Half life

28 weeks later.

2009-03-21T11:56:00.019+11:00

Five months on and apart from slightly sparser facial hair it looks like the only long term effect of the chemo has been that after watching one and a half seasons of Twin Peaks during treatment I'll never know how it ends because the theme music now makes me instantly nauseous.

Apart from not knowing who killed Laura Palmer, things are good!

In January 2009 I got my hang gliding license, not so much as it might appear to be due to post-treatment joie de vivre and moreso because lying around for six months is a pretty good way to save some cash. The following video is a snippet from a recent flight at Ben Nevis.

More awesome hang gliding videos at ridethespiral.net

Life is good!

Cycle four and the results

2008-09-19T09:27:00.004+10:00

It's fair to say I've been a bit slack on the upkeep of this blog lately.
But I've decided it's time to finish this thing, tie up all the loose ends and extricate myself from the tangled web that is cyberspace.

I finished my fourth and final cycle of chemotherapy at the start of August, the last lot really knocked me around and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch an Olympic event again without a faint urge to purge. Probably no great loss.

That last cycle and the subsequent recovery are a bit of a blur, I ate boxes of icy poles, watched a shitload of obscure Olympic sports contested by little known Eastern European nations on SBS and lay around with a cold facewasher on my forehead wondering if I looked as much like Alexander Litvinenko as I imagined.

I had my first post chemo CT scan a few weeks later, by this time I was feeling better. So much so that the day before the scan I had a couple of friends round for some beers in the sun. The sun went down, the beers continued and we had a damn good time until the next morning when I woke up with a raging thirst and a bit of a headache only to realise I was already within 6 hour no food or drink pre scan window. I doubt the nurse would have given me so much sympathy after I threw up the contrast solution if she'd known I'd been quaffing stubbies the night before.

After the big reduction in the previous scan I was pretty optimistic about these results expecting to hear that not only had the tumour vanished but I'd also won the oncology department meat raffle or something so I was a bit put out to find out the tumour hadn't really shrunk at all since the last scan and that because they couldn't give me anymore of that type of chemo I'd probably need a fair bit of radiotherapy.

I doubt my friends know how much of what they've done for me in the last few months has made this whole experience bearable (and in some instances pretty entertaining) but that evening a friend cooked burrittos and we spent the night musing about travelling, the odds of one of us ever getting to shout "follow that car" and other non-cancer banter.

The next step is another PET scan which differs from a CT scan in that it can see inside the tumour and determine how much is still living tissue.

An old friend (to protect the identities of the innocent and given that she chucked a sickie from work to take me to the Austin hospital for the scan we'll refer to her only as Bree) picks me up from the train station and we head back to her place for a bit of pre scan Mario Kart. After the last PET scan experience which involved a lot of Enya I've taken my own CD down, I'm a little miffed to open the case and discover not "The outernational sound" by Thievery corporation but "The sinister urge" by Rob Zombie, a good album but not necessarily the sort of thing you want to listen to in a tube.

After being shot up with the radioactive sugar and given a bit of a lie down to allow it to disseminate they position me in the machine. "Oh, what sort of music do you like?" asks the radiologist "Moby right?", I know she's made the assumption because I'm a bald man with glasses and as much as I'd like to correct the stereotype I do actually like Moby, it seems like the right kind of tube atmosphere.

The results for the PET scan came back yesterday and I headed in bracing myself to hear I was going to spend the summer radioactive.

The Oncologist is quite animated, there's definitely a vibe here, either I've got some new type of cancer that's of particular interest to him or something's in the air.
"Has anyone spoken to you about these results?" he asks, I shake my head
"well it's really good news!" he says "based on these results you don't need any further treatment, what's left of the tumour is dead"

In my experience with cancer there's not many of these moments, not "you're cured" moments but something for nothing moments. Every gain usually has it's price.

We spend the rest of the consultation discussing the good news, follow up observation and a strange brown pigmentation that appeared on one of my legs during the chemo. Then I leave the hospital not sure whether I'm going to laugh or to cry and wondering how one celebrates in Ballarat on a weekday lunchtime.

That was yesterday.

It's a strange thing but now to look back I wouldn't change the way things happened, if I was given the option for the Ecuadorian doctor's diagnosis to have been correct I wouldn't take it. Physically the chemo has taken it's toll on my body and given the scar on my stomach I'll never be a swimsuit model but... well maybe I'll bore you with it some other time.

It's going to be a good Summer.

Cycle three: What's chemotherapy like then?

2008-07-27T16:20:00.002+10:00

Cycle three was going to be a challenge.
Not just in the way that spending five days being intravenously fed toxic chemicals is always going to be a bit of a challenge. But in trying to come up with some new angle afterwards to blog about.

I'm past the discovery stage but not quite at the recovery stage, too much of my hair has fallen out for people to assume it's anything other than a lifestyle choice and my wanting to keep this blog on topic and out of the rest of my life has left me with bugger all to write about.
If I'd been touched inappropriately by a doctor or vomited on myself in a public place we might have had something. Unfortunately things rarely turn out the way you hope.

