Thursday, March 29, 2012

DW

Scott and I were talking last week, and we have kind of hit a mile marker of sorts - we have become "disease-weary".  DW.  

We had come to the place of not wanting to analyze every nose bleed, or every little rash that pops up, or sore shin bones (it's because I am such an awesome *runner* on that treadmill for *one-half-mile* every day it appears).  We were tired of trying this drug, that drug, what worked last week, what do you think will work this week?  If carbo made you want to jump out the window the second time you had it, and then steroids seemed to help it a little bit, and you only wanted to jump through the window the third time you had it - what should we plan on for next time? 

On and on and on and on - the analysis of "what could make it better" or "what was going on" or "should we be concerned over this" just never stopped.  Something new and weird popped up every day it seemed, and it is not only taxing on the body going through it, it is taxing on the body trying to help. 

There is scads of information out there that I cannot process in my chemo brain state of mind.  So we take copious notes when meeting with my doctors, nurse managers, nurse practitioners, etc, etc, and then go over those when it gets rough - and at times even they are a bit contradictory. 

We have been going to the Stephanie Speilman Breast Cancer Center on Olentangy River Road once a week for about two months now (the first 5 weeks were at OSU hospital) and I have not had the same chemo nurse twice.  It seemed odd to me - I like them all, they are really good at their jobs - but it was curious to me why I had not had the same nurse twice.  Then it hit me yesterday, when my study-nurse-manager Julie came in the room with the bad news - she looked like she had been put through a strainer.  She sees me and the others every week.  It looks to be a very difficult, draining job. 

I'm guessing, if the nurses don't see you more than once, it makes it much easier for them to stay in the job emotionally. 

Scott is not so lucky.  He is whipped and tired and careworn beyond his limitations, and right now I am looking for someone to mow our yard, at least until school is out.  (So if you know of a nice, cheap lawn service - let me know.  He's kind of bossy about his yard, so it's not something I want friends doing..... He used to tell me how to do it when he was down and out watching from an upstairs window......) 

Because of my germ-warfare and nauseousness, I'm not in the kitchen for anything.  He likes to cook, but he is used to my help as far as cleanup or prep goes.  He can clean and do laundry and run me to treatments, but it is a lot and still try to work, and he is weary now going on three months. 

I know how hard it all is - I took care of him for almost 6 months a few years back - only then we were traveling north to the Cleveland Clinic.  So he is the best and most supportive of all caretakers, as he has a keen memory of what it was like to feel so lousy and need so much from your significant other.   

But he is tired, I am tired and we just decided last week that we were "disease-weary". 

So yesterday when they came in and told me the blood work results, I just barely blinked.   I kind of knew it going in - I had not started to feel better after my transfusion until Monday, but was still hopeful that I was wrong. 

I asked them all the right questions, gave them all the right answers - and then we packed up and left.  Scott took it much harder than me.  I was ok mostly until last night, then I sobbed.  This treatment could mean a lot a couple of months and a couple of years down the road.  I know that, but also I know that in my soul, that it's ok.  I have to work it out - pray it out - cry it out - drive out the fear every time, but then it's ok in my soul. 

This week anyways.  It's a continual job. 

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook today, and I just thought I would share it.  Sometimes I think we have lost something by not knowing some of these older songs to sing in times of duress and stress.  My mom loved Johnny Cash so we had a few of his albums growing up. 

And honestly, I had to laugh when I heard the lyrics - when I am on the treadmill, I *practice* smiling.  I don't want to become grim and overcome with this disease to the point where my lips cannot curl upward easily.  (I hope there are no binoculars trained on my back window - it would truly be a sight - one mostly out of shape lady hashing it out on a treadmill with a plastic smile on her face.....) 

I will walk this road a while
I will walk it with a smile
I will take it in my stride
Someday I'll be satisfied

Life is just a passing moment
On an never ending trail
Though my pathway wanders for a while
Someday my ship will sail

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Blood fail, and again.....

I missed another chemo treatment today, which makes two in a row, which is a place I didn't want to find myself.   We are a bit concerned, but realize that this chemo has just really whipped my butt and I just have to give my body and blood time to recover. 

Retry again next Wednesday. 

There's not a lot to say except thanks for your prayers and keep praying. 

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

It's all about the leaven maybe........

I have to say, I have never felt so ambivalent in my whole life. 

