Alright… I’m going to not spend the first paragraph of my post apologizing for not posting anything for the last 3 months. Let’s just accept the fact that I tend to put things off and that it probably isn’t a good idea to expect weekly updates from me. No worries… just the facts. And isn’t it more fun to read long updates than short little blurbs like “Round 7… went fine… toes are numb… talk to ya next time”? I find it more rewarding to let the anticipation draw you back in for a longer post. Like Star Wars waiting 2 years to release the Rise of Skywalker… (was it really necessary to wait that long… sheesh!!) Anyway… I’m sorry for the delay (dammit… I wasn’t going to say that).

But all that aside… Woo Hoo… My last infusion of FOLFOX (for now hopefully) was today! Number 12… The Dirty Dozen… 12 Angry Cycles… Doce Ciclos… One Less Than a Baker’s Dozen… And Definitely Not Cheaper by the Dozen.

Overview & Thanks: For six months… every two weeks on a Tuesday morning I headed in to the Providence Cancer Center, where I was greeted by the most amazing front desk crew I could have ever asked for and then lead to a bright comfy room where I was served multiple cancer killing cocktails by some of the friendliest staff you could imagine. All the snacks, coffee and drinks I wanted… comfy chairs with warm blankets and pillows… the great company of others around me… and last but certainly not least, giant single person bathrooms that were actually clean, had no graffiti on the walls and sported a lovely antimicrobial hand scrub that got my hands so clean I probably could have performed an appendectomy after exiting. I mean you could probably eat off the floors of these bathrooms… I wouldn’t… but you probably could. Yes… I’m attempting to make this sound like a cheesy Yelp review… but the truth is… in the end… that’s actually how I felt going in there each week.

I really wanted to kick this post off by throwing a massive ‘bow down’, an over the top ‘hats off’, the biggest ‘props’ I know how to write in words, a ‘kudos’ bigger than a jumbo jet and my deepest, most heart felt, to the core type of ‘Thank You’ that I can to all the desk and nursing staff in the Providence St Vincent Infusion Center. I could go on for thousands of words talking about each one of them individually… but really, they are an amazing team as a whole, who made my humble journey more than bearable. The fact that I actually looked forward to seeing them all and chatting with them made this leg of my adventure so much more positive than I ever would have thought possible.

Side Effects Overview (ie…Poor Me): Don’t get me wrong… this whole experience was no picnic (unless you’re serving cold Brussel sprout sandwiches soaked in bleach at your picnic… Then it was similar to a picnic). I was still getting chemo… and side effects got more advanced with each treatment… but they remained relatively predictable. I had nausea of course and it lasted longer each cycle… but at least I knew it was coming. The cold neuropathy was pretty steady throughout (and still is). It’s the worst on the first 5-6 days… but it fades as the cycle goes on. It never truly goes away… meaning it still sucks to grab an ice cold can or bottle or a frozen anything if you’re not expecting it. I tend to keep gloves close by most of the time… and a nice set of tongs in the ice bin… but again… it’s predictable… so I learned to deal with it. The overall neuropathy (not related to cold) seemed to rear its ugly head in the last couple cycles. My feet specifically would get pretty numb at around the 4-5 day mark after infusion… and over the last few cycles… it would fade a bit… but never truly go away completely. And now, considering the fact that I’m on my last cycle… I’m really not too worried about it. It just feels like I’ve got golf balls in my shoes. It makes walking a bit weird… and running even weirder… but hey… I’m a weird guy so metaphorically and literally… “if the numb shoe fits… Wear it”. Yeah… there’s a long list of side effects… like heart burn, skull pain, weird pains in the glands in my jaw when I eat, my hair is thinning, I’ve got a crazy acne rash all over my back (I’ll call it B’acne… lol), all food tastes like chemicals pretty much from day 2 through day 6 of each cycle…which makes for a fun game of ‘find something that tastes like it’s supposed to’ during those days, cold drinks still cause pins and needles in my throat and mouth. But I’ve completely given up on warm water btw… forget that crap… I’ve simply learned to suffer through the pins and needles… again… it’s predictable… so as long as I know what to expect… I’ve learned to deal with it. I bruise like a 3 week old apple and scrapes and cuts don’t heal very fast on my skin. Sometimes it’s hard to swallow. Like literally you get a mouth full of food and when you go to swallow… the reflex just isn’t there. Sounds crazy and feels crazier… eventually you stop, take a deep breath (through your nose of course) and get it down… but weird none-the-less. I also turn a lovely shade of pink on days 2-5 which makes everyone at work think that I’ve been partaking in afternoon libations… which I totally wish I was… but alas… my oncologist has requested I hold off till we’re all done… lol. Apparently I’ve also got narcolepsy which is a fun side effect… lol. Seriously though… it’s not really narcolepsy… but on days 4-6 of each cycle… if I sit in a chair for more than five minutes it’s “goodnight Irene”, “lights out”, “see ya in a few hours”. It’s definitely advanced over the last few cycles as well… but again… predictable which means I’ve learned to deal with it. I try to stay moving which helps… but sometimes I just have to roll with it and let my inner “Rip Van Winkle” flow.