So instead of another blow by blow account of the past week I thought I'd have a go at describing the actual chemo experience in more detail than I had previously... I know I'm clutching at straws and if this blog was a sitcom then this post would be one of those godawful clip episodes with bits of previous shows shabbily cobbled together but hey, it's not like you people are paying me.

I'd like to start by pointing out that this is not about THE chemo experience but only my chemo experience, I can't tell you what chemotherapy is like for your friend or relative and if you're having/had chemotherapy yourself I'm not trying to tell you how to suck eggs. No offense is basically what I'm saying here.

Interestingly (I think) chemotherapy has it's origins on the battlefields of world war one, although back then it was called mustard gas and rather than being medicinal in nature it was used to kill otherwise healthy people on mass. Mustard gas victims were discovered to have died because among other things their bone marrow was destroyed and so doctors began exploring the possibility of a less antisocial use for the stuff.

By the 1940's nitrogen mustard was simultaneously being used as the first chemotherapy drug to treat lymphoma and being stockpiled as a weapon. Although doctors experienced limited success and world warring governments came to the agreement that shooting was in but gassing wasn't really on, the basis of modern cancer treatment was formed.

Then in 1965 a bloke called Barnett Rosenberg who while trying to sort out the age oldwhether bacteria could grow in electric fields or not accidentally killed all of his bacteria by using platinum as a conductor. Barny being a far more intelligent person than myself somehow saw the potential for this discovery in the treatment of cancer and without cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug derived from platinum chances are I'd be knackered.

It's when you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of this collective product of countless intelligent dedicated people that you suddenly become very glad not everyone spent their schooling playing silly buggers like you did.

So what is it like then? Chemotherapy.

Well, it's a bit like a hangover I suppose. Obviously not your garden variety day to day couple of aspirins, bottle of gatorade and a lie down you're right as rain hangover. But that hangover you have the morning after you got into a white Russian shout with those Croatian backpackers and then when the pub closed you all piled back to your place and drank that bottle of creme de menthe that had been sitting on top of the fridge for as long as you could remember before eating an entire sponge cake even though you probably shouldn't have because the cream smelt a bit funny. You know the one, well it's a bit like that... but worse and it lasts for about a week.

Now I'm obviously not complaining given that the alternative is... well, death. It's a fairly small price to pay really.

I think though if there's one thing that stands out for me about chemo it's the taste, not only does the inside of my mouth get really sensitive but my saliva tastes of socks. Not my own socks either, which if I'm being honest when they smell I sometimes find strangely enjoyable but the socks of a stranger. As a result I find myself eating constantly to get the taste out of my mouth. This is when the orange cravings usually kick in. They actually kicked in so hard I was eating about 3kg a day for a while which is probably a bit excessive. So now when I get a craving I just drop a couple of kumquats to take the edge off.

There are a lot of other wacky side effects too including (but not limited to) heart palpitations, ringing ears, sore palms, night terrors, night sweating and the inability to think properly. The ringing in my ears is a side effect of the cisplatin and though the hearing specialist says it will probably go away afterwards as long as I don't think about it too much it is pretty intense. It actually sometimes makes me wince, usually at inappropriate times (like while I'm looking at some proud new parent's baby photos).

The whole experience would suck a whole lot more if it weren't for my parents who pander to my every craving, empty my sick bucket with a smile, put up with my moodiness and even change the channels for me since my remote control stopped working. It's a bit like the exorcist in that their child has suddenly become a bed ridden, projectile vomiting grouch although as yet I'm not whacking off with a crucifix, not even during the all excitement of world youth day.
Was that too much? I'm really sorry, like I said bad taste is one of the side effects.

The upside to all this is that once I start coming good I feel really good, sort of euphoric. Maybe it's just relative or my brain self medicating with a bit of dopamine, but either way it's quite a rush. So I'll end this post on a high, maybe have a quick orange and hit the sack. I'm supposed to be starting Uni this week, time to get learned!

Jez

Sex and the CT (scan)

2008-07-04T16:58:00.003+10:00

Well there wasn't actually any sex, or if there was it wasn't happening to me. So I'm sorry if I piqued your interest with the promise of a saucy romp but I was stuck for a title... if on the other hand it was the CT scan that put the hook in you then you're in the right place.

I had the CT scan on Friday to determine the response of the tumour to the chemotherapy, the body count if you will to go back to the war on tumour analogy.

If you haven't had a go at a CT scan before the way it generally works is you begin by drinking a contrast solution. Normally this is a fairly clear liquid that tastes a bit like the stuff the dentist makes you rinse with. However at the Base (Public hospital in Ballarat for those of you not from around here) they favour a viscous, white, occasionally lumpy solution, 300 mls of it to be precise. The idea is to consume it over about an hour by knocking back a glassful every 10 minutes.

I'm up to my 4th glass when my throat decides we've had enough. It closes up every time I take a sip, normally I can get it down fairly easily but the chemo queasiness is adding an extra dimension today. I try mind over matter making chocolate milkshake my mantra and I'm halfway through when my esophagus realises it's been tricked and spasms violently. Some of it comes out my nose while I the rest of it runs down my chin. I believe this is what's known in the adult film industry as the money shot.