Due to my poor blood work last week and therefore missing last week's chemo treatment, yesterday was my 11th day out from my last chemically induced body slam - and it felt good.  I developed appetite again, and ate appreciatively for the first time in what seems like a long time.  My stomach and gut haven't hurt for a couple of days.  I haven't had to take my medication for 2 days.  My "chemo-brain-fog" is somewhat lifted. 

I went from not being able to finish a half mile walk last Friday, and breaking out in an odd rash the two  times I stepped outside even with a mask on, to doing a mile today, and not feeling smashed.   Nicely tired, but not smashed.

I had forgotten how good "somewhat-normal" is. 

All that feeling better and I want very badly to go back for more "hurt" tomorrow.  I am in "ambivalence-land".  I want to get this chemo over with, but the last couple of days of "chemo-vacation" of sorts, has been wonderful.  I can climb the steps again and not wait to catch my breath.  I can read again and comprehend some of it.  I can stand in the kitchen for at least 3 minutes while Scott is cooking.

As much as I hated missing my treatment last week - this has been a good rest and I think my body and blood and bone and marrow just kind of caught up yesterday, and it felt good to get out of bed.  

I am praying for good blood work showings tomorrow. 

*******

I feel like right now, the race is on.  I am halfway through the preoperative (or correctly noted 'neoadjuvant') chemotherapy.

I need to find out how marathoners at mile marker 13 keep going.  My body seems to believe that it is now just a flat out race to see which wins - the body and blood wearing down each week trying to outrace the chemo drugs being dumped into a tube that ends in my body and wreaking havoc.  I'm not sure at this point which one is going to hold onto mile marker 26 -- holding on until the end, barely getting across the finish line.

The first half of chemo is all about the surviving the "blast" - the big doses, the shock to your system, suppressing your body's reaction.  It looks like the second half is more of the same but also just hoping your blood counts and digestive system and brain cells outrun the pack of hounds on their heels.

And oddly - they both want the same thing - to rid and heal your body of the real enemy, the stealthy Darth Vader invader.

That cancer was really sneaky - I didn't see it coming.  And it is so easy after rough chemo treatments to see chemo as the enemy when it is not.  It's the cure.  My body reads the chemo as the enemy, and if I didn't have some good doctors with better minds to figure this out for me, I wouldn't touch the stuff.  Ever.  

I am listening to a Christian who went through rabbinical school teach on Passover.  He has kind of become my "better mind doctor" - teaching me things that are purging my system, that I normally wouldn't touch otherwise.  I am listening to him and learning from him. 

Passover this past year has suddenly become fascinating to me instead of a mild curiosity.  You can argue it's a Jewish holiday, I don't get into those discussions - what has become fascinating to me is what a perfect word picture it is for all of us. 

With Passover starts the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  The leaven represents not only the rush to get out of Egypt and grabbing your bread dough that hasn't had time to rise because you are moving fast as escaping slaves, it also represents sin. 

Leave it to God to give us such a holiday with so many meanings. 

I started looking into all of this out of curiosity for a lot of things that just did not make sense in my Bible and I didn't understand or know - like um, we follow a Hebrew Rabbi and I have never been taught how they - thus maybe He - lived, thought and taught on this earth. 

I have learned a lot, but I have barely scratched the surface.  It is fascinating how much we lose by not knowing His culture.  It is fascinating how much we have lost by not understanding the simple Rabbinical setup during His lifetime.  It is fascinating to learn what a Rabbi with 'authority' really means. 

But all that aside, the holidays God commanded in the Bible are rather fascinating as well.  They are word pictures of what He wants us to do at least once a year so we never forget what He wants us to know more than anything. 

The whole time "they" have been showing me this cancer, talking to me about this cancer, giving me treatments to get rid of this cancer - I have been thinking one thing - "leaven". 

Just like it is impossible to get leaven out of bread once it has been mixed, so is it difficult to get the sin out of your life.  Or your cancer.  Or maybe they are the same thing. 

I asked my doctor about the "recurring" part of this cancer.  He said because it's in my lymph node system, it could "recur" anywhere.........  I am hoping they are absolutely right - that these chemo blasts will destroy any "extra" cancer cells lurking about that we don't know about - now or later.

They are sneaky devils.  They can hide out while you don't even know they are there - rise up again and wreak all kinds of havoc - just like leaven.  

So before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, you are instructed to "clean it out of your house" - get rid of all of the leaven in your home, and eat unleavened bread.  Because once a year, it's important to remember what leaven does, how much it permeates everything in your life, how prevalent it is and you don't even realize it, how it can sneak into cracks and crevices and you don't even know it is lurking there until you lift up that couch cushion and find that bit of peanut butter sandwich someone dropped a while ago and couldn't find and forgot about it. 

