no more beef with Lance Armstrong

okay.
i have to admit it on this blog: throughout the course of my cancer-survivorship, I stayed away from all things Lance Armstrong.
I wasn't interested in hearing about a super-star athlete and his triumphant journey from the face of death back to his bicycle seat. I openly question the amount of money going to his foundation and count myself as part of the anti-pink people who wonder aloud about the money going to maintain cancer foundations versus actual research.
I could not relate to a man with the resources at Armstrong's disposal when I got sick. I still can't.
Sorry, I didn't meet anyway at the clinic that dated Sheryl Crow.
But my therapist, an avid cyclist, has referred to Armstrong's book, "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life," quite a few times since our sessions began.
So a few weeks ago, I found myself in the $1 bookstore in downtown Burbank.
I found Armstrong's book on the shelf. Last night, I finished the first section of Bolano's 2666.
This morning I decided to read Armstrong instead of move forward with Bolano. Out of curiosity, I suppose.
I found this passage on page 3:
"I've read that I flew up the hills and mountains of France. But you don't fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully, and maybe, if you work very hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else.
Cancer is like that, too."
Damn. Damn that's real.
Writing is like that. Playing an instrument is like that. And chemotherapy was very much like that.
I am always surprised by peoples reactions to my treatment and the attitude I took during those two and a half months of chemotherapy.
There was nothing heroic about my actions.
It was what you do to survive. Everyone in the clinic had the same attitude.
In fact, some more so than others.
I'll never forget that old guy with lung cancer. He didn't like to take his chemo. sitting down, so he'd hang his meds on a mobile I.V. stand and wheel around the clinic. A few times he checked on me.
That man is one of my heros. I can relate to him. Not Armstrong.
But that doesn't mean I can't learn from Armstrong's book.

Chiquitita

I am not fluent in Spanish but I just understood a part of myself from the word, Chiquitita. I feel so much like a small baby chicken...slowing and blindly moving around...looking for a way to survive. I recently got two more unpopular reports about my chronic health problem -Cancer. More unpopular - because the reports were not good but they were not horrible. I just don't want to accept them. Cheep, cheep, cheep

Feeling like a little chick gives me the opportunity to shut off most of my human emotions and just keep my head to the ground looking for survival seeds. Chickens don't share, don't care, don't laugh and don't cry. The "don't list" is endless. And I can escape from my reality for a while. Sometimes when I get overloaded and overburdened I look for a way to empty my mind...being a chick might be it!

Chiquitita .....the title of a song from "Mam ma Mia". I truly suggest that you buy the DVD movie that offers the option of singing along with the movie or singing after the movie is over. I can tell you it broke through my down trodden manner and cheered me up. Music can do that! Basically what appeals to me is that inside each of us is that small child who still has needs. "Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong." I have always wanted someone to ask me that and now with all the constant medical diagnosis..........I do need to tell someone what is wrong. God bless our new President and his family. amf

"Victim"

It came out of my mouth.
I was talking about other survivors.
but I used the word victim.
All at once I was surprised, embarrassed, angry and disappointed.
It came about during my third visit with my therapist (a discussion for another blog entry).
In someways, it didn't come as a surprise. Whenever i feel a pain in my genital area, I sense fear. I am afraid it will be cancer. For a long time, i was afraid to touch my testicle. Afraid i would find something. Doctors warn of the two percent chance that my testicle will develop cancer.
Then there are the warnings of health complications from chemo as i get older. The likelihood that my asthma will get worse because of the bleo. the unknown side effects that accompany the growing legion of young folks who fight cancer.
Then there is the sense of waiting for the five year mark to celebrate passage out of treatment.
And the question of whether or not I will be able to have kids. The question of how the chemicals affected my fertility.
All of this hangs over my head, weighing me down; unconsciously causing me to question if I am healthy.
Silently thinking of myself as damaged goods. and never sharing it with anyone.
During treatment, I never, ever allowed myself to think this way; to worry. I couldn't. I was operating on a survival instinct. Day to day, appointment to appointment. With a clear goal = finishing treatment with my health.
But since then i've experienced these thoughts I once forbid.
It is good to discover this. to get it out. now I must address it.
My therapist said i should learn the difference between victim and survivor.

Breast prosthesis

I have got to ask other Breast Cancer women. How often do you wear your prosthesis? Why do they even make nightgowns and PJ's with a pocket for the prosthesis?

Even if you do wear a prosthesis during the day what is the point in sleeping with it/them?

I bought a good quality set of the prosthesis. In the year and a half I had no boobs I only wore the prosthesis three times. They were heavy and uncomfortable to say the least. And lets not forget hot.