I'm wiping my face with my sleeve (the only other options being a tattered copy of Time or the carpet) when an older couple join me in the waiting room. We get chatting and they turn out to be really nice, the kind of people I might even hang out with except it would be quite weird. She's just been diagnosed with some kind of cancer (I forget which) and so we chat about nausea, hair loss and all sorts of groovy things stopping only to raise our glasses and chug.

All too soon I'm summoned to put on a gown, for some reason there's an almost full length mirror in the change room. I take a moment to appraise my look, bald head, backless gown, odd socks and know that if I saw me coming the other way down the hall I'd avoid eye contact.

The CT scanner is a donut shaped machine with a sort of bed that moves in and out. I hop on with an air of nonchalance I don't really feel and make small talk with the nurse while she sticks a needle into my arm. She injects a syringe of saline into the needle to make sure she's hit the vein and explains that if they accidentally inject the tracer dye into the arm and not the vein "it really hurts and for a long time".

Satisfied she's in the right spot she starts the tracer dye running, tells me to lie still and leaves. It's an odd sensation as the tracer runs through your system, you taste it in the back of your throat first then a warm flush runs through your body. It sort of feels like you've wet yourself and it takes a fair bit of restraint to lie still and not check.
The inside of the donut then starts spinning, the bed goes in, "hold your breath", the bed moves slowly out and "breathe away". Then it's out with the needle, off the bed, back on with the trousers and the job's done.

I spend Saturday night playing poker and drinking beer with the fellas, nothing takes you're mind off things like gambling and alcohol I always say. Sunday I'm a bit seedy and after lunching with friends I spend the rest of the day in bed with a book about Nazis my Grandpa got for me at trash and treasure.

Monday starts with a blood test and then I head up to oncology to get the results of the scan. I've brought the Nazi book with me only realising later that the combination of the swastika on the back and my bald head might lead some people to leap to conclusions...

Then I get the result, a good one. The tumour is quite a lot smaller than it was prior to treatment. Originally measuring 3.5 x 2.3 cm it's now down to 2.2 x 0.8 cm, I read through the examination report myself, the words "Reduction in left external iliac lymph nodal mass" have never sounded so sweet!

I was also supposed to have a chemo session Monday but when my blood test results show my white cells are too low I end up getting Monday and Tuesday off. I know a low white cell count is not actually a good thing and I'll have to make the days up later but hey I'm up for the days off! I'm sort of hoping they're still too low tomorrow because I'm supposed to go and enrol for uni.

So that's the story so far, I'm really pleased with the results but there's still more work to be done and I'll hold off on the celebrations till it's finished. Who knows maybe I'll celebrate on an aircraft carrier in front of a large "Mission accomplished" banner or maybe I'll let the war on tumour analogy go and celebrate with my friends and family. We'll see.

Jez

Do cancer patients get better service? and other random words.

2008-07-02T22:10:00.000+10:00

I was having coffee with a friend the other day who reckoned we were getting much better service than normal. I suppose the assumption is I might not have long and as such should not be kept waiting for a cappuccino as I'm no doubt keen to get back to swimming with dolphins, bungee jumping and other activities favoured by the terminally ill. Or perhaps they just wanted to get me out quick before I ruined everybody else's good time... it's hard to say.

Strangers are definitely being much friendlier to me though. While stocking up on Sony games the other day this bloke with whom I'd never spoken beyond that required to complete a transaction goes to great lengths to get me the cheapest deal possible while we chat about upcoming games.
"Call of duty 5 is coming out in November!" He says keenly and then I see the fear ripple across his face so just in case I'm not expected to make it to he adds "probably won't be that good".

One thing I'm not sure about yet and since Ballarat doesn't really have any public transport it hasn't come up is where I now rank in terms of seating priority. I usually give my seat up for the elderly, pregnant or injured but now I'm not sure, does chemotherapy beat pregnancy? How injured is worse than cancer? Will standing for the old people now seem a bit patronising?
It's another of the social scenarios I dread but not quite as much as the casual "How are ya?"

There are 3 "How are ya?"s I encounter these days, the first is the person who knows I know they know and it means just that. The second is from the person who knows I don't know they know and it's a clumsy attempt to get me to spill while the third is from the person who just doesn't know. The dilemma comes when dealing with the second and third type of people, I have 2 options , lie and then be prepared to keep lying or come off as an unemployed layabout loser with alopecia sponging off his parents or drop the C word (in this case cancer) and hope for the best.

It's just that once you say you've got cancer most people respond in one of two ways, either they tell you about someone they know who has/had cancer and is now happy and healthy/dead or they tell you about a cure they read about somewhere involving magnets/semi precious stones/goat placenta. Not that there's anything wrong with either of these responses and I'm not suggesting I'd have known what to say either.

I hope after this post people aren't too terrified to talk to me, I probably shouldn't really blog tonight, I'm a bit tense. I have the scan tomorrow to measure the response to the chemo although I won't get the results till Monday. I wasn't nervous at all until today but I think it's just hit me that tomorrow is a big day with big consequences.

If all goes well then it's a full week of treatment next week then 2 more weeks off and then a final full week after that. I'm trying not to focus on the finish line too much at the moment just in case the line moves before I get there.

In lighter news I got into the uni course I applied for (international studies) and just got the subject list which looks really interesting, I start mid year so it's been good to have something else to focus on. I'm really looking forward to getting underway and being challenged again.