It makes you check your ingredients lists on boxes of things like crackers, pretzels, even ice cream with added cookies and you wonder just how far this leaven can go.  It's not a legalistic thing - it's more of a training thing - if it is that difficult to round up all your leaven and if it is that difficult to get rid of it -- how is the sin in your life?  My life.  I struggle with loving my neighbor as myself. 

Ugh. 

One rabbi I listen to says the most important thing we can do each day is to truly treat our fellow man as if he is truly made in the image of God.  One of the best things we can do, is make life better for someone else.  Reflect God.  Not only in righteousness - which we are to do as well - but also in treating others how God Himself would treat them. 

Oh my, oh my.  The words "tender" show up, the word "shade" and "guard" show up.   I kind of have the "righteousness" part down.  I kind of have the "standing against sin" part down.  I am learning a whole lot these last couple of months about how God wants us to guard each other and shade each other and be tender. 

I've got a lot of leaven inside me. 

God can paint a pretty good word picture.  He can setup a pretty good training exercise to help us realize the width and depth of our depravity and how we can seek it out and get rid of it. 

And that's the best news about this "training" - the fact that God wants you to seek it out so you can get rid of it, and you can live a better life with Him and with your fellow human beings.  Your community, maybe........

So when I first saw the picture of the cancer within me, and then understood that it could be other places hiding out as well, and how we had to take some pretty extreme measures to get rid of it - I named it. 

I called it "leaven". 

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Soul Looks

I have been accused before of having ample amounts of imagination.  Some of that is based on a good depth of intuition for some things; some of that is reading mountains of odd material; some of that is just plain old brain cell activity going further than most think it should.

But what has been playing in my brain the last couple of weeks is "what does my soul look like"......

I mean really.look.like.

We are all given a soul - you can argue 'when' - but we all get one, and I am just wondering - what does it look like?  Like what does it look like especially from the heavenly realms.

I just get the feeling from reading the Bible that the soul is, um, maybe "viewable", and if so, what does it look like?  

I venture to guess that most of the curiosity could be placed on my altered appearance of late.  Do we (meaning me mostly) really rely on the ability to "spruce" ourselves up enough with the right hair product, the right makeup, the right clothes - that we don't have to worry so much about what our soul is looking like?  Can our soul change appearances through disease or poison or pain like our outside bodies do? 

Can they blossom and bloom and grow radiant as well with the right care and concern?

I know the simple "yes" answer.  I've sat in Sunday School.

But what does it really look like?

Have I ever taken it to the desert for 40 days to let it flourish over my bodily needs in dire circumstances?  Have I given it a Sabbath rest, and let it glory in the Lord God that made it and placed it within me?  When I pray is it my words that stomp out what my soul wants to say, or do I let it commune with the Lord God as well? 

If God looks down from heaven and sees only our souls, what is He seeing?  A bunch of shriveled up, poisoned, imprisoned souls crying out for release from their captors (us)?  

I am trying to remember the last time I spent a dime buying a drink for my "soul that was thirsty"..... I'm spending lots of  money on bottled water because the medications being put into me make all things taste different - so I buy the best, tasteless water to continue hydrating.

Is my soul hydrated?  Have I ever truly hydrated it when it is bone dry and begging?   Or do I just do what comes naturally - cover up those sunk-in eyes and raspy voice with the latest "soul make up" making it look good - while it is dying of thirst.

Is my soul not by choice - anorectic?  Is it starving to death because it is not fed?

I am ashamed at times when I listen to some of the Jewish Rabbis - they have the Torah memorized.  Memorized.  It's kind of hard to twist words and make things into what you want them to appear when the Word is in your head, your heart and your soul.   As long as they are about doing good, I envision their souls as strong healthy marathon runners - they are tough for the road and do not stop easily.  They are well fed.  And well hydrated. 

They know they cannot twist two verses into a lesson and  make it mean something it doesn't - because in their brain and in their souls they are reminded that two chapters back - that's not what God meant at all.

Sometimes, when the worst is the worst, I feel a smile play around my mouth at the sound of the Word being spoken from a little computer laying beside me - and I suspect that in the midst of all my bodily chaos, it is my soul that is happy, making me content in my body.

Sometimes as I hear the Scripture, and realize I could be in sin, or headed that way or already been there previously - and I do what I call "reverse praying" - I pray that God will protect me from that sin that He hates and help me do what is right by Him and by my fellow man - something I am not very good at - but I pray for help and guidance while hearing the Word spoken.  And I feel my soul smile.  

