s popped up near critical motor centers in the cerebellum. It’s extremely tiny and we found it just by happenstance. Tomorrow I’ll start a series of short radiation treatments combined with taking the hormone tamoxifen for everything below the blood brain barrier. Since my tumor markers were so good, I have great hopes for this new series of treatments. Most chemo cannot penetrate to the brain itself, so when you find little things like this it is best to address them with radiation. Radiation has now got a 100 year history and has advanced significantly as a treatment for cancer.

This story would be too long to tell in all its detail, but what started out as a lunch trip to the mall on Thursday turned into a dizzying experience, winding up with a trip to the ER, admission to the hospital, a blood transfusion (which was badly needed IMHO), and meeting with my doctors — and some new doctors — resulting in a few more tests and a release home with a clear slate from the vertigo/nausea event of last week. I’ve never spent much time in hospitals and I’m here to tell you, hope I never have to again!

In spite of the hard work of the nurses, much of the labor of patient care is now involved with a series of steps that adds much to the costs of such visits. I am very clear now on what needs to be done to overhaul the system (which we really don’t have), and would not wish a hospital stay, no matter how nice the staff, on my worst enemy.

Lucky for me the Drip Factory has a Death Ray Room with my very own Dr. M*ng the M*erciless — a doc about my own age with 30 years experience that I like very much. He’s also very hip to the infighting games between hospitalists here in our small town, and to my request this morning  of “Get ME OUT OF Here”, he had all accomplished by 2 pm, while saving everyone’s ego. Here the story must end, because everyone is really a good person, and there is no point in continuing on with Plan C when Plan B is now in effect.

Update 1 – 7/21/09 First external beam radiation therapy done today. Painless, quick. Machine used was a Varian 2300 with bells and whistles. I like it. I shoulda told the tech to reload the photons for tomorrow (just kidding).  Plan B updates will be done over  the coming days as updates here. If something significant happens I’ll write a new post, but for now, it’s just lock and load.

Update 2 – 7/22/09 Second treatment today, I’m feeling a bit less disheveled from the hospital experience and a bit more like myself — the hubster and I are still resting and trying to get some food down, but we’re tired, and not young anymore! My sister-in-law, whose on her third year of tamoxifen treatment herself, advises that no one else truly counts in this process save for the medical oncologist and the radiation oncologist at this point. She’s right. I had the distinct pleasure this afternoon of speaking to both these favorite people in my medical world — and giving them their new nicknames: my medical oncologist is Flash Gordon and my radiation oncologist is M*ng the M*rciless. Flash Gordon in the 21st century, he quipped, and yep that’s it — this is the 21st century — save for the equipment in that man’s office — the rest of the world doesn’t exist for me right now. I’m in love with that Varian. If I were younger I’d have pursued a career as a medical physicist in this exciting field. Being an old geezer now, it’s who the hell do I donate my very expensive library of books on biological medicine and quantum medicine I used in my own career up to two years ago, and I think I know exactly who that person is going to be.  Here’s the schtick: In any situation in life, on any given day, you either live or die, survive or not. I may not survive this experience or I may live to see more time, I can’t predict the future. Guys like Flash and M*ng don’t come by anymore, the world is dumbed down beyond belief in this excuse for a banana republic we’re living in — so when you meet people like this, who build organizations like this, and do healing like this, you want to leave the good books to them. They have a “physics department” and a medical physicist who comes down to check on the stuff, awesome staff, and are complete jewels in terms of who they help and what they are doing. Here in the heart of green country, there is a world that really does represent Flash Gordon in the 21st Century.And that’s the joke — it really is the 21st century, and we’re no longer sending rockets to the moon. Things have changed since my time in the brilliance of the space race, in running my own clinic, in persuing the careers, writing the books, doing the research, it will never be the same again. Now, my future time on this planet may be in days or years, but it will most likely be spent in a floating home on a river in Portland, Oregon, taking care of my wonderful husband. Relaxing. Painting, and cooking. Disability takes it toll on us all eventually. Cancer trumps everything.

NP Deb came back today as well, her presence has been sorely missed, but she survived her vacation and is prepping for boards 8/7. We wish her all the best of luck. Deb is one of those exceptional people who has both intelligence and character to reach and communicate with patients. She’s a rare one, our Deb is, and if she reads this, she’ll know how much we truly appreciate her!