There has got to be women out there like myself that choose not to wear the fake boobs. I am all for looking your best during chemo and the other treatments, but I think wearing the prosthesis is like wearing a girdle or corset, torturous.

As we Baby Boomer, and for some our daughters, are facing breast cancer we need clothing that is functional, stylish, feminine and comfortable. Confident Clothing Company has created a line of clothing that fits into today's active lifestyle.

In addition to being great looking Confident Clothing Company's designs are especially versatile, so that you get more bang for your buck. In today's economy that is a necessity. The clothing can be dressed up for an evening out, it can be worn during exercise or just going about your daily activities.

The main reason I designed the Cool Chemo line of clothing was to provide a functional and feminine solution to what to wear immediately after surgery, during chemo and or radiation and after reconstructive surgery.

Being a personal trainer and trying to maintain my phyiscal fitness during my cancer experience I discovered immediately that the prosthesis and wigs were not for me. The only clothing that showed up when I searched the internet for breast cancer clothing was all the pink ribbon stuff. So, I could find clothing to support the breast cancer cause, but not for the women that actually had cancer. How crazy is that!

I would really like feedback from you, as to if you wore the prosthesis or not. Please forward this to other women that you know are dealing or have dealt with this issue and have them also email me at kathy@confidentclothingcompany.com to share insights about what you wore and what you felt was missing.

Confidently,

Kathy Adams

Confident Clothing Company

www.confidentclothingcompany.com

Thank You

I will update this blog from time to time to let everyone who finds it know how I'm doing. For now though I'd like to close my active treatment blog reports by saying "thank you".

First, I thank my wife Nancy for putting up with "Cancer Dan". She successfully went through breast cancer treatment 4 years ago. Together we're now "two-time cancer ass kickers".

Second, I thank my kids, family and friends for giving me all of 10-seconds of sympathy and then going back to treating me like a normal person (who has no hair and gray skin.)

Third, I thank all the medical professionals, care takers and even the insurance company. I know it's your job but you all gave me much more than I'm sure you were compensated for. You cared about me. I noticed and appreciated that very much.

Fourth, I thank everyone who has walked the cancer path in front of me. Thanks for publishing your treatment blogs. I hope those of you who come down the cancer path behind me find my blog as helpful as the blogs I found and read when I first discovered I had cancer.

Last (but not least), I thank God. Prayer and reflection got me through this ordeal. When things seemed most bleak I would simply think about my favorite line of scripture from Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount", "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26.

I'm Cured?

My primary oncologist says, "You're cured!" I guess that's the deal with Hodgkin's. Like testicular cancer & childhood leukemia, Hodgkin's is one of the three "curable" cancers.

My radiation oncologist says, "I use the 'cured' word pretty cautiously". It doesn't really matter to me - I'm just glad I'm no longer in active treatment. Treatment is a huge grind on your time and while you're not being treated you're feeling tired and/or "like crap" all the time.

The elderly "church ladies" are thrilled at my recovery. (Like it or not, when the church ladies discover you're "afflicted" they add you to their official daily prayer requests and you become part of their "prayer job". ) When they ask me on Sundays how I'm doing I assure them that I am in fact cured (and thankful and appreciative). One in particular, Irene, delights in taking me by the arm and introducing me to others as a "walking miracle". She's right.

Whether I "stay cured" for forty years or just forty weeks is not up to me. What's up to me is to live my life now like it will be both.

Radiation Done!

The 17 daily radiation treatments are over - and in this season of Thanksgiving, I am. Depending on who you ask, for all practical purposes, I'm cured.

Compared to chemo, the radiation treatments were quite anti-climatic. With each of the eight bi-monthly chemo treatments I got get four hours of people feeling sorry and being nice to me. With chemo it's two quick, 10-second zaps after 15-minutes of waiting for my turn on the machine.

The biggest difference between chemo & radiation is the setup before the first treatment. With chemo there's no setup. With radiation it seemed like a month of setup as I had to meet with a radiation oncologist. Then I had to get measured and fitted to a Styrofoam form to hold me still while being radiated. Then I had to go through a trial zapping. It just seemed to go on and on before my first actual radiation.

I've posted a stock web photo of what the machine looks like. The technicians position the machine above you using lasers lining up to little tattoo dots they put on your chest and then zap you from above. The whole machine then rotates around and then you get zapped from below. All the while you're lying on a Styrofoam form on a table.

The worse part of the treatment is the skin area that gets radiated (for me it was the upper left quadrant of my chest & back) gets pretty crusty for about two or three weeks after the treatment is over. (Kind of like a party favor!)

The people at the radiation treatment center were very nice though from the technicians, to the nurse and my radiation oncologist, Dr. Washington. They gave me a nice completion certificate after my last treatment.