Sometimes I hear that spoken Word say how we are supposed to stand up against sin - and I know I become weary when it comes to writing to change laws to protect the innocent ones in this land - to protect them from the wolves that wait to devour them, and my soul sags.  It wants me to do more to stop sin - especially the kind of sin that hurts little ones.  I am wizened to the enemy and how he can most easily devour them, and yet I become weary of that fight. 

I know all of this about my soul, but I wonder now when I look in the mirror - what does it look like?   Will it go back to its Maker unstained and pure? 

*********

Throughout most of Deuteronomy when Moses is telling Israel what God told him to tell them, the "soul" is almost always attached to the "heart".  As in: 

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.   Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

In the Psalms, it seems to be more just "soul", as in:

The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul.  Psalm 19:7

Or my latest favorite:

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?  Psalm 42:2


How do I peel back the layers of the years and pretense and hurts and bruises that I have used to cover my soul and open it and let it heal and grow and bloom?  Let it shimmer and shine.

Does it look that way to God?  

Do I now see glimmers of my soul looking back at me in the mirror?  Littered with cancer that would love to overtake it?  Pale.  Does my soul know that the evils - the cancers - of this age need a strong antidote that is ruthless, and may not leave it whole?  Does my soul look bloated and unhealthy and hairless?  Is it nauseous at the things it sees, the commands that it's body ignores before a Holy God?

What does my soul look like?

So I turn to the Talmud to see what the ancient Rabbi's taught on this as well.   And I quote:

"Man is akin to God in having been endowed with a soul.  The possession of this God-like feature is the cause of his affinity to his Maker and superiority over the other creatures.  The Rabbis, as already pointed out, credited the human being with a dual nature. "Man's souls is from heaven and his body from earth".  The body is described by them as "the scabbard of the soul"...... The character of a life depends upon the care which the individual devotes to keeping his soul pure and unstained....."

Still I don't know what it looks like, but they seem to feel I need to keep it pure and unstained.

I need to keep looking, because this is burning a hole in my brain for some reason- and it goes beyond the knowledge that I might be standing before Him sooner than I thought if all does not go well in the medical world with me.

I just wonder, whenever that day is, what will my soul look like standing there with me?

Friday, March 23, 2012

Clean House Shirley Style!!!!

I am starting my third week of just bone weary, flat out T*I*R*E*D.  Like, don't roll over in bed because that causes a little bit more exertion than you may have cell energy stored up to accomplish.  Some days, my eyeballs have calculated how much energy it would take to look the opposite direction, or even open up and chose to just stay shut.

On Monday, I was laying down on a bed for half an hour after I carried up one little load of laundry trying to pack and get ready to leave Tuesday for my port placement.  My body just says:  "Karen, the cells are empty.  There is no fill up.  Just lay down."

I blame it all on that nasty, horrid Carbo blast they gave me over two weeks ago.  You put that stuff into your body, and the fight at the OK Coral suddenly seems serene in comparison.  It's like the early vikings raiding whole towns and leaving nothing but ashes.  It feels like someone opened up every appendage in your body and just poured in concrete, and you are left to process it and get it out best you can.

My blood especially hates it, and I can feel it fight for its very life - it tries to pull out every stop it can to do war with it, but it cannot. 

As I feel the Carbo move through my body, I am pretty sure my intestinal track below puts up all kinds of alarms realizing what is marching its way, and in sheer fear and some wild west bravado says "that stuff ain't movin' through our territory" - like the Idaho militia or something.

But it has to move on through and it feels like razor blades and sewing needles were thrown in with the concrete, just for fun. 

I don't' see well.  I don't hear well.  My voice sounds different even.  I think it checks every nook and cranny and just throws a few grenades here, some there, and you are left with nothing but repairing the damage.

I'm pretty sure there is a video game named after it.   

Plus, my appetite just packed up and left after the last carbo treatment.  I mean, it just wasn't there.  I ate because I knew I needed to and had to, but as soon as I hit that 1,000 calorie mark each day - I was done.  Looking at my water bottle even turned my stomach. 

So I am in this state of disrepair, and Scott, God bless him, has done as much as he can, but our standard of cleanliness has taken a little bit of a hit the last couple of months. 

I could not and am not supposed to clean bathrooms - because you know they keep stressing the two words I am coming to loathe more than sanding dry wall seams - "germ-free".  I am not supposed to dust.  When Scott runs the vacuum, I have to lock myself into a room for an hour until the dust settles again.