Chemo Held Again but Good News

Because there was no significant change in my blood counts, we held chemo again today (7/14/2009). The great news was that my tumor marker numbers once again are heading in the right direction: the CA 15-3 marker dropped from 690.4 to 430.4 and the CA 27.29 dropped from 865.5 to 496.6. Considering that when we started chemo these numbers were at 736 and 1006 (or thereabouts) this is excellent progress.

Because these numbers were so good, we opted to give my body a chance to rest one more week before continuing. I believe my body is fighting to get rid of this cancer and all its energy is going in that direction. I have smallish red blood cells anyway, so producing them is a bit of a challenge… This week I took another Aranasep shot (to produce red blood cells) and I’m hoping to show some progress in this direction by next week.

My appetite has been excellent and I’ve actually gone from 141 to 146 on the scales, which is great news. Right now putting on a few extra pounds is going to help later down the road.

All in all, I’m pleased with this progress, and although tired, do feel better overall. More sleeping and eating is on the docket for the week to come. Regardless of blood numbers, I will continue next week with treatment (pending the oncologist’s approval).

Chemo held for today

Last week caught me with induced anemia. This week, there was little change in my red blood count over last week,  and the white count was relatively low and platelets were also low. That’s a triple play in the Drip Factory playbook, so the oncologist held the chemo treatment for a week. As he intimated, we’ve been pushing really hard, and sometimes you just need to let the body catch up with itself.  He’s requested tumor count with next week’s blood work, so we’ll have a progress report based on those numbers. In short, my body has been working very hard and needs a rest. Whatever pluses the red blood cell shot gave me last week were probably used up fighting that bout of diarrhea over last weekend. That’s all gone, save for some residual gases, but any kind of intestinal whack like that takes it out of you.

So, he sent me home with instructions to sleep as much as I want and just take it easy and we’ll see how we do next week. I’m scheduled then for another shot of the red blood cell builder. Thanks to the company’s special program for people who cannot afford the meds, I will get these shots at a fraction of their cost. What might that run, you ask? Try $428 vs. $11,000 per shot. I really want to thank Amgen Corp. for allowing me to be in their program for the Aranesp, and also Novartis for the Zometa bone builder. I feel most of the time like the oncologist, who IMHO is close to genius, is holding me together with bailing wire and string. It humbles me, truly, and I’m very grateful for the care and consideration. I hope I can survive if just to give back somehow for all the other people who might have an advanced cancer diagnosis sprung on them — There just is no good way to tell someone they are living with cancer that cannot be cured. It can be controlled, perhaps, remediated — someday I want to see it eliminated completely as a human disease, and anything I can do to foster that belief is going to happen as long as I can pull a breath. Cancer is “meltdown” plain and simple, and no matter how you deal with it, changes how you look at everything from time and space to matter and energy!

Good things — my weight held at 141, and lo and behold, he picked up more air flow in my right lung through his stethoscope. This is a good thing, because it may mean the lung is really healing and the pleural effusion is shrinking. It feels different — my back basically feels more normal this week, and I know my breathing is stronger. At this point I’ll take whatever I can get. I know my body is working hard and I really trust this doctor to know when to hold ‘em, etc. Breathing better is always a good sign.

The neck tumor itself is stinging slightly, seems to be getting smaller, and the breasts really look symmetric, with no sign of inflammation, or lymphatic swelling. The little lumps, mostly all near the surface, are going down in size, so maybe this thing is giving up part of it’s dynamic and the system is healing. I prefer to think it is rather than it isn’t, because although tired, I do feel better overall. What little pain I have is kept under tight control with generic Lortab (hydrocodone), taken in half-tab doses when needed. Even my  blood pressure is better.  The other script I take on an as needed basis is Lorazepam, which works for a lot of things for me, everything from mild anxiety (which I have and that is understandable) to nausea. It’s an amazing medicine and I’m very careful not to misuse it. I take as little as possible, but with any pain or anxiety condition it is important to keep it under close control so it never spirals out of control.