Anyway… yes… lots of side effects… and they aren’t pleasant or fun or exciting or anything I would wish on anyone. Frankly, they sucked… (still do) and I don’t want to make it sound like it was easy. But having the chemo was my best option… and the side effects were going to happen how they happened. And while yes… I love to complain about all the things I’m dealing with to those closest to me… I find the best way to deal with things is to put on a smile, do normal things and try to act like I’m not actually having poison pumped through my blood for three days every two weeks. It’s not always easy to do… but it works I think. I go to work like normal (other than the 3 days/week I have appointments for infusions, acupuncture etc… ), I do my best to hang out with family and friends when I can… and when I do… I do my best to act as normal as I can, even if I feel like a freight train is careening through my body… lol. I don’t mind talking about any of it and the side effects that I’m feeling… but I always downplay it if I can… and I do my best to act “perky”… lol. I don’t only do it for those around me… It also helps me to feel normal… like I’m beating this with a smile on my face… like I’m not going to let this bring me down to its level. Sorry for the ‘poor me’ rant… just wanted to get the facts out about how the side effects impacted me… and how I chose to deal with them.

Wrap Up Opinions on the Last 6 Months: Other than all that… It went pretty well (… see… perky… lol). I know it could have been a lot worse… and I remember that every day. I’ve still got my 7 to 10 days of crap to go through with this cycle… and I’m told my feet and finger tips will most likely be numb for a bit after, weeks… maybe months (I hope not… ). But it should all return to normal and I won’t have to fake it anymore… lol. And if it doesn’t (which happens 10-15% of the time)… then hey… feeling like I’ve got golf balls in my shoes is a small price to pay for what I hope this 6 months did for me. My hair will most likely get thicker again… my B’acne will fade most likely… I’ll be chugging ice cold water again in no time… And food tastes should go back to normal before I know it. I’ve heard my wine preferences might change overall… but somehow I can’t imagine that I still won’t love me a glass of Oregon Chardonnay… so we’ll see. The point is whatever happens I wouldn’t change a thing about my decisions thus far. It’s all worth it if it buys me ANY extra amount of time on this earth. So ‘perky’ is easy to do when I think of it in those terms. And ‘perky’ is easy to do when I have the amazing staff at Providence as the team backing me. And that’s all I have to say about that… (in my Forest Gump voice…)

Going Forward: So the plan at this point is that in about a month I will go in for a follow up CT scan to check and see if anything new has appeared since my last scans in December. If you’ll remember… I had the weird growth at my colon surgery sight that raised a lot of flags (“likely recurrence of cancer” the radiologist said… grrr)… and turned out to be scar tissue from the surgery. So we’ll get to see if that has shrunk or if it’s still hanging out. We’ll ‘hopefully’ see nothing else new. We’ll also do a blood workup to check for tumor markers. If everything comes back clean and normal… my oncologist says I can schedule to have my port removed immediately. (Which is kind of sad… I enjoy getting tapped into like I’m in the Matrix. And it sure makes blood draws a lot nicer. But hey… It’s always nice to have foreign material removed from my body that reminds me I have cancer.) After that I’ll have blood work done every 3 months and get rescanned every 6 months for 5 years. She said it was possible after 3 years we may move the scans to every 12 months… but we’ll discuss that as we move along. (I’m more of the mind I’d like to get scanned more often… I do have a fast growing, aggressive type of cancer that could do some damage very quickly if left unchecked… but we’ll see). If I hit the 5 year mark of NED… they count me as one of the very lucky ones who beat it. (No counting chickens before they hatch though… One scan at a time)

However if we do see anything on the scans that shouldn’t be there… we address it depending on what it is. If it’s possible to biopsy it… we’ll do that. If it’s tiny… It’s possible we just wait and watch before we take any drastic action. Anything we come across I can guarantee my wife and I will be aggressive in our fight and won’t tackle anything half assed. She’s already proven a damn good fighter… I’m just the guy taking the physical punches… she’s the formidable coach who won’t take no for an answer and seeks out any and all information available. Thanks to the Old Gods and the New that I’ve got her out in front of me. I still swear I’d be a goner if I didn’t have her. Hell… I’m still not sure I would have had my appendix removed in time at all if she hadn’t gone all ‘Mama Bear’ on the Urgent Care clinic about getting me in for my initial CT scan. They’d have sent me home with another bottle of “Colon Blow” and I’d be stuck with a blown appendix spilling cancer filled mucous all over my peritoneal cavity… that most likely would have been impossible to recover from. So a giant thanks to you Beautiful… You know I could never say it or think it enough… You Rock more than any coach Rocky could have dreamt of. You’re better than Micky and Apollo combined… You’re a force to be reckoned with and a light so bright… no-one ever looks your way and doesn’t take notice. Damn I’m one lucky SOB. I LOVE YOU!! And that’s all I have to say about that… (again in my Forest Gump voice… )