Anyway that's all for now, I'm too tired to proof read this post so I'll just apologise here for any unnecessary profanity/grammatical errors etc.

Jez

Cycle two - To beanie or not to beanie.

2008-06-22T11:53:00.000+10:00

That is the question.

I wake up one morning with a mouthful of hair, it's a simultaneous feeling of relief and disappointment to discover it's my own.

Deciding the time has finally arrived I get Mum to fire up the clippers and sort me out with a proper cancer haircut. Although a number 1 all over is not the ideal haircut with which to face a Ballarat Winter I do now feel less self conscious using my healthcare card.

Thusly I've decided I need some kind of a hat, not only to protect my head from chills and ultra violet radiation but to protect society at large from awkwardness. The average punter going about his business has no need to reminded of his own fragile mortality by my patchy hair do.

I haven't taken the hat choice lightly though, in my opinion one's hat says a lot about a person at the best of times. So I resolve to choose carefully.

However, when I rifle through the mounds of brochures in the oncology department I discover they're all aimed at women. The ladies seem to have the whole industry stitched up. They've got scarves, bucket hats, turbans, something called the "Lady Margaret evening surprise"...
But for the blokes, beanies or bandannas.
"Beanies? Is that it?"
"I can stick a little plastic propeller on top if you like but..."
and bandannas? Unless you happen to be a pirate on a ship with a very strict dress code there's no reason to knot a hankie around your head.

So it looks like I'll go for the beanie, Mum managed to find a few around the house but I think they all make me look like I have special needs so unless somebody out there wants to knit me a stylish one I'll probably go on a beanie purchasing mission this weekend.

I finished another full week of chemo on Friday and if everything works as it should then I'm at the halfway point. I would have been more than halfway but after the first cycle I had a second lung function test and the Oncologist decided to discontinue the Bleomycin. So instead of having two more cycles of BEP* it's 3 more cycles of just the EP. It's not so bad as it only equates to one day extra in the chair overall.

This week was both harder and easier than the first week, there is a cumulative effect and physically I felt worse this time but at least I knew it'd pass. During my first cycle I assumed that I was going to feel wretched for the entire treatment, now I know that by about Wednesday the following week I'll be on my feet again and can start getting in shape for the next round. The turning point this week was probably when Grandma turned up with a bag of muffins and a book about dogs at war (she knows what I like).

One side effect I've noticed during this cycle is I've become very emotionally suggestive, I am putty in the hands of television. I'm not feeling particularly emotional otherwise but ad breaks have become moody roller coaster rides. It's one thing to be moved by world vision, it's something else to mist up over a slightly melancholy dog on an ad for sheep dip (it's melancholy because the sheep dip has replaced it as man's best friend if you're not tuned in to Ballarat TV).

I'm scheduled for a CT scan before the next cycle. I don't think I've ever looked forward to being shot up with tracer dye so much before in all my life. It'll be a massive psychological boost to know that it's working. I've visualised the lump shrinking a couple of times, not that I'm really into that sort of thing but it can't hurt and there's bugger all on television during the day.

So that's about where I am at the moment, bald, spotty and desperate for an orange but feeling fairly good about everything. Feel free to ask any questions by the way, I can't guarantee I won't misinform you wildly but it passes the time!

So until next time, look after yourselves, try to avoid bandannas and don't worry about things too much, it's probably not all that bad really.

Jez

Bald and spotty but not quite pulling off moody.

* BEP = Bleomycin, etoposide & cisplatin which is actually platinum hence the P.

Gunpowder is the best medicine.

2008-06-15T10:21:00.001+10:00

Yesterday

Tomorrow I go back in for another 5 day stretch.
By the end of the week I'll be past the halfway point!!

Cycle One or "Why I can never be an airline pilot."

2008-06-06T14:21:00.000+10:00

So it's official, I'll never be an airline pilot.
All those times I practiced drawling "This is your captain speaking" into my cupped hand are for naught. The adolescent daydreams I had of landing a stricken 747 safely in a field to the cheers of the grateful passengers before retiring to the first class lounge with the hostesses will never be realised.

Why Jez?

Is it because you never really applied yourself in high school?
Is it because parallel parking is the absolute limit of your hand eye coordination?
Or is it just because the sum total of your flying training to date has involved your Dad, a paraglider and some rather awkward jumping around in a sheep paddock.

The answer is in fact Bleomycin.

A chemotherapy drug derived from fungus that once taken automatically disqualifies you from becoming an airline pilot because it damages your lungs... which is to be honest, a bit shit.

My Oncologist is Dr Kate Hamilton, she's the kind of person you want on your team in a situation like this. She doesn't talk down to me and hasn't yet answered a single one of my hundreds of questions with "Because I said so". In the pretreatment consultation she tells me she hasn't decided whether or not to actually give me Bleomycin (the alternative being a longer course of just the other two drugs) so she sends me off to have a lung function test before we begin.

I get a good report and the Oncologist decides to start me on the Bleomycin with regular tests to check the effects on my lungs.

Oh and I'm not particularly homophobic but that lung function machine looks a lot like a penis.
They haven't gone all out and included veins and pubes but they haven't gone out of their way to create a device that doesn't make you feel like you're one of the unfortunate surviving human concubines after a terminator style robot revolution either.