I’m doing my part here, and Lord knows I’ve been able to sleep through hurricanes, so that is not going to be a problem. Another plus this week, I’ve got a taste for certain candies, favored in my childhood, just thought up from some distant memory store in my brain — caramel cremes and Torrone — these taste really really good to me right now, and I can always use the calories.  We bought some at this morning’s run to Walgreens.  I love Walgreens. Their generic benadryl and other stuff is just a bargain, and works.

Kudos go to the hospital as well, for they’ve approved us in their charity program, and that is going to mean a very positive savings on our bills. It’s rare when two people in the same family have cancer at the same time, and it’s even rarer to be in a medical community where such an extenuating circumstance is dealt with so positively. Cancer is a very expensive disease, even with insurance, and for those of us who have none and are not even able to afford the simplest of policies, any help is a blessing. So I’m bringing down super positive mojo on the hospital, and may their programs flourish and their reputation expand accordingly. I can see why my late mother-in-law volunteered in their gift shop for so many years; she must have sensed the goodwill and dedication or she wouldn’t have given of her time. She retired from that duty at age 80, and passed away just recently at age 94, having outlived ALL her acquaintances there save one or two who mentored under her.

Though it may seem new-agey, I believe if you put out positive energy, it reverberates ten times over — anything it hits gets kissed with plusses — as we used to say in the 1960s, negative vibes help no one.

So I’m viewing my vacation from chemo this week as a positive time for my body to rest up — and plan on enjoying each and every second of my week!

Chemo Round Two, Session Two

If there could have been a near perfect chemo session for me, yesterday’s was it. The addition of the small amount of morphine makes the drip nearly painless and I got nurse Barbara to use one of her special needles (they are butterfly in shape for the needle support to support a 24 gauge job that otherwise just kills me). This goes in my left hand, which is constantly in pain along with the left arm — we think that’s due to the cancer that has migrated to the spine, it’s my oldest symptom next to the slightly irritating neck tumor — this is all about minimizing symptomatic pain and keeping it under control, to a large extent. Chemo is a two-headed Janus god of a treatment and you have to stay alert to the side-effects, good and bad, for it to be anything close to a comfortable experience.

The oncologist was still on vacation (though one of the nurses told me he’d been in every day to check his patients and do hospital rounds) — but sure enough no sooner than we finished this conversation than he showed in the clinic — and was educating several of the nurses on the computer. A long time ago I had suggested he get this clinic into the 21 st century — You Tube has great vids put up by cancer patients, there are pdfs all over the place on research, the net is just full of super educational tools. I’d love nothing more than to see an education center at the Drip Factory, so people can come in and learn more about their cancers and how they are being treated.

I went through Deb, our nurse practitioner, to get the onco to prescribe some Advair for me in lieu of the Albuterol — this is for my breathing. My shortness of breath (a symptom in  my body caused in part by the pleural effusion from the cancer) is complicated by a lifelong struggle with asthma. The old tech, while cheaper, just doesn’t compare in my case with Advair. I got the 250/50, its a steroid yes, and has its own side effects, but I only have to use it once per day for it to be effective for me. Its an inhaled corticosteroid, fluticasone propionate, and a long-acting beta2-agonist (salmeterol). It totally works for me, and I take a puff  around 5 pm, when all my symptoms seem to be worse. For me, with this cancer, everything gets worse in the late afternoon. Deb says the additional steroid will do double duty in the pain control — this way we don’t have to prescribe an additional med for pain.

The nurses told me the drug reps were taking them out to dinner at a steakhouse in Tulsa. I don’t have a problem with that, in fact, it’s a nice idea. These gals work really hard and the onco is a stickler for them looking very pro always in matching uniforms etc. As one put it “don’t get me started!!!” I’m laughing because actually they do look very professional all the time and I personally like the matching uniforms, they get casual Fridays after all and wear what they want then. The more I’m there the more I like both the Drip Factory and my oncologist.  I am feeling so much better today than I did at the start of treatment he must be doing something right.