And to be honest, I like a clean house.  I am not too obsessive about it, but I like looking at gleaming wood.  I like looking out shiny windows.  I like things being put away where they are supposed to be kept.  But when the dust started piling up a bit because Scott just cannot do it all, I really did not have the energy to care too much about it.

So we packed up and left Tuesday morning, and didn't leave the house in such good shape.  And it really doesn't matter so much anymore - with our new motto of (see my lip curl here) "germ-free" living, there are not too many visitors coming our way at present.  And anyways - in my low energy state - if I get my stuff together and packed I consider it a successful morning, let alone what the house looks like.

On our way down to Columbus, out of the blue, Shirley Kerr calls me and tells me she needs my house key for tomorrow because she hired someone to come clean our house Wednesday.

I gasped - there was no turning around and missing my all important Super-Port-Placement appointment - and I knew what the house looked like.  

I told her I loved her for doing that, but we were not going to be home until late Wednesday and couldn't drop off the key; then my brain went into hyper-overdrive thinking about ways I could maybe at least change the day to give me a chance to do a "spit-shine" so it would not be so embarrassing.  

Shirley said she would call Scott later and work it out, but they would be there Wednesday.  When Shirley is doing business, you don't mess up the plans.  She's been pretty successful in her life and knows when to do things to get them done.

When I hung up the phone and told Scott, he smiled.  The relief was pretty obvious on him, but I told him I was going to be so embarrassed.  He turned to me and said "let Shirley do this for you".  I thought about it a few minutes.  Then he said, "maybe she hired someone you don't even know, so there won't be any need for embarrassment." 

I was warming up to the idea, but was also hoping desperately I did not leave my dirty clothes on the floor in my bathroom.  But I know I did.  


After a miserable couple of days, starting with the port placement on Tuesday which  probably should not have been done when we saw the low blood results on Wednesday; my blood tanking most severely resulting in a two-bag blood transfusion; the disappointment of falling further behind in my chemo schedule; being told once more that I absolutely cannot be around germs - not to even go outside without a mask on; my fear of giving this cancer a "bye" in this tournament and its strengthening up as much as I might hopefully this next week -- it all just hit pretty hard. 

So as Scott hauls my devastated butt home late Wednesday, we had not even thought about the "cleaners" that day.  We walked in the door - and finally smiled.  Our picture frames had been dusted.  Our windows washed.  Our dining room was straightened and dusted.  Our bathrooms were germ free and clean.  Like you could eat in the shower if you were so inclined.  They even scrubbed our microwave.

All if of it done, and all we had to do was crawl into bed.  It.was.wonderful.

Thank you Shirley Kerr.  You are a dear friend.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

bad blood

GOOD NEWS:  

Yesterday  I got my port put in.  We left home at 8:50am and I went from sitting in the car to a hospital bed and --- waited for almost 5 hours.....  They finally wheeled me in at 3:30, started the surgery and all I was looking forward to was a pleasant "versaid nap". 

My blood pressure tanked too much, so versaid became oh, so much a dream.  I was awake for the procedure, which was fine - they all want to change jobs and work as veterinarians, so I just listened and smiled.   Everything went well, and there is swelling and bruising, but it is working today, albeit tender.

BAD NEWS:

My white blood cells have hit their lowest ever.  My platelets were more than sliced in half and - and my hemoglobin is in such a state that they are setting me up for a blood transfusion as I wait.......

The nurse commented that "with blood work like this, if someone so much as coughs on you, you will be in the hospital for a week"...... another two weeks of quarantine and isolation.  I can't wait. 

They said they "hope" that as hard as the chemo is hitting my body and blood work, that it is "hitting the cancer as much". 

I obviously missed another chemo treatment today.

And the same old, same old - If you must go out, wear a mask.  If you cannot open it up with a can opener, don't eat it.  It doesn't matter a whole lot, as there is not enough appetite to make that sound bad anymore.

I guess under the good news listing would also be the fact that I do not have to take that last dose of Ro on Friday that I usually sit and look at for a long time before swallowing it.......

I feel like little Oliver Twist and just asking the tough taskmaster -- "I want more, please?"  I just want to get through treatment and get to surgery.  I have done everything and then some to prop up my poor blood showings. 

None of that has mattered,  it seems that cancer runs this show and you just throw it a few peanuts hoping to tame it......  I am pretty devastated. 

