Lymphomania: Half Way!
Howdy, everybody! I know it's been a few weeks, but I'm finally getting around to making another update. I've successfully completed treatments 3 and 4, which means that I'm officially half way done with this (hopefully only) series. Physically I'm still doing well; side effects are still mild and haven't seemed to be getting worse. While I'm taking this as a good sign, it does make for less interesting reading. Thankfully, in this case, I think less interesting is preferred. :) This entry will be a bit ... disjoint. Right now there isn't a really cohesive narrative to the story; there are just bits and pieces of ideas that pop up in my head and (possibly) develop. There are still some more in there, and I'll get them down eventually, but I'll just give you what I have for now.
One notable event that will be coming up in almost two weeks is my second PET scan. It's scheduled for Feb 25th and will be my first chance to get a good look at what's been going on inside of me. While visually the tumor has shrunk pretty dramatically, and I can't feel it anywhere in my neck anymore, the fact remains that the majority of the mass is totally unseen, so I'm pretty anxious to see the difference. I'm constantly trying to build models of how the tumor may shrink and how a change in one part may be indicative of the rest, but there's no real way for me to tell if one is any more valid than the other. For instance, lets say one part of the tumor started out a little over 2 cm across and then shrunk on all sides by 1 cm. That means that that part is almost gone. Does that mean a larger portion of the tumor somewhere else has shrunk by the same percentage or just by the same 1 cm on all sides? The two models will give very different answers to the final size of that larger portion of the tumor, but I have no clue as to which one (if either) is more correct. In the end, it's purely a game of wait-and-see.
Mentally... I think the best way to sum it up is that the novelty has worn off. It's so very odd to see how my treatments and the whole process have just kind of become routine. When everything started, it was such a huge deal; every little detail stood out in such stark contrast to the rest of life. Now, it's just simply the norm. That is not at all to say that I've begun to downplay what's going on, but when I compare how much I thought of it then to how much I think of it now... I guess one's mind just isn't really made to stay revved up to such levels constantly. I still think about what's going on every day, but it was a relief when I got to the point when I could just forget about it for a while.
Right now I'm really learning to appreciate "normal". When I was first diagnosed, I thought a lot about how we believe we're owed so much. We think we're owed 70 or 80 years to live, and anything less that that is robbing us of something. But that's not really the case, is it? Instead, we are owed precisely zero, and every day we are given is a something extra. It works the same with everything else in life. To not feel tired all day is wondrous. To not have some weird aftertaste in your mouth all day and instead have food taste like it should is a joy. To say that we take these things for granted seems at this point such a childish cliche that I'm loath to write it out, but I can't really think of a better way to express it. There's a part of me now that views the idea of complaining about everyday circumstances (or my own current circumstances, in light of what I know others end up going through) as profane -- as an affront to the blessings that we are all given. There's just too much good in the world for that.
Fun fact: the possibility of chemotherapy as a means to treat cancer was first discovered as a result of people getting exposed to mustard gas in WWII.
One notable event that will be coming up in almost two weeks is my second PET scan. It's scheduled for Feb 25th and will be my first chance to get a good look at what's been going on inside of me. While visually the tumor has shrunk pretty dramatically, and I can't feel it anywhere in my neck anymore, the fact remains that the majority of the mass is totally unseen, so I'm pretty anxious to see the difference. I'm constantly trying to build models of how the tumor may shrink and how a change in one part may be indicative of the rest, but there's no real way for me to tell if one is any more valid than the other. For instance, lets say one part of the tumor started out a little over 2 cm across and then shrunk on all sides by 1 cm. That means that that part is almost gone. Does that mean a larger portion of the tumor somewhere else has shrunk by the same percentage or just by the same 1 cm on all sides? The two models will give very different answers to the final size of that larger portion of the tumor, but I have no clue as to which one (if either) is more correct. In the end, it's purely a game of wait-and-see.
Mentally... I think the best way to sum it up is that the novelty has worn off. It's so very odd to see how my treatments and the whole process have just kind of become routine. When everything started, it was such a huge deal; every little detail stood out in such stark contrast to the rest of life. Now, it's just simply the norm. That is not at all to say that I've begun to downplay what's going on, but when I compare how much I thought of it then to how much I think of it now... I guess one's mind just isn't really made to stay revved up to such levels constantly. I still think about what's going on every day, but it was a relief when I got to the point when I could just forget about it for a while.
Right now I'm really learning to appreciate "normal". When I was first diagnosed, I thought a lot about how we believe we're owed so much. We think we're owed 70 or 80 years to live, and anything less that that is robbing us of something. But that's not really the case, is it? Instead, we are owed precisely zero, and every day we are given is a something extra. It works the same with everything else in life. To not feel tired all day is wondrous. To not have some weird aftertaste in your mouth all day and instead have food taste like it should is a joy. To say that we take these things for granted seems at this point such a childish cliche that I'm loath to write it out, but I can't really think of a better way to express it. There's a part of me now that views the idea of complaining about everyday circumstances (or my own current circumstances, in light of what I know others end up going through) as profane -- as an affront to the blessings that we are all given. There's just too much good in the world for that.
Fun fact: the possibility of chemotherapy as a means to treat cancer was first discovered as a result of people getting exposed to mustard gas in WWII.
Labels: lymphomania
posted by jblee at 1:48 PM
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