Here we are a month and a half from surgery, seemed like I was just getting around and moving again and we got the news that the cancer had spread and we were going to need to start treatment as soon as possible. Our oncologist informed us that we were still at a point that was treatable, but we needed to act fast. The treatment they decided was best for me was BEP therapy. This is a type of chemo therapy given to you thru an IV.
We were told the treatment process would be intense and would be harsh with the symptoms, but the idea was to hit the cancer hard for the next four months and make sure everything thing cleared up in my lymph nodes and there were no more cells in any other areas that had shown up problematic. We knew that with chemo therapy it would cover my whole body to a cellular level, rather than radiation therapy where its more isolated and I may risk a chance of the cancer spreading more or even coming back in the future. After about three or four months of playing catch up, now I would hopefully be able to power through another four months of treatment and get ahead of all this.
Having a PICC line is weird!
Having this Picc line installed was super weird. Supposedly after a couple days you’re not supposed to notice it, but I had two done and I felt both. I could definitely feel it next to my heart. Every time I received medicines or fluid I could feel it pumping through my body as well.
Recovering from surgery seemed like it was a learning experience, but the treatments from chemo therapy were a whole other mind fuck. Yes, it sucked, in fact it is safe to say that its the worse thing I’ve had to sit through in my life. No marathon, tough race, tough beat down, intense training session, wild hangover, or sickness I’ve had was anything like Chemo. Chemo was slow, it became gradually more of an experience every time I received a treatment. The runs of five days in a row, 3-4 hours a day of medicine left me full to the brim. My body felt like a giant water balloon, and the queeziness and the aches seemed like they’d never leave, it was a total mind fuck. All in all I’m still standing here saying that I’m lucky, I’m blessed, God had a plan for me. Through all of this I’ve been very aware how quickly things can change from treatable to bad news, like real bad news, all of this was still temporary. From the beginning they constantly assured me that everything was still treatable. The only thing with that was every check point we had gotten to by now put me at a higher stage of cancer, this made it hard for me to hear that I was still treatable when it seemed like we got worse news anytime I met with any doctor.
There were two main things that got me through each treatment:
1) knowing I was one closer to being done. Kind of like marking off days on a calendar. Counting down from 28 and seeing the number go down slowly somehow was comforting for me.
2) I prayed my ass off boy! I was raised Catholic so most of how I’ve been taught other than speaking directly to God is by reciting memorized prayers. Mainly I prayed the rosary, many Hail Mary’s and many Our Fathers. Any time I didn’t know where my mind needed to go when my body wasn’t serving me I would be saying my prayers over and over in my head. Praying for myself, praying for my family, and praying for other friends and people I knew going through things themselves.
Slowly I lost my hair, my beard, most body hair, my eyebrows and my eyelashes. I got to keep my leg hairs and arm hairs though, prolly because I’m mexican. My nails began to turn a bruised black color. I actually gained weight because of all the liquids, but I would fluctuate gaining and losing 10-12 lbs sometimes in a weekends time. There were wild body aches which I’m still getting used to not having. Intense ear ringing which I guess will stay with me for a while, watering eyes, queeziness but no throwing up so just mouth fulls if saliva back to back, and the most recent one is forgetfulness which they call chemo fog. I also got an overall feeling of being so tired for no reason. I only had to throw up twice which I’m stoked about, haha I had so many meds for nausea, thank you SLO oncology!
San Luis Obispo Oncology was such a great team to work with. Although I really felt like shit they made the things that they could control just an overall great experience. Their team of nurses really were just amazing. My doctor Dr. Akpek did a great job explaining things to me in a way that made the process digestible and was able to create a plan and consult with doctors at Stanford to make sure my treatment process was the best route.
I highly recommend anyone going through anything medically to really take that extra time whether it’s 10 minutes, one hour, or even whole days to figure out what type of insurance you have, HMO EPO or PPO and what that means. Then see what option you have with in your network. Read reviews on clinics, and doctors. If you’re able to travel look and see outside of your area! This may give you better options. It’s important to know what’s going on, have a plan, and be proactive with your healthcare.