I'm clearly not cancer's choice demographic, the next youngest person at my first chemo session is at least twice my age. A fact that's not lost on the old lady sitting next to me.
"You're another one who's too young to be here!" she informs me over her knitting. I'm not sure how to respond to this, I consider "shit happens" but end up just nodding sagely.

The nurse comes and puts a canula in the back of my wrist and starts the IV. The first bag is just saline to keep me hydrated (the cisplatin can cause kidney damage so it's necessary to keep up my fluids) then a test dose of Bleomycin. A doctor hangs around while the test goes through because there's a bit of a chance of anaphylactic shock. I watch the seemingly innocuous clear liquid drip from the bag into my arm and wait.

I'm still alive 40 minutes later and this is taken as the cue to give me the rest of the Bleomycin.

I have all 3 drugs the first day and the whole process ends up taking about 6 hours. It's actually quite dull really. The upside is you do get those little sandwiches favoured by country women's associations the world over and cake for lunch.

It's been a strange side effect of the chemo for me that I just can't stop eating. I've never eaten so much in my life, I'm actually putting on weight. I've also got an insatiable hunger for oranges, I'm currently getting through a bag or so a day.

By the time Friday comes around I'm done, the chemo builds up with every session and I'm feeling pretty low. The nausea is kept under control with drugs given before each treatment, unfortunately they wear off around 1 or 2 the following morning and although I usually don't get physically sick it's touch and go. The trouble with the nausea is it's compounded by my suddenly heightened sense of smell, I can smell the chemicals coming out of my skin.

The inside of my mouth is fast becoming an unpleasant place, it constantly feels like the morning after a massive night on the beer and salt and vinegar chips. I've been gargling salt water to prevent ulcers but it's a tough thing to make yourself do when you feel like hurling.

Saturday night I feel like shit, my chest hurts and I have an irregular heartbeat. My parents want me to go to hospital -I just want to pull the doona over my head and hope it goes away. Mum and Dad refuse to take no for an answer and we end up in emergency on a Saturday night sitting next to the girl who might have had her drink spiked but also might have just had one too many Bicardi Breezers. Mum tells the nurse the story and I get taken straight in. I want to apologise to all the drunk, bored injured people but there's just no time.

As I'm lying on the bed in the emergency department with a nurse shaving patches on my chest to attach the ECG sensors I wonder if this is all really happening to me. It certainly seems like it's happening to me but to be honest this is the sort of thing that happens to other people. The nurse seems to think telling me how clumsy she is will somehow relax me "Ooh, I hate doing this!" she says before she sticks a canula in my arm for a blood test, "ooh no, it's bleeding everywhere", I close my eyes and hate her.

The ECG shows some abnormalities and the doctor wants to track down a previous ECG I've had for comparison. It takes a while and when she comes back she tells me they think it's pericarditis, or the inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart. Nothing serious and usually self resolving. I hate having all these sudden health problems, I feel like the sick kid from primary school. Jeremy is not to play outside with the other children as he is sickly - Mrs Hickson

Sunday I wake up feeling pretty good, I can feel my body recovering. It's a nice change from the progressive shittiness of the day in day out chemo. I spend the day reading books and eating oranges.

Monday I have a short session of just Bleomycin, I'm in and out in a couple of hours. I'm not sure if they gave me a larger dose than usual but the nausea is intense. I vomit until I'm exhausted and everything hurts. Later that afternoon my neck and leg become insanely itchy, then swollen and really sensitive. It's still sore and itchy on Friday so I head back to the hospital. The Oncologist decides it's probably an allergic reaction to the Bleomycin and prescribes me Phenergan, my bedside table is starting look like the medicine cabinet of a senior citizen.

By the weekend I'm feeling really good (relatively), I even indulge in a couple of beers on Saturday night. I'm encouraged by my body's ability to recover so quickly, I'm beginning to see the chemotherapy not just as something to be endured but as a challenge. A chance to test myself and find out what I'm capable of both physically and mentally. I'm determined to eat well and exercise as much as possible when I'm able to. To spend less time wondering why this is happening to me and more time appreciating the good things when they come along. If I can take something away from this then maybe it'll make not being an airline pilot worth it after all.

It begins...

2008-05-25T22:08:00.000+10:00

I go in for my first session tomorrow.
Yikes!

The war on tumour.

2008-05-18T13:37:00.000+10:00

I went to see the Oncologist on Thursday to discuss the chemotherapy regime.

In the waiting room I'm surrounded by other cancer patients, some look better than others. I wonder how many times I've driven past this hospital happily oblivious to the people sitting quietly in this room reading magazines and waiting for their treatment. I try to remember what I used to worry about back then but nothing comes to mind. In fact the only thing I can come up with was the vague concern I had that I'd never learned to play the guitar. I know I'm a different person from the one I was a month ago and I still have a long way to go. I wonder who I'll be by the end of all this.

For those of you blissfully unaware as I was until recently as to how chemotherapy actually works here's my (probably wildly inaccurate) understanding:
Chemotherapy drugs destroy cells that multiply quickly, besides cancer cells this includes the cells in one's hair, mouth and stomach lining as well as red and white blood cells and platelets.

