Sunday Night. New Chemo Starts This Week

Sorry I forgot to write more after the last blog. This week has been difficult for Bill emotionally, and for me at least as much. There are so many things I could say, but not on a blog. There are more facts than I can share on the blog, too, so there are things you just don't know or can't know or something. It's becoming difficult to really tell the story any more.

How to Blog for a Stage 4 Cancer Patient 101: I missed that class.

In summary, we had an apptment with the Boone Oncologist this week. She was VERY nice this time, but while trying to be nice, she accidentally upset us both. We mentioned that Bill had a bucket list. She asked what it was. He said, visit Vermont, visit Wisconsin, see the Pacific.

Well for the rest of the visit all she could do was say over and over and over how he should do that now, he should delay chemo, he should NOT wait till November, he should NOT wait till the next 12 weeks of chemo are over, he should go, go NOW, GET PLANE TICKETS TODAY, it gets COLD in Vermont, the Pacific ocean gets COLD (she's actually saying all this). Yep, I sure would go NOW. I sure wouldn't wait. I sure would buy those tickets TODAY. And so on.

When we got out, I said, "Bill, did you get the same impression I did from the doctor's  'Don't delay that bucket list!' speech?"

"Yes, unfortunately, the message came across loud and clear."

I said, "Are you sure you don't wanna buy some plane tickets today and put off this chemo?" He said that he feels so ill that even if he waited a month to start the new program (no more red devil, at least), he just feels too ill to travel, so his idea is to finish the 12 weeks and recover from that, and THEN do the bucket list.

Changing the subject: the new chemo is carboplatin and taxol once a week. The two drugs are so often paired that they are called something like Carbo-Tax. Sounds like something Congress might come up with to fix the budget.

Anyway, he doesn't qualify for a full dose, so his reactions should be much better, she said. It does all the same side effects: hair, nausea, platelet disorders, immune compromise, etc. and Carboplatin dramatically increases your chance of getting leukemia in 20 years. Oh! Great!

But both drugs have been approved for bladder cancer, even tho there is no study showing that they have any effect on bladder cancer. It's just a pot shot, but Bill's been Mister Invincible so far.

He said, "I'll show everyone. I'll be the statistic that lands outside the regular statistics."

That's the fighter attitude that I think he should have, and will help his immune system, they say.

The hardest part of this week was that he finished writing his obituary and sent it to me by email. He even included a photo so I wouldn't have to dig one up.

If you haven't experienced reading your spouse's obituary, let me tell you, it hits a place in your gut that doesn't really get hit any other way. Ow.

And it leaves you with such an in-your-face reminder that this is a great man, who has lived a great life, a heroic life, a moral life, a hard-working life, a holy life, a life of kindness, generosity, charity, prayer, peace, and love, pulling himself up from some tough beginnings all the way to laurels of greatness being placed on his head by colleagues and even by the world.

And the fact that some little bunch of rogue cells has the power to knock out a life as great as my cowboy's just seems like science fiction to me.

Back in the days when we never thought one of us would show the other his or her obituary, we used to read the obits, and they always say "after a courageous battle against cancer." And we used to say that if one of us got cancer, we'd want the obit to say, "after a cowardly battle against cancer" just as a joke for how they ALWAYS say "a courageous battle."

I asked him why he didn't put in the joke. But I already knew. It doesn't seem funny now. At least, he didn't put in "courageous battle with cancer." He put "extended battle with cancer."

And to me, that's a victory. Extended means he's made it a long time! He is still with us, and there is still hope, and he has beaten so many odds to still be here, that it's truly astonishing. And he can beat some more odds, too.

Anyway, there's your obituary humor for the day, if that's not a self-imploding oxymoron.

I'll post again Thursday evening, after his first chemo. Thank you for loving us through this crazy mess, and praying us through, most of all.