Foods that taste like themselves this week: Tropicana Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice, Ocean Stray Ruby Red Grape Fruit Juice, Ocean Spray Blueberry and Pomegranate Juice, shallots, red onions, spinach and salad greens, blue cheese dressing, corn tortillas, jalapenos (which taste particularly excellent), nachos (I made a hellacious batch and actually managed to eat 10), Heinz Dill Pickles.  I’ll be experimenting with some new recipes, including a cheese-stuffed hamburger patty on a foccaccia roll. Bread I can eat — sourdough  bread, and spiced foccaccia with garlic and basil. Those pretty much taste like themselves.

Yesterday, I talked briefly to a woman who has liver cancer. We were laughing because in the hot weather we both brought socks — and took off our shoes in the chemo chairs and put them on. I always wear my Wicked Witch of the West socks (black with orange stripes). Her cancer drip took some of the same meds as mine — and she’s getting better too, so we had a pretty positive corner going on. Her mother had died from breast cancer, and as my mother died of chronic granualar leukemia in 1967, we were talking about improvement of treatments over time.  The upshot of the discussion was that we both felt lucky to be at the Drip Factory, and also to be living now as opposed to then, when certain cancers were total death sentences. It gives a lot to reflect on, when you have conversations like that with total strangers. Right then my benadryl drip kicked in, so did hers, so we both nodded off.

Mark accompanied me over to the clinic, and did the runs to the medical pharma at the hospital — we totally love the pharmacy there by the way, as well as the cafeteria, which is actually a catering service. The food is awesome and very inexpensive. Nurse Barbara took out his stitches, so he was a lot more comfortable after that. He had a bout of bone pain last night and reports on that in his blog at whatwasthemiddlepart.wordpress.com.

Weightwise, I am down 3.5 lbs for the week to 145, not too bad for chemo restart. I look pretty good and oddly, my body seems to be carrying weight at this level with more ease now. I’m certainly enjoying wearing smaller clothes and feeling “light”. I’m going to try, over the next four treatments to keep the total loss to 10 lbs.

Chemo Six and the MRI

This week really began last Friday, May 22, with the taking of two MRI tests, one on the cervical spine and one on the thoracic. I may have mentioned my oncologist is a stickler for detail, and when my left arm pain did not subside, he wanted to see what was going on.

The MRI gave us perhaps more than we bargained for, but I’d still rather know what was happening than not.

On the weekly bloodwork , he ordered the tumor markers be run, to see if there was change. There was, to the good.

The good news after this first six weeks of chemo:

Leane’s most recent blood work (Friday) shows her tumor markers
decreasing. One of them is down from 736 to 690.9 (CA 15-3), and another is down from 1006 to 865.5 (CA 27.29). For a great article on the value of CA 15-3 in the cases of metastatic lobular breast cancer past Stage II please read this.  This marker will track disease regression in cases like mine, so I was pleased it’s value went down.  My lab reports the norms for this value should be0.0 to 31.3 U.ML so there is a way to go!! The CA27.29 Marker, especially when used in conjuntion with CA15.3 and others,

The CA 27.29 test is used to monitor your:

• Response to treatment
• Status of your cancer
• Possibility of early recurrence.

This marker dropped131 points. I was delighted. The oncologist says he’s seen it higher in others, and isn’t scared of the value. That gives me a great deal of confidence, especially in light of the newly found involvement with bone. I have faith in the zometra bone med and calcium to help control this. In fact, I would be satisfied in a few months with “stable disease”. It is very hard with this cancer to assume you know where in the body it all is — so it’s best to assume it is everywhere. By careful monitoring, we hope to get the very best out of the chemo treatments, and I’d like to avoid local treatments and stick to systemic as long as possible in my case.

The bad news — well, not really because we have better knowledge now — came from the MRI where it appears more spine is involved than first thought.

Here’s the report that came back from Leane’s MRI last week, which they
did because she was complaining about pain and loss of muscle mass in her
*left* arm (opposite the cancer side) (thanks to my husband Mark for this part of the report):

Report
15 mL Magnevist

FINDINGS:
There is abnormal signal and enhancement at C5, C6 and C7. While this may
be due to degenerative disease, metastatic disease is not excluded. There
is no pathologic compression fracture. There is C5-6 and C6-7 central
canal stenosis due to disk bulging and posterior osteophytes.
There is no abnormal cord signal, mass or enhancement.
There is a known large right neck base and right apical soft tissue tumor
mass.

