Catching up

Chemo ate my life. Plus other stuff happened. A brief recap:

January 27: I had my ear stitched up. It got ripped half off when I fell down the stairs. I don't remember falling down the stairs because I'd just passed out from a pulmonary embolism. I knew I was in deep doo doo, long before I'd climbed those stairs, since I had a pretty obvious DVT in my leg, but I thought I'd at LEAST have enough time to walk the dog before I called 911. That didn't work out, so my awesome neighbor Cigdem called them. I've now puked in an ambulance.

I got to spend 3 days as a patient at Harborview. I freaking LOVE Harborview - this is not sarcasm. I was constantly swarmed with doctors - attendings, residents, students - these are my PEOPLE. My roommate lit up some cigarettes. I had more teeth than any other patient on my floor. I had a completely badass phlebotomist who came in and was unimpressed with my stupid veins and said "oh, I will GET your blood." I got to be worked up for trauma in an ER bay that I've cleaned and setup 700 million times. I could have died a half dozen ways, at least, and the surgery residents were clearly disappointed that I didn't have any major injuries, but they felt better when they saw that my lungs were full of buckshot. I have to give myself blood thinner shots in the belly until late July now, and at least one of the docs thinks I'll be on blood thinners forever, but he's a ninny. (I should mention that all this was a very rare chemotherapy side effect.)


Something pretty big, and mind-boggling, and totally unrelated, happened on January 28, but I'll talk about that in another post.


Let's see, then there was mid-February: Mom and I high-tailed it for Hawaii. We left after my chemo infusion on a Friday, and made it back just in time for the next chemo infusion, the next Friday. As I've done a half dozen times, and I think 3 times with my mom, I found a place to stay in Waimanalo, my favorite place on the planet. They film Lost not too far from here. The birds sang, the plumeria smelled awesome, the waves crashed, the tradewinds blew. The woman who owns the place where we stayed was incredible, so artistic, so warm - Mom and I got her to come hang out with us and eat cheese and talk story.

I was, of course, sick as a dog for most of the trip, but Wednesday was a pretty good day. The beach was the usual - perfection, bliss, quiet, uncrowded, lovely for walking and walking and walking. I steamed some halibut over grapefruit that I stole from the tree outside our front door. Didn't suck. Tuesday night I hit the only women's AA meeting I've ever been able to tolerate - I've been going since 1998 and it's just too cool to be recognized by folks, like it's my hometown.


March 12: Clifford got a new family. This is a VERY good thing. I had been in no shape to take care of him since about November, and was feeling like a total shit derelict dog owner. Cliff's new family is a dad and a mom and a daughter and a son in Bellingham. Craigslist is God-as-delegator: you put in an ad, like a prayer, and some random minor deity answers it. I'm absolutely sure that Cliff's got a better story now. But I identified as a dog owner for a good 10 years (remember Casper?) and getting over that hasn't been a breeze. This gets filed under my new, saner, "let other people own 'em" strategy for houses, kids and pets.

March 27: I'm 11 years sober on this day, sitting in my chemo infusion chair for the last time, stunned that I've unexpectedly lost about 25 lbs and suddenly have a waist again, with a whole BUNCH of family and friends hanging out while they stick the fish hook in my chest and pump in the not-quite-dead juice one last time. All the nurses came by, and sang, and blew soap bubbles, and put a lei on me, and cried. Somebody took a picture of this - I'll try to track it down. A couple days earlier I'd had my mom cut off about a foot of my hair, which had become trailer-park-long, because my arms don't move that well now. And because I was in no shape to either make or go to any kind of appointment. Exhausting just to consider it. Also on this day, my oncologist terminated my pill-based chemotherapy as well, because I had (and still have) an ulcer in the back of my throat. I can't even tell you how relieved I was to not have to make myself take more chemo every morning for a whole 'nother week.

The last, maybe, six weeks of chemo got dark. Really dark. Not only was I no longer convinced that med school was a good idea, I was no longer convinced that I was ever going to feel okay again. I slept about 16 hours a day, got up to take pills or give myself a shot, lived and slept on the couch, and watched Jon & Kate + 8 for hours and hours and hours. I ate very little, and only white food, like rice and tortillas and bananas. I didn't want to talk to anybody or do anything or go anywhere. My mom came over and took care of me, and some close friends helped me not stay in pieces every day when I found myself strewn about the floor. Suckage. So having it stop, particularly getting to stop taking the pills, seemed like it was never going to happen. And then it did.

Then on April 6, I didn't have pneumonia. I did have a 103.5 fever (score!) and couldn't really breathe, so I spent a couple days in the UW hospital. Private room, pretty view, quiet, so very NOT Harborview. They put me on a bunch of antibiotics, including the ridiculously-named moxifloxacin. They went into my lungs and pulled stuff out to see what was in there, and found nothing. I think they're still waiting to see if a fungus will grow, but they gave up on TB and nocardia. In my imagination there's a rack of very boring tubes in a 37C incubator somewhere, and my microbiology professor (a pathologist) is very disappointed in me. Harumph to the whole not-pneumonia episode.

Last week I went down to Medford to help with a truly adorable newborn boy, and felt productive for the first time in forever. Tomorrow I start radiation. I feel absolutely ferocious today, like I could totally handle being in med school right now. Bring it, Suzie.