If you are looking for a silver lining here - I have fingernails.  Who would have thought. 

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Today, the Lord make His face to shine on you

I am in from my short walk, and it was glorious.  The past two weeks seem to have been a continual step down each day into a dungeon of fatigue, and yesterday I woke up barely able to raise my arms without a lot of effort.

Today, I am out and walking at 7am - and only then because we don't have street lights and I had to wait for a bit of daylight.

Today, I get my port put in, then tomorrow is another start to another chemo three-day rodeo -- but today is glorious.  Ohio has beautiful weather at times.  But more so, God's countenance is shining on me. 

Today, I was counting my blessings while walking, and the birds and the sky and the gravel under my feet - all of it is good.

My yard and garden is beckoning to me, but I just wave at it.  To have this beautiful weather and not be able to do my yard work is difficult, but everything is coming up green and the birds were pointing it all out to me - each leaf on each flower - each branch on each tree. 

And our ducks are back. 

To paraphrase my daughter:  she keeps telling me that the weather is going to be my barometer for my treatment and my recovery.  And today I believe her.

I really have so much to be thankful for, and forgive me for being still a little too bit tired to enumerate it all.  But I have been so blessed by so many these past few months.   

And as the sun was coming up, the light reminded me of this blessing:  

May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
and give you peace.


And I don't know who these folks are, but have always loved this rendering of the blessing / benediction:


Monday, March 19, 2012

Trocar, please


This here folks, is commonly known as a "Red Devil Trocar"...... If you have spent any time on a farm with bovines that have issues with bloat that need to have something like this used on them to "relieve-that-bloat-or-die",  you know what it is.

Scott says that is already too much information.  

It's what I woke up dreaming about the other night.

During my recent appointment with my favorite oncologist, we were discussing the new experimental drug and it's side effects that have been popping up with myself - and the others it appears as well.  All eight of us now. 

I told her my biggest complaint with the Ro from Day -1 , has been bloat.

I realize this is a sensitive subject of sorts, but I'm here to tell you it ain't pretty on this side of computer either......

On any given day, I can wake up, put on a pair of my favorite stretchy pants - and within an hour need to switch to something two sizes bigger.  I am not kidding.  And we are talking stretchy-pants -- I can count on two thumbs the total number of days I have been able to wear pants with a zipper since January 10th.

This bloat seems to concentrate itself mostly on Fridays and Sundays, but can pop up on any given day at any given hour.  The worst one was on a Tuesday after a "workout" - which is traditionally my best day of the week - and I thought I really might die.  One minute I am lifting 3 pound weights over my head after a good walk and two bottles of water; the next minute  I was two numbers away from calling my local ER and asking if humans could - medically speaking - flip their stomachs like cows. 

It has been an ongoing problem that I thought maybe we could finally definitively say was a direct result of the experimental drug, and deal with it.  Please. 

We weeded out the difference between steroid bloat and this bloat.  We narrowed down the most painful area - the whole band across my upper abdomen - in fact I think my liver, pancreas, stomach and spleen gave written notice last week of walking off the job soon. 

They seem notably angry. 

We checked my kidney enzymes, which looked ok.  My liver enzymes are a bit low, but that is "usual" for chemo. 

It appears to be one of a few things - where the top of my colon transverses across the bottom of my rib cage; or the valve that empties the stomach; or just a hole in the stomach itself developing.  I keep raising my hand and saying "spleen?" because most of the intense pain is at the bottom of my left rib cage - but she doesn't think so. 

During the appointment after I explained it all to her again, I looked at her pleadingly, needing to know what to do.  It hurts sometimes and some days to where I can not sit down.  Some days I want to just flat out moan like the bloated cows and beg for a trocar - I feel their pain.

She looked at me, smiled, and said "what do you do?" 

Alrighty.  I'm catching on here, albeit a bit slowly.

I told her I will never, ever drink a bottle of water after a workout again in my life - I sip it now.  I told her I do not / cannot eat a lot at night as that is when it seems worse.  I told her I take 3 different over the counter meds that we had previously talked about to try and combat it. 

I mean we have been treating these symptoms by trial and error, but it was time now for my doctor to tell me how to take care of it. That's how I felt walking into the appointment at least - hope was fading fast.

She looked at me and said "we don't know why this is happening, we are looking into this".   Then she continued - "please, please write down when this happens and what you have done before and after, and then what you did to treat it".......  

I'm thinking my big contribution to science may well end up being my introduction of the "red devil trocar" to my oncologists at the OSU James Cancer Center.