IMPRESSION:
C5, C6 and C7 metastases without pathologic compression fracture.
Mild C5-6 and C6-7 central canal stenosis due to degenerative disk disease.

We also ran the thoracic spine — the PET scan had indicated bone cancer in the upper thoracic area. The MRI verified this and specified exactly where.

MR Spine Thoracic w + wo contrast

15mL Magnevist

FINDINGS:

There is abnormal marrow signal/edema and abnormal enhancement at T1, T2, and T3 consisten with metastatic disease. T3 is most severely involved.
No pathologic vertebral compression fracture is seen.
While there is no frank cord compression there is sufficient spinal stenosis at T2 and T3 and to lesser extent T1 and T4 due to right dorsal dural/epidural soft tissue thickening. This measures up to 6.6 mm and may represent dural metastatic disease or extra osseous soft tissue tumor.

(NB: Dural metastatic disease is very rare.  Read about it here. Again, this is a systemic phenomenon. )
There are numerous dorsal subcutaneous nodules and masses consistent with metastases. The largest is at the T12 level measuring the 3.3 x 2.2 x 2.0 cm.
There is a large right pleural effusion.

IMPRESSION:

T1, T2 and T3 metastases. No pathologic compression fracture.

And, although the “large plural effusion” is back, it is not what it was. We are holding on another thorentecitis session for a few more weeks. The right lung is working better and I am not subject to shortness of breath like I was. I suspect natural draining is occuring.

Regular bloodwork shows the wbc to be on the low side but increasing, as are rbc and platlets.  I am adding additonal calcium to compensate for the bone medicine, and will be adding more vitamins.

Chemo Six, which was today, ran very smoothly — just like last week save for the bone meds which are run monthly. I do not have to go back until June 15th, so this will be a good rest, and give my wbc, rbc, and platelets a chance to recoup. They are all slightly down on the low side — the wbc count jumped to 2.5 from 1.06 (normal 3.7 to 11.0) so all the rest and good food has paid off this week.

Chemo Five: Smooth Sailing

Tuesday, May 19th was the fifth chemo treatment. Tagged onto this one was the bone medicine. I’m pleased to report that the chemo session (as described in Chemo Four with the addition of the bone med went very smoothly). Because this past week brought some pain in the left shoulderblade, shoulder, arm, wrist, and hand, I had to have a very  small amount of morphine with the chemo push, since it was done in that hand. This made the whole procedure nearly totally painless, and considering the session administered for nearly four hours, this was a good thing.

The arm pain, muscle wasting, and dimensional changes had been going on for months. This was the first place really that I noticed significant body changes due to the cancer, and according to Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, is not uncommon with cancer (p. 642 , 15th Edition) and since we aren’t sure of the etiology, the oncologist has me scheduled for an MRI of the cervical and upper thoracic area on the 22nd.

Overall, the oncologist and I am pleased with the treatment so far. I am feeling better, eating more, and sleeping better. Nausea and vomiting seem to be under control with the medications he’s prescribed. I did lose a few more pounds, at the morning weigh in I was 149, down from  155 last week. I went over this with him and got more suggestions on how to increase calorie intake. Basically anything goes at this point, and that includes any fast foods I want.  For once I am grateful that when this process started I was holding at 183 (age 60).  And grateful too for the years of bodybuilding, because in spite of the wastage, there is still muscle.

My hair is completely out now and in fact stubble is already growing in. I picked up a few cute knit caps at the Center, courtesy of the Bartlesville Fibre and Knitting Group to keep the pate warm and cozy, and my sister-in-law has a care package on the way, as well as my cousin.

The oncologist points out again that we have a lot of cancer to kill, and I know the disease is widespread in my body, however, I’m not afraid of it. We have numbers for the two biggest tumors, 736 and 1006, and he’ll be checking those once this round of chemo ends. We can see the visible shrinkage at least at the tumor on my right neck axilla area, and many of the areas affected under the skin (like lymph nodes under my arms) have shrunk.  We’re using the PET scan as the major “map”.