If you're struggling to understand, picture my lymph node as a mountainous range in Afghanistan where some rogue cells have holed up. In order to root out these evil doers and any sleeper cells they might have dispatched to other parts of my body we'll be sending in some fairly undiscriminating killers who'll destroy the bad guys as well as anyone else who looks vaguely suspicious. Enter the coalition of the willing, Bleomycin, Etoposide and Cisplatin.

These are the drugs I'll be shooting up, a toxic cocktail that even Pete Doherty might consider a bit much.
Rather than go into the specifics of these drugs here for anyone wanting to know more check out the following site

www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Treatments/Chemotherapy/Individualdrugs/Bleomycin

The treatment consists of cycles each cycle being 3 weeks, In the first week I will have all 3 drugs followed by 2 weeks of just Bleomycin then the cycle begins again. The expectation at this stage is that I will require 4 cycles but this is subject to change depending on the way the tumour responds.

It all sounds a bit shit but it certainly makes me appreciate living in Australia, a country in which a team of dedicated and intelligent people I've never met before and who have no emotional attachment to me will endeavor to save my life without it costing me anything.

Room with a bogan

2008-05-09T11:56:00.004+10:00

"Keep your pecker up"
Grandma

I'm not going to lie to you, I've been pissed at parties. I've passed out on couches and verandas. I've woken up with one eyebrow, no eyebrows and comical texta penises drawn on my forehead.
But I've never been so out of it or kept the company of the type of people who'd take advantage of my state to put a tube in my knob.

There definitely is a tube though... so where the hell am I?

I've been recovering for a couple of hours when they wheel in the my roommate. I don't have a chance to peer at him as he's wheeled past because a nurse is sticking a thermometer into my ear.

We'll have plenty of time to get to know each other no doubt, I'm here for at least another couple of days. Maybe we'll get along! Laugh about the paper underpants, share licorice all sorts and make hilarious but obscene shadow puppets on the curtain between the beds. Of course, I don't know he's a bogan at this stage.

The nurse takes the thermometer out of my ear and then notes the bag o' wee hanging on the side of the bed.
"Did they give you a catheter?" she asks, "That's a bit drastic"
"I know" I respond "Do you think they're taking the piss out of me?"
Although she probably hears a variant on this joke on a daily basis she still has a bit of a giggle, to be honest if the day comes when bags of urine aren't an endless source of comic gold then I'm going to be in a lot of trouble.

Later that day...

The bogan sits up in his bed peering across at me, I'm using my peripheral vision because the slightest perceptible movement of my head and he'll be away again. His topic of choice has been the hospital food "Beeyoudeefull" he'll exclaim as he lifts the plastic lid, his tone belying the kind of wondrous discovery generally associated with Archimedes' bathroom. Don't get me wrong, the food's fine. It is however only quiche and you do have to pick the occasional pube out of the mashed potatoes, I mean what would this bloke be like if you gave him a souffle?

It's not just the food though, the bloke just does not shut up. He's constantly ranting about the weather, his prostate and how the one can sometimes effect the other. The only time he stops is when he leans over to whisper conspiratorially about the nurse's bums. I consider pulling the sheet over my head but decide against it as it might be a little traumatic for my parents if they happen to turn up at the wrong time.

Looking back those three days in hospital are a bit of a blur. I remember fainting in the shower and causing a lot of excitement for everyone, taking a painkiller called endo which made me insanely itchy for several hours and distracting my friends each time the bogan walked by during their visits as his tackle was quite visible.

If it seems like I'm suddenly winding this post up I am, I got out Thursday and didn't get around to writing this till today. I don't know if it's the pain killers or not but sitting and concentrating on one thing for any period of time is hard...

I'm recovering well and will have an interesting scar to show for it all. I got the results back from pathology and it's been confirmed as a recurrent seminoma. Going to see the Oncologist on Thursday to find out about the chemo regime, I'm actually quite keen to get it started so I can stop speculating on the side effects.

Anyway, that's it for now...

Pre op

2008-05-08T14:16:00.000+10:00

There's already a rabble gathered outside the locked surgical ward doors when I arrive. Most sit quietly, occasionally ruffling through their overnight bags for nothing in particular, a short bald man in parachute pants uses the time to do a few subtle squats and lunges while a toothless ancient fellow in an akubra discusses the enlargement of his prostate and it's size relative to various citrus fruits with a woman who looks like Bud Tingwell.

It's as I'm waiting for the doors to open that I realise I'm now part of the illness set. That group of people whose ailments have become their conversation pieces. This is my crew now, we'll talk loudly about bodily functions at bus stops and fluid retention in cafes. We'll make any poor person who happens to ask "How's it going?" sorry they were ever born.

Later that morning...

I'm working my way through cosmopolitan's 69 greatest sex tricks (obviously not literally, I'm just reading the article) in the waiting room between chats with the anesthesiologist, the surgeon and a kindly old Irish nun type who takes my blood, measures and weighs me, puts a band on my wrist and sends me down the hall to get changed.

