Tag: colon cancer

After the Plunge

AlisonLeave a comment

I have had a post sitting in my draft folder for two years. Exactly. On October 26, 2016, I started a post entitled “After the Plunge.”

It was referring to my post from September 27th, “The Precipice”,  that I wrote the day before I started chemotherapy for colon cancer.

I had intended to give an update about my first chemotherapy experience but the title was as far as I got.  I would like to go back at and share a few of those thoughts now.

So, I have a few images from Chemo #1!

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I had a port catheter placed in my chest for administration of the chemo and for blood draws. (You can see the healing cut from the surgery just above my neck line in the photo.) I am planning on doing another post on just that alone.

This was me and my ‘last’ drink with ice. You see, the chemo combination I was going to be getting is called FOLFOX and it consists of FOL- folic acid, F- Flourouracil (5FU), and OX- oxaliplatin. One of the side-effects of oxaliplatin is a ‘sensitivity’ to cold. I can tell you now that by the time I was done with chemo, I had to drink warm water–even room temperature water was too cold.

My mom drove me over because I wasn’t sure how I would react to the chemo and how I would feel immediately after.

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I had my soft blanket and I am all hooked up to the I.V. line. The process was a two hour drip of Leucovorin (the folic acid- helps increase the efficacy of the 5FU) and the oxaliplatin. Then, when that finished, they would do an ‘I.V. push’ (a dose injected over 5 minutes or so) of the 5FU. Then came the pump.

pump

This is a picture of my lovely pump. I would go home with this and it would administer the 5FU over the next 44 hours or so.  I went in on Wednesdays for my treatments and then back again Friday mornings to get the pump off. It was nice for me that the worst of the side effects would kick in over Saturday and Sunday when I didn’t have to work. It would always make a soft noise, and sometimes would give off loud–and awkward, depending on where I was–beeping alarms if something wasn’t quite right.

pumppack

I had to carry it around in a fanny pack. It went everywhere with me. The store, teaching class, running kids to school, etc. I was hoping it would start a new fashion trend and everyone else would want to wear one too, but that was not to be. 😀

Funny story about the cold sensitivity:

The evening after my first treatment I had to go teach a lab. I was a little tired, but didn’t really feel any effects yet. The ‘cold sensitivity’ kept running through my mind. And, being a scientist, I decided I had to test the hypothesis.

The drinking fountain in the hall near my classroom wasn’t one of the coldest on campus. I figured I would start with a small drink from that fountain. So I did.

At first I didn’t really feel anything. And then, in my throat, something.

 

The best way I can think of to describe it is this. You know if you are eating nachos and a tortilla chip gets caught in your throat?

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Mmmmm nachos. (Photo by Natasha Bhogal on Unsplash)

(Of course, you probably chew your nachos before eating them instead of inhaling them. But I digress.) That poking sensation of something sharp, stuck in your throat was there and then it felt like it melted away. Crazy strange.

And yes, I tried again. Because you need multiple tests to prove your results, right?

Same thing happened.

It was just the beginning…

I Draw a Squiggly Line: A Year Later

AlisonLeave a comment

squigglyline_alisonmillerwoods.jpg

When I was young, my family used to play a lot of card games. And, as it often goes, those game nights wouldn’t work out the same for everyone playing. Sometimes there would be a winning streak for one person, or a losing streak for another (i.e. my mom always winning).

Thus started the family tradition of a squiggly line.

If you were continually losing, you took the score card and drew a squiggly line on it. That meant that everything would change for you and – no more losing streak!

Well, I DRAW A SQUIGGLY LINE!

Last August (2016) I was tired of not getting everything I wanted to accomplished. I had no mental energy to do anything beyond work and family. And I wasn’t doing that very well either. So I decided to start a bullet journal because it seemed like a system that would work well for me. It started out well. I had August all written out (and September because I was that on the ball). I had things like Back to School Night on the 22nd. Kids start school on the 23rd. I started one semester of work on the 24th and the other job started on the 29th. Then…

August 21st I added in: E.R.

August 22nd I wrote in: surgery.

And August 26th: Home from the Hospital.

September has same-day surgery to place my port catheter. And the start of Chemotherapy.

My bullet journal fizzled out after that point.

I would like to go back and write about it all (at a future point) because I couldn’t write during the experience. I don’t mean to say ‘couldn’t’ like it was so horrible I couldn’t bear to write. I just didn’t write about it. I didn’t get all the reading done that I thought I would either. When I wasn’t actively running my kids around or working I was more or less vegging out or sleeping.

I am extremely grateful for blessings, miracles, amazing family and neighbors, and modern medical science. I know that my case didn’t go like many others and I’m not sure why. I am grateful for another shot at all of this. I’m grateful to be here to hear my baby’s latest goofy phrases, send my oldest off to college, and every other kids’ step in between.

There are residual effects from the chemotherapy. It has taken a long time to feel close to being myself again. And so now, I draw that squiggly line and say that the past does not define me or where I am going now. I am changing how things are going. I may try that bullet journal again (where I actually drew the squiggly line in the photo) but I am taking back control of my schedule and my goals.

If  I were a tattoo person, I think I would like to get two of them. A semicolon and a squiggly line.

The Precipice

Alison8 Comments

 

photo by Tiago Muraro

 

 

 

I am standing at the precipice.

Toes curled over the edge, contemplating.

Just a few short feet below the edge floats a swirling bank of clouds. Blocking the way down. Is it a short drop into a safe pool of water? Is it a horrifying plummet with jagged rocks below?

I don’t know. Because I can’t see.

Tomorrow I begin chemotherapy for colon cancer.

What hides in the Stygian unknown? I have no frame of reference for what will happen. I understand the process that will occur tomorrow. But how will it effect me?

I hear stories of the ‘short drop’ variety and others of the ‘screaming and flailing’ flavor. What will be my experience?

I obviously won’t find the answers to these questions until I jump. It’s like life, I think. Sometimes the anticipation–the ‘not knowing’–is worse than the reality.

And if we want to fly, we always have to jump.

I choose flight.

My cancer story started last month and a lot of what I have been struggling with before that discovery makes more sense now. I haven’t been actively writing for a long time. The exhaustion went to the bone. It felt like my very soul was worn out.  So while I haven’t been able to work on the stories I love lately, it looks like I will have a bit more practice in the realm of creative non-fiction.  🙂