At only five weeks in treatment, I am pleased that there have been palliative effects, in spite of the fact that chemo is very rough, and always difficult for each and every patient in some way or another.  It’s always a balancing act with cancer anyway — it translates out as try to do no further harm while trying to ameliorate the harm that’s already done by the disease process itself, especially tumor burden.

Tumor burden isn’t really talked about much, but that is the effect the tumor and it’s presence is having on the patient, the idea being that when it gets to be “too much” (defined in various number scales) the tumor kills the patient.  Most commonly talked about in lung cancers, tumor growth, invasion or obstruction of adjacent structures, growth in regional nodes through lymphatic spread, growth in distant metastatic sites after hematogenous dissemination, and remote effects of tumor products, are all areas the oncologist and patient need to address. In addition, peptide hormone secretion by the tumor, or immunologic cross-reaction between tumor and normal tissue can produce a variety of signs and symptoms. Cancer is a complex disease, and its byproducts and side-effects are numerous and dangerous. This, in part, is why combinations of therapies are used — chemo, radiation, surgery, etc.

In this chemo round, I have session six left next week, and then two weeks “off” in which we might do some repeat tests to check progress. This I am leaving up to the oncologist.

I’m working on increasing my energy levels by Chi Gung and meditation practices, and also more vitamins and food. Those are things I would normally do anyway when sick at this stage of the game.  Some good research papers were found by a friend on the benefits of remaining physically active during cancer. I believe this is a good thing to do, and also it is very important to maintain as stable an attitude as possible toward the disease, which is a long term problem and because of this is hard for most people to reckon with.

I have hopes that the records left in this blog will give some guidance to others who have to deal with advanced cancers, which have their own set of issues. Regardless of the time left to you, no one has imprinted a number on your feet… median prognosis of four to ten months for example, is a statistical measure, and when looking at the individual case, should not be taken as a death sentence. Various studies yeild various numbers but all of it, for the individual, will be dependent on individual factors, such as response to treatment and attitude.

My cousin Carol brought up the case of Farrah Fawcett this week on Facebook, I didn’t know she was suffering from cancer, but apparently has had quite a bit published in the media. I wish her well, she was always a favorite actress, and I hope her message will reach a lot of sufferers.

My message for the week is always remember to rest. Even if it’s just a forced rest, hanging out on a relaxing surface, no sleep involved — rest is important for the cells that have to rebuild. Chemo kills good cells as well as bad ones, so rest and proper nutrition are mainstays for the immune system and should be taken seriously. Keep up your sense of humor too, that helps a lot.

Chemo Three: Hitting the Wall

Last week’s treatment was punctuated by hitting the wall. After two weeks of  nearly symptom free chemo, I was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past present and future: loss of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea, all of which made Tuesday’s chemo a nightmare. The diarrhea hit right in the middle of the drip, so there was an interruption while the nurses got enough Immodium into me to stop it all up.  The appetite loss was a silent symptom, it took  a sound talk by my husband and several letters from my sister-in-law, who has been through breast cancer (and dropped 47 lbs), to make me realize I had to start to eat.

The oncologist added Calcium to my diet, since the bone hardener caused the serum calcium levels to fall and my hands to draw up like the Creepers, and we got some Ensure courtey of the American Cancer Society, as well as ordering high calorie instant breakfast online.  Several nausea meds have worked well in controlling the urge to throw up, which follows the diarrhea as the night the day.

Somehow session three got finished.

Session four comes up tomorrow, unless my white blood cell count dictates I get an injection. It fell last week as well, making me so tired I could barely turn the page of a book.

If this all sounds incredible, talk to someone you know about the effects of chemo. It sounds unbelieveable you could go from hale and at least semi-hardy to vegetative in just a few days, but believe me, you can. It is after all, something that is being put into you to kill wild cells. Chemo is to be respected, I have decided, and even the process of my hair leaving my scalp (which it is doing in bits this week) is to be treated with kindness. My cousin, who is something else with a needle and thread, has designed for me some nifty scarves for days I don’t want to wear my wig. Each year she does the 20 km Susan Komon run in her town, and this year she’ll be running for me.

While at the Drip Factory last week, too, I talked to a young mother, who had cancer of the cervix and uterus, if I thought I had a reason to be angry about cancer  it was nothing compared to her story.

So life gets relativized somehow in the whole process.