I try to put off getting changed for as long as possible, I'm wearing baggy trousers and a Tshirt I bought in Colombia because I want to look like a the casual travelling type taking a break from exploring the world to deal with a spot of cancer before heading back to Mongolia in time for supper and yak milk. It's all over once I change into the gown, then I become the patient. A thing with no free will or undergarments to be prodded and spoken about in the third person.

I'm lying on the table in the anesthetist's room, I'm feeling quite calm about the whole thing. Can't be calm they won't give me pleasant drugs if I'm calm. Is it wrong to get a little bleary eyed for a shot, I mean it's not as though I'm hitting an old lady over the head to get a fix. In fact I'm almost certain the reason I'm so calm was because I was pretty sure I was going to get some drugs.

The anesthetist comes in and gives me a shot "to get me on my way" which he reckons will take effect within about 5 minutes. I want to experience the loss of consciousness with as much lucidity as possible, I'm curious as to whether I could fight it or not (in a terrorist situation say). My experiment is disrupted when the surgeon comes into the room opens my file and removes a CD of images from my insides telling her assistant it'll be a great practical joke. Moments later a junior doctor comes in and opens the file. Soon he's rummaging desperately then holding the folder and shaking it vigorously. I don't say anything because I don't want to spoil the joke. It is kind of funny the way he's sobbing I guess.

Is a surgeon with a sense of humour a good thing I wonder as I drift off, will I she put her hand inside me and use me as a ventriloquist doll in the operating room, will silly snakes burst out of my stomach when I remove the wound dressing? Then I'm gone.

The night before...

2008-05-05T19:54:00.000+10:00

Surgery tomorrow at 7am.
I've packed my dressing gown and toothbrush.
Tomorrow I'll pack my trousers.

The urologist

2008-05-02T20:52:00.003+10:00

A bloke walks into a urology clinic and the nurse says "Haven't I seen you before?"

I'm getting this a lot at the moment.
"Yep" I say "looks like it's all happening again".
"Oh, that's disappointing" she observes.
Great, now I feel like I'm midway through a drunken one night stand, not only am I going to spend the near future vomiting but I'm disappointing people as well.
We agree that it is disappointing and I make for the waiting room before she can ask about the rest of my life and I disappoint her further.

The waiting room is standard fare, bored worried looking people, a superfluous silent television and magazines that speculate on the happiness of Charles and Diana's marriage.
I flip through my book regretting having hastily grabbed Chopper 2 as I ran out the door. Still it reminds me that whatever unpleasantness the near future holds I'm probably not going to have my toes removed with bolt cutters.

Two hours later

That child is looking at me again. He's dribble from the eyebrows down. His jumper seems to be saturated with the stuff. Shit! He's tottering over, arms stretched towards my ipod. I glance at his mother but she's absorbed in a silent ab-master commercial. No help there, anyway she's wearing a poncho. I know her type, should her child wander over and smear me in mucus she'll undoubtably cock her head to one side and go "awww, he likes you". I try staring him down but he just keeps coming, a little bubble of snot emerging from his nose then retreating with every breath. I wish I was still radioactive, then I'd have an excuse to trip him over.
He falls over anyway and discovers something edible on the carpet.

35 mins later

The urologist is a friendly bloke who reminds me of Richard Branson, we spend an hour or so watching slide shows of my insides, talking about tumours and feeling the lump in my stomach.

I don't know whether to have been pleased that the biopsy didn't produce any cancer cells, the urologist and oncologist are both very confident that it is cancer. The urologist summing it up by saying "If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck it probably is a duck". There's a slim chance that it's not and given the toxicity of the chemo used to treat this type of cancer the oncologist wants to open me up and cut out some more. I try not to let myself cling to what the doctor advises is a very small chance it's something else.

It concerns me a little that they're willing to undertake this reasonably serious exploratory operation for such a tiny chance, the doctor explains that the chemo can do permanent damage to the lungs and other organs so they must be absolutely certain that it's necessary first. Still I don't mind so much I guess. After all, they have TV in hospital!

So that's where we are at the moment, I go in for the operation on Tuesday. I'll keep you posted.

Jez

The biopsy

2008-05-02T20:50:00.000+10:00

I get to the hospital at 8:30 and try to effect an air of casual indifference about the whole thing, there's always a chance the governor will call with a last minute reprieve or maybe the whole thing will turn out to be some wacky practical joke for MTV.

A stern looking nun type weighs me, measures me, cuts off my South American wrist bands (they were a bit wanky anyway) and ushers me into a change room to put a gown on (suggesting I put a second one on backwards over the top to cut down on the amount of arse I'm showing). The one size fits all policy of hospital gowns is always a bit uncomfortable for me, although I'm not overly tall the gown stills ends a long way above the knee which is touch and go while standing but creeps a little higher in the sitting position. In the waiting room I'm concerned that the slightest movement and I might end up recreating that scene from basic instinct.
I make small talk with a woman who's having a catheter removed and we pass the time chatting about the lack of rain, David Koche and the downside having to carry your wee around in a plastic bag. The conversation trails off when a bloke (who'd apparently decided against a second gown) comes in and bends over to peruse the selection of 90's women's day magazines.

Eventually an orderly calls my name, sits me in a wheel chair and we set off. He stops along the way to chat to a nurse about the weekend (I pass the time trying to keep my tackle out of view of the public).

