As I begin writing this I am sitting in the chair at the chemo lounge. To my left is a patient whose veins are collapsing from so many IV treatments. He will have to have a portacath implanted. His blood oxygen level is low so he may need oxygen. To my right is a patient who is being given a prescription for morphine to replace the oxycontin he had been taken. I’m not sure, but this sounds like serious pain management to me. Also, he has lost a lot of weight since I first saw him. I’m worried about him. There’s already been one fellow whom I became friendly with at the lounge that has passed away. All of this supports what I wrote about in my last post. No matter how bad things seem there’s always people who have it worse.
Here’s another thing. If you look at the right side of the page, under “THINGS OF IMPORTANCE TO ME”, you will see links for “Happy Times With Cancer” and “Sad Times With Cancer”. There are far more happy times than sad times. Last week I was able to add another happy time. While I was taking extra time off from chemo we took a trip down to Atlanta to visit friends. What a great time we had. Denis and Carol were the perfect hosts. We took a tour of Coca Cola headquarters and saw the new Atlanta Aquarium on Friday. On Saturday, with perfect weather, we summited Stone Mountain. OK, it’s not very high and we took the cable car up but we did reach the summit.
It may be that I’m just more aware of it now but it seems that there is a lot of cancer around. Denis was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and his father is fighting bladder cancer. I accompanied Denis to his radiation treatment. We were Cancer Comrades. Denis delayed telling me about his diagnosis. He felt that it was insignificant compared to mine. It is true that his prognosis is better than mine but it is serious nonetheless. I pray for him and his father and hopefully you will too. Denis is one of a small group of men whom I both enjoy and respect.
On Saturday Carol put together a very nice cook out which was attended by all of their children, their son’s wife, their daughter’s boyfriend, their grandchildren and some friends. It always amazes me to see children I have known since they were very young mature into fine adults. This gathering of great people firmed up a life lesson I’ve been slowly learning. Good people usually have good families and good friends. I’ve added that to my list of “Important Lessons I’ve learned in Life”.
I’m trying something new with today’s post. Pictures. I don’t want to embed them in the post because if I keep doing that it will take a long time for the pages to load. Instead you can see pictures associated with this post by clicking this link:
Atlanta Pictures
I had hoped that the extra week off from chemo would provide me with superman energy and some extra taste buds. It did not. But I still feel better than a many other patients so I can’t complain. Today the oncologist submitted a request for insurance company approval of another PET scan. If it’s approved I’ll soon be suffering from scanxiety, the fear of what the results will show.
Carry on.
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