New Treatment Plan

On Wednesday of this week, eight days after my last “treatment”, I went to the YMCA near Maggie’s school. I’d joined a few weeks ago but not yet attended. I pushed out 20 minutes on something called a “climb machine.”

It looked like the least difficult thing in there. It literally took all I had to stay on for 20 minutes. I left with my hat pulled low on the verge of tears. Just over two months ago I played tennis two or three times a week, stretched out every morning and jogged at least two mornings a week for 30 - plus minutes and really did whatever the heck I wanted. I also slept like a baby for seven straight hours every night. I never had a headache or even felt physically bad for any stretch of time.

I came to trust that my good health and general lack of life problems was the pay- off for really clean living and very close relationship with God. Then I learned in June that probably since about 2003 a cancer had been growing in my body.

Today, I went to a spin class and rode at a respectable pace for 35 minutes. I felt like Rocky.

Yesterday, I had my blood tested prior to a visit with the Oncologist. My white blood cells were at a 1. Normal is 3 to 10. On September 27 the numbers had been 18 – under the influence of Neulasta. My weakness was explained.

What’s so very difficult for me about all this is that my already fairly simple life has been reduced to a sliver. Until today, I’d been increasingly sad about this fact and fighting against this straight jacket called “treatment.”

I lay awake in bed at night, unless of course I take something to knock myself out, vacillating between being hot and cold as a result of the assault Taxotere has levied against my ovaries, and think – “I’m not sick. I’m “chemoed”. I’m suffering from an overdose of drugs.”

It’s an extreme cognitive dissonance created between my adult mind and child mind. The adult is saying, “The poison is good; it will heal you. The other is saying, “You’re crazy. Stop trying to kill me.”

I had written out a long list of questions and points for my visit with Dr. Magrinat. The first was this: “Under what criteria might we determine that my treatments should be significantly altered or ceased all together?”

Complaining is not something I like. I learned early that it does no good and have distaste for those who practice it. So, sharing in detail how my body had all but shut down the Friday after the “treatment;” my port had not stopped burning since the two-hour additional injection of saline on day two; rapid descent into menopause is akin to jumping straight into the Pacific Ocean in May without a wet suit; and that I still felt sick and weak enough nine days later to have just as easily not gotten out of bed was not in my plan.

But he asked. Taking up his pen, he said, “Tell me everything that’s happened since your first treatment.”

Beginning October 18, with credit for time served, I have a new chemotherapy regimen. “I promise this will be very different,” Dr. Magrinat said.

So, I’ll no longer get Taxotere – supposedly the harsher of the drugs. I’ll take two more treatments of Adriamycin and Cytoxan at two-week intervals plus the Neulasta for the white blood booster. Then for six-weeks straight I’ll get Taxol only.

This is still “standard of care” and means late December for completion; then of course radiation into March. I’ll not get my life back any time soon, but my ovaries could heal, maybe, I’m praying. I won’t have to take steroids. Maybe I’ll sleep without drugs; these lines around my mouth will fill in; I’ll stop eating like a horse. I’m going to try it because he promised it would be less debilitating than the last two. I have little to lose in terms of the drug game.

I felt this heavy blackness lift, as I walked away from Dr. Magrinat. Later that night I met two women I love dearly at a fundraiser for Alight – a local breast cancer organization, founded by Greensboro native Mary Gorrell Jones, that helps patients with financial, educational, and emotional support. The day I was diagnosed they gave me a nice bag full of resources and gifts. They have raised the money to build an incredible new cancer center in Greensboro.

I knew a few people in the crowded space and met several angelic-looking women now on the other side of midnight, including Mary Jones, that seemed honest when they said, “Call me if I can do anything at all for you; you’ll be alright; don’t worry.”

As I left the YMCA this morning so thankful that I’d stayed on that bike for 35 minutes, something occurred to me. What if God allowed this to happen to me because I really need the rest? What if I stop trying and just float?

I don’t know; it’s scary to think about just resting, but it’s out of my control anyway at this point.