It's been three weeks now since my last chemotherapy treatment and I'm starting to feel a little bit normal again. As most of you are aware, I had a bone marrow biopsy and it came back showing no more cancer. It also showed that my bone marrow was at about 30% cellularity, which basically means that the chemo I've had so far has killed its ability to produce new cells to a point at which further treatments would be potentially too damaging to my body. My doctor, in the interest of not 'overtreating' me, has decided to suspend further chemo in light of these results. That of course means that I'm done with chemo, and that my cancer is effectively gone. However, my path to full recovery is far from over.
I have an appointment with my doctor this week to find out what will happen with the maintenance chemotherapy I'll be on for the next year and a half or so. This will be very low dose treatments that I'll take, mostly in pill form. They will be nothing like the chemo I've received so far. I will be able to take most of them as an outpatient. This is a huge relief to me, since I think that one more hospital stay at this point may have pushed me over the edge. I'd had enough, to be sure. My body is severely compromised. Psychologically I was getting close to what I could handle. There's only so much 'survival mode' a person can deal with. And I was just about ready to break. I'm incredibly relieved and thankful that I can move on to the next stage of things and begin to heal. I am excited to get back to work, to get back to my normal daily life. I'm so excited to get my body back and to be able to play again.
This stage of the process has its challenges. Yes I'm done with chemo now, but that doesn't mean I'm automatically better. It will take months for my body to detoxify from all of the chemicals its been subjected to. It will take months for me to regain a normal level of energy. I will do the best I can to rehabilitate myself. But it's not a fast process. I want this to be over, but it just isn't, and won't be for a long time. That isn't any reason to dispair, however. It's just the reality of where I'm at. The other tough thing for me at this point is to taper off the pain medication I've been taking. I probably experience as many negative side effects from the pain meds as I do from the chemo. And I can't just stop taking them all at once. I have to slowly decrease the amount I take each day so I don't have really awful withdrawal symptoms. It's not easy, still. But I'm so happy to be here, and not still in the midst of chemotherapy and the daily nausea. That's something that seems to be fading away a little more each day. Pretty soon I won't be sick to my stomach at all, and I am thrilled for that to come.
I feel like I've escaped from jail. I have this sense of freedom that I'd been dreaming about for months. And now that I'm finally feeling this way, I'm wondering what to do with it, what to do with myself. One of the things that has been on my mind quite a bit is that I want to be a resource for people going through cancer. I think that the most significant thing I wish I'd had more of is access to other people who had gone through a similar experience. Sure, I talked with people who had had cancer and gone through chemo themselves. But I think I would have liked to have someone who I could rely on more like a counselor. That's a lot to ask of somebody, but it's something I'd like to do for others if possible. The thing is, it's hard to relate to something so extreme if you haven't gone through it yourself. And one of the most difficult things for me to deal with was feeling alone a lot of the time. I wasn't literally alone, but I did feel isolated in my experience. So I want to be able to help someone else not feel that way. To answer their questions, listen to their complaints, be there for them to express their fears and concerns. Like I've said before, I had incredible support from my friends and family. But I honestly didn't want to burden them with any anxiety I was feeling. I know I could have, and I did at times. But you don't want your loved ones to worry about you, or to think you're not doing ok. They are scared enough as it is.
I don't think I'll ever be able to express enough gratitude for the support I've received from so many of you. Going through something like this is a huge emotional burden. And so many of you helped to lift that from me on so many different occasions. I really can't count the number of times I cried, feeling overwhelmed by someone's expression of concern, or just by the very fact that they were thinking of me. Those gestures of support are what carried me through this. I really never felt like I was facing the end of my life. But I certainly felt really really far away from the reality I'd known, and it was pretty scary at times. So having someone reach out would help bring me back from that far away scary place.
So, there's a long way to go. But that isn't much different than the normal reality of life. There's always more to do, more to experience. And even if some of it is difficult or unpleasant, it's better than the alternative of no experience at all. I'm so grateful to get to move on to this next phase. To begin to really heal. I'm so grateful to all of you who've been following my experience with cancer, it means a lot to me. Thank you. I will keep on going, and I know you will too. It's what we do. And hopefully this crazy bump in the road will provide us all with a little more meaning.
Love,
Chris