Down in the radiology department I have a chat with the doctor who explains that due to the proximity to some blood vessels the operation is going to be a little tricky and asks for my consent should one of us sneeze at the wrong time to give me a blood transfusion.I sign it but I don't really feel like I've got much choice. He'll probably hit me with a phone book if I refuse.

The procedure starts with a scan and the radiologist marks my stomach with a texta then decides the area could do with a bit of a shave. So friends, there I lay stretched on a guerney thinking happy thoughts while a nurse enthusiastically dry shaved my short and curlies with a disposable razor, halfway through she says "Sorry mate, but this is going to be bloody itchy in a few days", unable to think of an appropriate response I just give her a thumbs up.

After a few local aneasthetic injections and the doctor asks how I'm feeling, I want to come off as brave but I'm pretty nervous and can't seem to say proper words anymore so I give him the thumbs up too. He decides that a shot of Miazipan might be in order which he says will relax me and make me feel like I've had a few drinks.
I'm not sure what kind of crazy shit this doctor drinks in his spare time but I suddenly find my mood improving immensely the roof swirls in an exceptionally pleasant way and I become quite conversational and even the gown seems kind of wonderful.

The rest of the procedure goes smashingly he inserts the needle, clips a couple of bits out ( In my high spirits I ask him if I can have a look at the bits and he obliges) then I'm wheeled out to the recovery area where I spend the next couple of hours coming down, eating sandwiches and reading New Idea.

And so here we are (that is if anyone has made it this far) unfortunately the biopsy didn't actually yield any results and the next step seems to be to open me up so everyone can have a good look at the problem.

Yikes!

Jez

The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

2008-05-02T20:48:00.002+10:00

This is a good idea... There's no way this isn't a good idea...

Finding myself with a whole lot of time on my hands as I do these days and living in a house with no TV I'm becoming dangerously bored. I've spent the morning killing time and communists on the playstation occaisionally peering out the window (I'm almost certain my neighbor has murdered his wife) and finally, feeling unfulfilled have decided to seek solace in the last refuge of the bored narcissist... the blog.

It's not that I've got anything particularly interesting to say but then since when has that ever stopped anyone tediously transcribing the daily grind into cyberspace?

In the two months since making my way back from round the world my life has been a bit all over the place. My girlfriend and I broke up a couple of weeks after I got back and so these days I find myself living with Mum and Dad, listening to a lot of electronic music while perfecting the art of eating toasted sandwiches in bed without getting any crumbs on the sheets.

While in Ecuador I developed a fairly intense pain in the stomach and spent 4 days in a hotel room in a nowhere South American town hallucinating and wondering whether it might not have just been a better travel idea to have gone to Queenscliff for a weekend instead. All the while trying to procure enough random pain killers to attempt the 18hr bus trip to Quito.

Left: Down with the sickness in Ecuador, I'm not the type to worry a lot but at the time it really did seem like I might die.

In the capital I tracked down an English speaking doctor who looked me up and down and said "You're a backpacker, no?" with undisguised contempt, "all you backpackers, you carry too much shit on you're backs, you need to lighten your pack". It sort of appears that this is the end of the consultation and not certain that I've really got my $40 worth I convince him to have a look at me. He prods me for a while then with a look of triumph tells me I have a hernia "from carrying too much shit on your back Gringo!". A bit of a pain in the arse but nothing to worry about as long as I took it reasonably easy and got it sorted out when I got home. In retrospect I probably should have been slightly less blase, having already had cancer a couple of years ago my oncologist had been keeping a fairly close eye on my abdomen. But hey you don't argue with a man who graduated from El universidad medico de Quito!

I went to see my doctor after I got home and after a bit of a rummage around in my trousers and a few worried looks he sent me off to have some tests and check back in with my oncologist.

I was still pretty sure it was going to be nothing, cancer was so 2005. I'd tried it out didn't really care for it, been operated on, had my stomach subjected to the level of radiation one normally associates with root vegetables from Chernobyl every day for a month, vomitted some and then tried to put the whole unfortunate affair behind me. It's the trouble with watching too many soap operas. They never repeat the same plot lines with the same characters and I sort of assumed the same went for real life.

So I'm back on an all too familiar merry go round at the moment, It's been quite a busy couple of weeks starting with blood tests and CAT scans followed by a PET scan and a biopsy.

Oh and if anyone out there has to have a PET scan at the Austin hospital in Melbourne, take your own CDs (I spent 40mins in a tunnel wearing an open gown, listening to Enya and wondering if this sort of treatment didn't contravene the Geneva convention in some way). Afterwards the nurse tells me that due to the injection of radioactive sugar I should avoid contact with pregnant women and small children as I'm going to be quite radioactive for the next few hours. It perks me up a bit and I leave the hospital feeling like some kind of dangerous supervillain. My mood is dampened when the oncologist calls to tell me I have a hot spot (tumour) on my lymph node.

The next step is then a biopsy in which a doctor will stick a needle into said hot spot to pull a bit out for analysis. An idea I can see the merit of but am not really looking forward to.

So until next time eat plenty of green vegetables, wear sunscreen and if an Ecuadorian doctor tells you you've got a hernia seek a second opinion!