Hope & Wrapping Up: I’m not quite a year out from my original diagnosis. No doubt there’s still a long way to go… but it’s absolutely crazy to think back on the journey thus far. From the first week of diagnosis where despair took over and I was planning my funeral and all the video diaries I needed to make to all my family and friends. To surgery… where my hopes were still hanging in the balance… but definitely improved. To December where my false positive came back from the radiologist. I had an entire month of the possibility that the cancer had come back already. It was right before Christmas and when I first read the radiologists report… despair crept back in like water filling a sponge… but as the month moved on and Christmas and New Years grew closer and I got to spend time with family and friends during a Holiday designed around hope and dreams… I began to realize how much difference hope can make. By the time I went in for my biopsy in January I was ready to take it on regardless of the results… And look how that turned out… it wasn’t cancer. Had I lead with hope when I first got the news… I wouldn’t have wasted my time with despair for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. In February my wife and I took my cancer care into our own hands and moved over to Providence (best decision ever btw…). We realized we didn’t have to settle for anything less than what we wanted out of my care. And finally the last 6 months of Chemo where overall things were as good as I could have hoped.

Hope and despair are fickle things… and I’ve really come to realize that despair really doesn’t help with anything… Hope is really where your thoughts have to settle. Don’t get me wrong… I make jokes constantly about my cancer and how I might be gone next year… most aren’t funny at all… and are just put out there to try and lighten the thoughts surrounding that possibility. (Although some of them are damn funny… and really just have to be said out loud… lol). But I make all those jokes and comments with my mind firmly set on the hope that I’m going to beat this 3,000 lb monster. I’m going to teach my daughter to drive and attend her graduation and go through empty nest syndrome with my wife and impulsively buy a Porsche 911 when I’m 50 and be around to see what Marvel Studios is going to do with their next 10 years of movies and if Disney will completely ruin the Star Wars franchise. I hope beyond all hope that these things will come true… (except the Disney ruining Star Wars thing… I don’t hope for that)… I hope all of these things with the absolute understanding of the risk that comes with that hope. It may all come crashing down around me 6 months in… but why allow that despair to have any hold on things till that time comes. We deal with things as they arise and we fight like hell every time we have to gear up for a new fight. As Jyn Erso once said in the Star Wars Rogue One movie… “Rebellions are built on hope…”. Now that line was referring to overcoming and destroying a planet killing space station… But I can definitely draw the parallels between a fight against cancer and taking out the Death Star. And she’s 100% correct… Rebellions or cancer fights or anything that involves overcoming some terrible monolithic threat is fought on hope. It’s the one thing we’ve got that can make a difference to the mindset of us, our families and friends. And despair has just as much of an impact the other way. It brings everyone in your circle down and keeps your mind away from where it needs to be… which is hoping and finding where the fight can be won. Even if in the end that fight is lost… Hope is what will get you through it all.

In closing… I just really want to reiterate my thanks to all of my circle of people. From the obvious… like my wife and daughter and my cancer team at Providence. To all of my parents who never miss a check in after each treatment… and who have been there for every surgery… every procedure… every long boring explanation of what havoc is going on inside my mind and body. To all my extended family who have given nothing but love and support and really are an amazing set of cheerleaders who make you feel like you’ve got something to fight for. To all my friends… who I can’t tell you enough what it means to just laugh with you and allow me to go on and on about my journey… poke fun at me when I play the cancer card one too many times… and just be there to make me feel normal. To anyone and everyone who has said a prayer… or focused even a moment of your energy my way. I’m a true believer that it helps… I feel it all in one way or another and can’t ever repay what it’s given me. So…. Thank you… for everything. No matter how this crazy road ends up… I know I can handle it. I know because I have all of you around to help guide me through. All of you to listen to my options, offer advice, crack jokes, laugh, cry and take it all on with reckless abandon and Death Stars full of hope.

Anyway… thanks for reading. It probably went on longer than it should have and if your still reading… well… thanks. But it’s quite cathartic to type some of this out. So take it in however you can or not at all… It’s more for me than for you I think… lol. This won’t be my last post… I’ve already have a couple others I meant to post weeks ago and never got around to finishing and posting. I won’t make any promises about when I’ll post… lol… but I promise I will. Thanks again to you all.